 
Constitutional History of the Western World

Published by Bill Etem at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Bill Etem

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover art by Katrina Joyner

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – The Sign of the Cross

Chapter 2- The True Church and the True Faith

Chapter 3 - The Evidence for Christianity

Chapter 4 - The Protestants: Rebels against Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy

Chapter 5 - The Pontifical Monarchy: The World's Oldest Monarchy

Chapter 6 - The United States of America: The World's Oldest Republic

Chapter 7 - The LORD vs. Allah

Chapter 8 - The Engines of Philosophy

Chapter 9 - The Church of England

Chapter 10 - Eastern Orthodoxy

Chapter 11 - The Falling Away from the Faith under the Sign of the Cross

Chapter 12 - Michelet's Culmination

Constitutional History of the Western World

Chapter 1 – The Sign of the Cross

§ 1. The New Law. § 2. Sacrilege – The Crusades \- _Crusade_ from the Spanish _Cruzado_ which means _Marked with the Cross_. § 3. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. § 4. The Antichrist Sitting in the Holy Place. § 5. Pop Culture and Christianity. § 6. The Dogma of Papal Infallibility. § 7. Zionism. § 8. Don't worship any false gods, please. § 9. The Spirit of God. § 10. The Beast from the Sea. § 11. The Antichrist Sitting in the Holy Place - The Temple of God - 2 Thess 2 and the Falling Away which Precedes the Second Coming of Christ – The Law of God vs. the Law of the Devil. § 12. Ezekiel 20. 25 - Zionism and Christianity - Ezekiel 36. 24-28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Christ's words at the Last Supper - Bad Laws Given by God to the Rebellious Jews – The Need for a New Law to Amend the Old Mosaic Law. § 13. Trinitarians Speaking Without Tongues. § 14. Review - The True Church. § 15. Summation

§ 1. The New Law

Those of us who are Christians insist Christianity is the New Law prophesied in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and mentioned by Christ at the Last Supper, see Matthew 26. 28, the New Law which amends the Old Law, the Mosaic Law. As for this Old Law, Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their rebelliousness. Under the Old Law there was blood sacrifice of animals for the atonement of sin, and curses fell upon the heads of the Jews if they failed to execute Sabbath violators, blasphemers, homosexuals, enchantresses etc. But under the New Law Christ has amended things, so now we have: `let him who is without sin cast the first stone.'

By what authority does Jesus alter the Old Law and establish the New Law? From the Old Testament Psalm 2 implies the Son is God and Isaiah 9. 6 says it explicitly. From the New Testament, Matthew 1. 23, John 1. 1-14, Romans 9. 5 Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 etc tell us Jesus is God. Malachi 4. 1 is perhaps the clearest hellfire scripture from the Old Testament. So, if it is blasphemy and sacrilege to say Jesus is God, then Malachi 4. 1 reminds us of what's in store for those who blaspheme and commit sacrilege. On the other hand, if Jesus is God, then it is blasphemy and sacrilege to say Jesus is not God, and again Malachi 4. 1 is there to remind us about the hellfire for those who blaspheme and commit sacrilege. Malachi 4. 1 and New Testament hellfire scriptures such as 2 Thess 1. 8, John 15. 6, Matthew 25. 31-46 and Revelation 20. 12-15 leave one speculating that the typical sort of person who is damned will be transferred out of the fire at some time and transferred to a place in eternal perdition where he is more comfortable. Revelation 14. 11 however explicitly says that those who worship the image of the beast, and those who have the mark of the beast on their foreheads or rights hands suffer eternal hellfire - `the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night...'

Assuming those of us who are Christians are right, assuming Jesus is God, then, moving along, with the hope of heaven in our hearts but also recalling the hellfire scriptures, so much depends on upholding the True Faith, so much depends on simply not betraying Christ and Christianity!

There's quite a bit to rememeber. You wouldn't say that James 1. 26 and James 1. 27 are particularly difficult concepts, but millions of Christians have an impossibly difficult time remembering merely these 2 scriptures, and it's not as if these 2 are the only scriptures a Christian needs to remember. 1 John 5. 3 says you must obey the commandments to love God. John 14. 23-26 says those who love Christ keep His words and those who don't love Christ don't keep His words. Christ spoke quite a few words! For instance, in John 6. 53-55 Jesus says, in so many words, that one must celebrate communion to attain heaven and to escape perdition. We'll look at 1 Corthinthians 11. 27-29 again and again in this volume. In this scripture St. Paul tells us one drinks damnation into one's soul if he celebrates holy communion in an unworthy manner. Acts 26. 13-18 and Galatians 1. 8-12 tell us St. Paul derives His authority directly from Christ. There's so much to remember, but, ultimately, everything boils down to finding God's True Church. In Matthew 16. 13-19 Jesus tells us He has founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. You don't want some false church. God's True Church leads people to heaven but false churches lead people to perdition.

So much depends on making an accurate judgment of the Roman Catholic Church. You can't get anywhere if you make a false step with Rome. Rome is either God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Church which leads people to heaven, or else Rome is a false church, and false churches lead people to perdition.

Take a look at the Roman Catholic crucifix. I'm saying it is an image of a Roman Catholic version of Jesus, a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven. If the True God / True Jesus says Rome leads people to heaven then the Roman Catholic crucifix is sacred. But if the True God / True Jesus says Rome is a false church which drags people down to eternal perdition, then the Roman Catholic crucifix, which again is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven, is the image of a lie. If the crucifix is the image of a lie, if it is the image of an evil, falsified version of Jesus, then the image of the beast, Revelation 14. 11, comes to mind in regards to the Roman Catholic crucifix.

So, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads people to heaven, then Rome is the only government we need. It's insane to be governed by these legislative, executive and judicial branches. These secular authorities don't lead anyone to heaven. But they lead people away from heaven and to eternal perdition every time they rebel against God's True Church.

But if Rome is a false church, if Rome leads people away from heaven and straight to eternal perdition, then we'll just have to look elsewhere when we search for God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, Matthew 16. 13-19, the True Church which leads people to heaven.

Rome says Mary is sinless, says she was conceived free of Original Sin, and says she never once committed any sin. The Bible says only God is perfect. Rome says it is a terrible sin to say Mary was not ever-Virgin. The Bible says Jesus had brothers and sisters. And there's Matthew 1. 25. The Dogma of Papal Infallibility says you are anathema (damned) if you reject that Dogma. Well, if Rome is God's True Church then it makes sense that you would be damned if you rebel against God's True Church by rejecting a doctrine of God's True Church. On the other hand, if Rome is a false church, if Rome leads people away from heaven and to perdition, then we'll have to look elsewhere than Rome when we look for God's True Church.

To review the most basic teachings of Christianity, Christ told us at the Last Supper, Matthew 26. 28: `This cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins.'

The first mention of a new covenant, of a New Law to amend the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

The New Covenant is just another term for: The True Faith, Christianity, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the New Law, the Divine Law etc. If you have the new covenant written on your heart, then you are in the True Church.

Christianity is a religion which can be written on the hearts of even the least of God's people. But, all the same, it takes quite a few hours merely to read once through the New Testament. And you can't remember everything you read from one reading. Who remembers what James 1. 26 says, or what James 1. 27 says, after a first go through the New Testament? And yet if a person doesn't have the gist of these two scriptures written on his heart, then how can he have the Divine Law written on his heart?

A Christian is under lots of pressure to insist that he has the new covenant written one his heart, because, if in fact he does have it written there then he is a True Christian, and so he is on the road to heaven. But if a person claims to be a True Christian, claims to have the new covenant written on his heart, but is deluded, then he is a false Christian not a True Christian, and you must be a True Christian to attain heaven and escape perdition. For example, if one can't even teach Christianity to a kid without leading that kid into sacrilege and heresy, then that person is delusional when he claims to be a True Christian, when he claims to have the Divine Law written on his heart. You have to use some common sense when trying to determine if a Christian is a true Christian or a false Christian. You have to use your brains when you are trying to determine if someone has God's New Law written on his heart or not. Let's look at some Christians from previous centuries. Henry Charles Lea wrote in his 'A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages' (Macmillan, 1922),

`We have only to look upon the atrocities of the criminal law of the Middle Ages to see how pitiless men were in dealing with each other. The wheel, the caldron of boiling oil, burning alive, burying alive, flaying alive, tearing apart with wild horses, were the ordinary expedients by which the criminal jurist sought to deter crime by frightful examples...An Anglo-Saxon law punishes a female slave convicted of theft by making eighty other female slaves each bring three pieces of wood and burn her to death....In the Customs of Arques, granted by the Abbey of St. Bertin in 1231, there is a provision that, if a thief have a concubine who is his accomplice, she is to be buried alive...In France women were customarily burned or buried alive for simple felonies, and Jews were hung by the feet between two savage dogs, while men were boiled to death for coining. In Milan Italian ingenuity exhausted itself in devising deaths of lingering torture for criminals of all descriptions. The Carolina, or criminal code of Charles V., issued in 1530, is a hideous catalogue of blinding, mutilation, tearing with hot pincers, burning alive, and breaking on the wheel...As recently as 1706, in Hanover, a pastor named Zacharie Georg Flagge was burned alive for coining...So careless were the legislators of human suffering in general that, in England, to cut out a man's tongue, or to pluck out his eyes with malice prepence, was not made a felony until the fifteenth century, in a criminal law so severe that, even in the reign of Elizabeth, the robbing of a hawk's nest was similarly a felony; and as recently as 1833 a child of nine was sentenced to be hanged for breaking a patched pane of glass and stealing twopence worth of paint [this sentence was commuted]...It has seemed to me however, that a sensible increase in the severity of punishment is traceable after the thirteenth century, and I am inclined to attribute this to the influence exercised by the Inquisition over the criminal jurisprudence.'

All of my religious books push the idea that while the Christian scriptures are trustworthy, nevertheless, the people under the cross fell away from the True Faith in the 4th century. Before the 4th century Christians didn't murder and torture people, or if they did they were excommunicated for doing so. From the 4th century onwards there is no end of torture and judicial murder being perpetrated by Christians - by emperors, kings, nobles, popes, prelates, their henchmen etc. This was a new phenomenon in the world: Christians using brutal violence to attain power and to retain it. An emperor often comes to power the way a gangster comes to power. His soldiers eliminate the soldiers of other gangsters. Of course most Christians throughout the centuries were just ordinary people, not gangsters, not vicious murderers. But the typical Christian celebrated holy communion with evil murderers for century after century.

Jesus tells us in John 6. 53-55, "At this, the Jews began to argue among themselves, `How can this man give us His flesh to eat?' So, Jesus said to them, `Truly, Truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day....'"

St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 that you drink damnation into your soul if you celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner.

So, if you're celebrating communion with an evil murderer then it stands to reason that you are celebrating communion in an unworthy manner, and are drinking damnation into your soul.

Gibbon writes of the 4th century Catholic Emperor Valentinian and his judges,

`They easily discovered, that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of executions that were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained by perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity, but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, was seldom permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch.

Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures...The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, `Strike off his head;' `Burn him alive;' `Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;'....He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage.'

A huge problem confronting Christian Churches – not just the Roman Catholic Church - but every denomination under the sign of the cross - is that they do a terrible job excommunicating people who need to be excommunicated. In 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 St. Paul tells us, as you might recall, that one drinks damnation into one's soul if one celebrates communion in an unworthy manner. You see God wants the world to be a better place, and you make the world a better place when you excommunicate people who are doing evil anti-Christian things, and keep them excommunicated until they repent and stop doing the evil anti-Christian things. If you give the bread and the wine, and if you continue to mingle and socialize with people who do evil anti-Christian things, well, you make the world an evil hellhole, and you drink damnation into your soul. I mean, when you celebrate communion with people who make no secret of their anti-Christian ways, then, it stands to reason, that you are celebrating communion in an unworthy manner. The history of Western Civilization is largely the history of ordinary Christians taking communion with evil kings and with evil nobles and with other evil people for century after century. What is the main evidence saying Christians, ordinary Christians who were not vicious murderers, who were not conspicuously evil, fell away from the True Faith? It is the fact that they celebrated holy communion for century after with people who did not hide the fact that they perpetrated evil. Most Christians in the Middles Ages were not monsters who enjoyed torturing people to death. Most Christians didn't take delight in stringing up Jews so that they would be mauled by savage dogs etc. But the good Christians celebrated communion with the evil Christians, with people who made no secret of their evil actions, hence, both the good Christians and the evil Christians celebrated communion in an unworthy manner, so they all fell away from the True Faith, they all drank damnation into their souls.

I might mention 5 general complaints against Christianity from non-Christians:

1) The Old Testament says the Mosaic Law is an eternal law. How then will there be a New Law?

2) Christianity says Jesus is God, so, Christianity says you are a blasphemer if you say Jesus is not God.

3) St. Paul and St. Peter seem to support slavery.

4) St. Paul says he does not permit a woman to have authority over men.

5) The hellfire scriptures certainly seem to mean lots of nice non-Christians will burn in hell.

Regarding 1 - Jeremiah 31. 31-34, was written by a Jew not by any Gentiles. Jeremiah 31. 31-34 says there will be a new covenant. The old covenant will be an eternal law in the sense that it will be eternally remembered. Ezekiel 20. 25 says God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their rebelliousness. It's no use saying every law in the Mosaic Law was a good law. The blood sacrifice of animals is not good. Under the Old Covenant Sabbath violators were to be executed, homosexuals were to be executed, kids who cursed their parents were to be executed etc.

2 – Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6 support the doctrine that the Son is God. It's not as if the New Testament scriptures which tell us the Son is God don't have any support from the Old Testament. Some parts of the Old Testament are obsolete, but not all parts. The 10 Commandments are still enforced under Christianity. Christians become evil Christians if they murder, steal, violate the Sabbath, covet, commit adultery etc. But the Old Testament commandments to stone adulteresses and Sabbath violators are other sinners are rejected under the New Law. Malachi 4. 1 from the Old Testament is a hellfire scripture. It is not rejected under the New Law because the New Testament is filled with similar hellfire scriptures.

3) St. Peter and St. Paul didn't say slavery was a good thing, but they couldn't advise slaves to rebel against their masters, as the Romans would have tortured the rebelling slaves to death. Labor was performed by slaves in the ancient world. There were no jobs available for slaves who ran away from their chains, aside from the Roman army, the gladiatorial arenas and prostitution. These aren't fit occupations for a Christian. All a Christian slave could do was endure servitude patiently. It's insane to argue that St. Peter and St. Paul would have supported the African slave trade. They wanted Christians to obey pagan or Christian rulers as long as these rulers didn't command Christians to do anything anti-Christian, anything evil. Pagan rulers ordered Christians to worship the images of pagan emperors, and Christians rightly disobeyed, and were unjustly martyred.

4) Obviously if a man is a heretic and if a woman, or a 7-year-girl for that matter, understands the True Faith, then the female is certainly permitted to correct the male. Perhaps St. Paul had excellent reasons for wanting to keep women out of the clergy. For example, Acts 26. 13-19 and Galatians 1. 8-12 tell us St. Paul derives his authority directly from Christ. Why would Christ want to keep women out of the clergy? Well, if Jesus knows the clergy will become corrupt, then He has a reason to keep women out of the clergy. Women are the main defenders of little children, and it would be best for a kid if his mom was not a priestess in some false church which leads people to perdition. St. Paul prophesied that fierce wolves would enter the flock – Acts 20. 29-31. Recall also 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15.

Suppose a Church which forbids women to become priests is God's True Church, and therefore it leads people to heaven, because it is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, Matthew 16. 13-19. It would make no sense for women to rebel against God's True Church, because you put yourself on the road to perdition if you rebel against God's True Church. And if this church is not God's True Church, if it is a false church, and false churches lead people to perdition, then why would any sensible woman want to be a priestess in some worthless church which leads people to perdition?

5) It's true that Christianity has lots of hellfire scriptures, but most of these are rather ambiguous, in that they don't say God will never take the damned out of the fire, at any time. I assume that the typical sort of sinner will be transferred out of the lake of fire at some point and given a place in eternal perdition where he is more comfortable. Daniel 12. 2 mentions the damned suffering eternal shame not eternal torture. The scriptures are clear in indicating that once you are damned, once you get tossed into the lake of fire, you are never admitted into the kingdom of heaven, but I suspect the typical sort of sinner will be pulled out of the fire at some point. And one can speculate that God will show mercy on the souls of little kids who die before they had a chance to find the True Faith and the True Church, and speculate that mercy will be shown on some others.

Nevertheless, John 15. 6, Matthew 25. 31-46, 2 Thess 1. 8, Revelation 20. 12-15 and Malachi 4. 1 say what they say. The Jews who reject Jesus, the Jews who say that it is a blasphemy to say Jesus is God, will point to Malachi 4. 1 to remind Christians of the punishment for blasphemy. But Christians say that it is blasphemy to say Jesus is not God, because Jesus is God, and will point to Malachi 4. 1 to remind Jews of the punishment for blasphemy.

Christianity gets a little complicated in that there is quite a bit to remember. It seems like it would be easy enough to remember James 1. 26, which says your religion is useless, that is it won't help you attain heaven and escape perdition, if you don't bridle your tongue. In theory James 1. 26 ought to be easy to remember – don't be a potty mouth if you want to go to heaven - but in practice, so often, our emotions cancel our reason. And obviously James 1. 27 is a cornerstone of Christianity. 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 mentions that those who do various sins will never enter the kingdom of heaven – homosexuals, fornicators, adulterers, revilers etc. 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 is super easy to remember. John 6. 53-55 says you must take holy communion to attain heaven and escape perdition. I spend lots of time in my books on 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29. It says you drink damnation into your soul if you celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner. So, check and double check to make sure you're not celebrating holy communion with Sabbath violators, with people who take God's name in vain etc., etc. Lots to remember, but nothing all that complicated.

Christ commanded us to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Simple enough, but then John 14. 23-26 says you must keep Christ's words or else you don't love Christ, and Christ spoke quite a few words. 1 John 5. 3 tells us one must keep the commandments to love God. St. Paul was strong against covetousness, which he saw as idolatry. But the commandment against covetousness might be the most difficult of the commandments to recognize. We know what adultery is, and we know what bearing false witness is, and we know what taking God's name in vain is, and we know what it means to violate the Sabbath, and these are tough enough to enforce. But is every rich man a covetous man? What exactly do you have to do to be guilty of covetousness. Revelation 18. 23 likens merchants to idolaters, evidently on the logic that merchants use advertising to stir up covetousness in people, and again St. Paul says covetousness is idolatry. But then, on the other hand, merchants might say they must use advertising to stay in business and to keep their families from starving. In any event there's quite a bit to keep in mind. Galatians 1. 8-12 mentions damnation for those who twist his teachings. Revelation 22. 18-19 mentions curses on those who alter the Book of Revelation.

The most glaringly obvious problem with Christianity is that there is supposed to be only one True Church. Matthew 16. 13-19 and Ephesians 4. 4-5 tell us there is one body, one True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock – and yet there are thousands of churches in the world wwhich have conflicting and confusing doctrines.

We're looking for God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the True Church which leads people to heaven. You don't want a false church because false churches lead people to perdition. Recall Revelation 2. 9 where Christ likened the Jews to a synagogue of Satan. Well, if Jesus is God, and since the Jews reject Jesus and Christianity, then the Jews lead people away from heaven and to perdition, and that is a satanic thing to do. The same sort of logic applies to Christians. Suppose only the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven, suppose the Eastern Orthodox and the Baptists and the Methodists etc., etc., lead people to perdition, suppose they are false churches. Then the Eastern Orthodox, and the Baptists and the Methodists etc., etc., are agents of satan, because they lead people away from heaven and to perdition. One can invent no end of scenarios with this theme. Perhaps Rome leads people away from heaven and straight to eternal perdition. This would make the Roman Catholic Church a satanic sort of church. If Rome is no good, this doesn't mean the Russian Orthodox church is any better. It doesn't prove the Church of England is God's True Church.

If Christianity is something which can be written on the hearts of even the least of God's people, then the least of God's people will have to be able to locate the Church which Christ founded on a rock. How is someone, such as a mentally retarded person, or even someone who is not retarded, supposed to locate God's True Church amid these thousands of churches which claim they lead people to heaven?

2 Thess 2 says the Antichrist will be revealed prior to the Second Coming of Christ. And Revelation 14. 6-11 says 3 angels from heaven will show up prior to the Second Coming. Revelation 18 deals with the Great Tribulation.

So, when the Antichrist shows up, and when these 3 angels from heaven show up, when the Great Tribulation arrives, then instead of having to find God's True Church amid thousands of churches, we will only have to choose between 2 main churches. There will be the church run by the Antichrist – a very satanic church indeed – and there will be the Church pushed by these 3 angels from heaven, mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11, and this will be God's True Church.

I list the cross and the crucifix under the category of simple issues, because one either keeps the cross or one gets rid of it, same with the crucifix. Not too complicated.

But the abortion issue, and how it pertains to 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 is a complex issue. Recall 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 tells us one drinks damnation into his soul if he celebrates holy communion in an unworthy manner. So, if a doctor comes straight from a clinic where he was killing babies, and if he broadcasts this fact to the congregation, and then if the congregation proceeds to celebrate holy communion with the doctor, then the congregation drinks damnation into their souls, because they are celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner. The abortion issue asks one to determine what sort of laws, in regards to abortion, are evil and anti-Christian, and what sort of abortion laws are consistent with Christianity. What sort of penalties and prison terms should be given to mothers and abortion clinic staff for offenses committed during the 3rd trimester? the 2nd trimester? the 1st trimester? In the USA the pro-lifers are very accommodating to the pro-choicers, for political reasons. If every pro-lifer clamored for tough pro-life laws then the Democrats would win more elections, and the Republicans would lose more. But if God says you will go to eternal perdition if you celebrate holy communion with pro-choicers as well as with pro-lifers who want the wrong sort of pro-life laws, then you will indeed go to eternal perdition.

To simplify the abortion issue one might look to the future. The 3 angels from heaven mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11 will no doubt have opinions on the abortion issue. The Antichrist will probably have an opinion on the abortion issue. Ezekiel 36. 24-36 says that, eventually, the Jews will be filled with the Spirit of God. These Jews who will be filled with the Spirit of God will know what sort of abortion laws are required. Of course, every Christian claims he has the new covenant / Divine Law written on his heart, recall Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Matthew 26. 28. But Christians are divided and subdivided into thousands of conflicting sects. If every Christian actually had the Divine Law written on his heart wouldn't we all belong to the same Church? But some Christians are pro-choice, and some are pro-life, and nearly every church gives holy communion to pro-choicers. The Roman Catholic Church leaves the matter to parish priests. A pro-choicer refused communion in one parish, only has to look round some to find a different parish which will give him the bread and the wine.

§ 2. Sacrilege – The Crusades - _Crusade_ from the Spanish _Cruzado_ which means _Marked with the Cross_.

Matthew 16. 13-19,

`When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the son of Man, am? So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'

You can't get anywhere in Christianity if you can't make an accurate judgment of the Roman Catholic Church. I mean, is Rome God's True Church or not? Is Rome God's True Church, the Bride of Christ, the True Church which leads people to heaven? Or is Rome a false church which leads people to perdition?

In Revelation 2. 9 Jesus said He knew the blasphemy those who say they are Jews but who are a synagogue of Satan. If Jesus is God, then those who blaspheme God and say he is a false god would qualify as a synagogue of Satan. Recall Malachi 4. 1. This has the LORD saying the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the proud and wicked people will be set on fire. So if you lead people into sacrilege and blasphemy on the issue of Jesus...

You can make the same sort of argument with the Christian churches. Suppose a church claims it leads people to heaven. Suppose it claims it is God's True Church. But if that church is in fact a false church, if it is Not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if it is a church which leads people away from heaven and to perdition, then that church is satanic.

I make a distinction between the Roman Catholic crucifix and the other sorts: the Eastern Orthodox crucifix, the Anglican crucifix etc. What does the Roman Catholic crucifix symbolize? Well it is an image of a Roman Catholic version of Jesus on the cross. A Roman Catholic version of Jesus is a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven, because Rome teaches and upholds the True Faith, and because Rome is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. You wouldn't say the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a Protestant version of Jesus. You wouldn't say it is an image of a Mormon version of Jesus, a version of Jesus who says the Mormon Church is God's True Church. No, the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a Roman Catholic version of Jesus, a version who says the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, who says the Roman Catholic Church upholds the True Faith and leads people to heaven.

We are especially interested in what the True Jesus / True God says. We have two especially interesting cases in regards to the Roman Catholic crucifix.

Case 1 - The True Jesus / the True God says Rome leads people to heaven, because Rome upholds the True Faith. This is Case 1. There is nothing wrong with the Roman Catholic crucifix if Case 1 is true. I mean, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome upholds the True Faith, if Rome has not fallen into heresy, if Rome leads people to heaven, then you have to assume Rome is absolutely right when Rome says the Roman Catholic crucifix is sacred and holy.

In Case 2, the True Jesus / True God says the Roman Catholic Church leads people to perdition. In Case 2 the True God / True Jesus say Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, and Rome is simply not God's True Church, so Rome is a false church, and false churches lead people away from heaven and to perdition. So Rome is a satanic church, if Case 2 is true. If Case 2 is true, if the True God / True Jesus says the Roman Catholic Church leads people to perdition, then an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven - which is what the Roman Catholic crucifix is - is an image of a false god. And false gods are beastly because they lead people away from heaven and drag them down to perdition. The Book of Revelation mentions people worshipping the image of the beast. Well, if the True God says Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if the gates of hell have prevailed against Rome, and therefore the True God / True Jesus says Rome leads people to perdition, then, the Roman Catholic crucifix – which is the image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven - is the image of a false version of Jesus, hence it's the image of a false god, the image of a beastly false god who leads people to perdition, hence Revelation 13 and 14 come to mind – recall the image of the beast.

And of course many would say it is satanic to say the Roman Catholic Church crucifix is evil, would say it is evil to speculate it is the image of the beast. But can these people recognize what is satanic or are they clueless?

Will Durant wrote in `The Reformation' (p. 731):

"In 1451 Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, one of the most enlightened men of the fifteenth century, enforced the wearing of badges by the Jews under his jurisdiction. Two years later John of Capistrano began his missions, as legate of Pope Nicholas V, in Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland. His powerful sermons accused the Jews of killing children and desecrating the Host -charges which popes had branded as murderous superstitions. Urged on by this "scourge of the Jews," the dukes of Bavaria drove all Hebrews from their duchy. Bishop Godfrey of Wurzburg, who had given them full privileges in Franconia, now banished them, and in town after town Jews were arrested, and debts due them were annulled. At Breslau several Jews were jailed on Capistrano's demand; he himself supervised the tortures that wrung from some of them whatever he bade them confess; on the basis of these confessions forty Jews were burned at the stake (June 2, 1453). The remaining Jews were banished, but their children were taken from them and baptized by force. Capistrano was canonized in 1690."

Rome says all good Christians must venerate Capistrano as a saint. But if the True God says it is evil to venerate Capstrano as a saint, if the True God says Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition...

To review, the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says: `Rome is God's True Church. Obey God's True Church. If God's True Church, Rome, orders you to venerate Capistrano as a saint then don't rebel against God's True Church. You will go to hell if you rebel against God's True Church.'

But if the True God / True Jesus says Rome is a false church which leads people away from heaven and to perdition...

Is there any evidence to suggest Christians under the cross fell away from the True Faith many centuries ago. Is there any evidence to suggest the Roman Catholic Church is a false church, and is not God's True Church. Again, 1 Corthinthians 11. 27-29 says you drink damnation into your soul if you celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner. Christians under the cross celebrated holy communion with evil people for century after century. Paul Johnson reminds us in _A History of Christianity_ ,

`Tertullian broke with the Church [Rome] when Calixtus of Rome determined that the church had the power to grant remission of sins after baptism, even serious sins like adultery or apostasy...Julian claims Catholics slaughtered "heretics" with state military support. Whole communities were butchered...in the 5th century there were over 100 statutes against heresy. The state now attacked heresy as it had once attacked Christianity...Jerome describes horrible tortures inflicted on a woman accused of adultery [inflicted by the Catholic-State]. In the late 4th century there was despotism in Christendom. The rack and red-hot plates were used. Ammianus gives many instances of torture...the Inquisition was born...Spain was staging pogroms of Jews by the time Augustine became a bishop...Inquisition: anonymous informers, accusations of personal enemies allowed, no right of defending council...Possession of scriptures in any language forbidden...from 1080 onward there were many instances of the Pope, councils and Bishops forbidding the Bible to laymen...people burned for reading the Bible...Erasmus saw 200 prisoners of war broken on the wheel at Utrech, on orders of the Bishop...Justinian Code: provided basis for persecution of dissenters...Protestants adopted the Justinian Code as well...Lutherans and Calvinists just as intolerant as Catholics...Counter-Reformation embodied no reform. It's sole effect was to stamp out Protestant "error"...It is a tragic but recurrent feature of Christianity that the eager pursuit of reform tends to produce a ruthlessness in dealing with obstacles to it which brings the whole moral superstructure crashing down in ruins...The Gregorian papacy, so zealous for virtue, fathered some of the worst crimes of the Middle Ages...mass burnings of Protestants in Spain 1559-1562...Spanish Inquisition was self-sustaining. It confiscated the property of the condemned...women 70-90 years old were tortured...young girls tortured...witch-hunting couldn't survive without torture...witch-hunting had papal sanction to use torture...Luther burned "witches"...Calvinists very fierce...Loyola popularized witch-hunting...Loyola not an anti-Semite...Vicious cycle: torture produced accusations -more torture, more accusations...The Philosophes ransacked the past to expose...evil.'

Paul Johnson writes in `A History of Christianity', p. 273,

`In the West, the clergy had begun to assert an exclusive interpretive, indeed custodial, right to the Bible as early as the ninth century; and from about 1080 there had been frequent instances of the Pope, councils and bishops forbidding not only vernacular translations but any reading at all, by laymen, of the Bible taken as a whole...attempts to scrutinize the Bible became proof presumptive of heresy - a man or woman might burn [at the stake] for it alone.'

Rome admits she can make some mistakes but Rome insists that the True God / True Jesus says that Rome has always remained God's True Church. Rome insists that the True God wants people to always obey Rome / God's True Church. If Rome / God's True Church orders you to not read the Bible, and then if you rebel against Rome / God's True Church and read the Bible, and then Rome / God's True Church burns you at the stake, then this is all quite logical and correct if Rome is God's True Church. But if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome is a satanic church which leads people to hell...

So, if the True God says Rome is a false church, a satanic church, an evil church which leads people away from heaven and to perdition, then you can see that the Roman Catholic crucifix – which is the image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven – is the image of a lie. If the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of a lie, then the image of the beast from Revelation 13 and 14 comes to mind.

If you say it is satanic to say or imply the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of the beast, see Revelation 14. 11, let's look at some other things which pertain to satanism which might interest you.

The term `Moriscos' refers both to people who sought to renounce their Catholic baptism so that they might convert to Islam and worship Allah, as well as to loyal Catholics who were only accused of wanting to convert to Islam. The terms is analogous to the term `Marranos' which comprehends both Jews who wanted to renounce their Catholic baptisms (which were often forced baptisms) so as to return to Judaism, as well as baptized Jews who were loyal Catholics but were accused of being disloyal.

Dr. Lea wrote in his `The Moriscos of Spain':

`There doubtless is some truth in the assertion that the terror of the Inquisition was less for the Moriscos than for Spaniards, since the former when punished were naturally regarded by their fellows as martyrs and were consequently held in high esteem. It was for them an honor to appear on the scaffold of an auto de fe...There is a story of a woman who, when the san benito was put on her, asked for another for her child, as the weather was cold...When, after the fall of the Roman Empire, heresy first became the subject of systematic persecution in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, confiscation was one of the penalties decreed for it under the canon law and princes who did not enforce this vigorously were threatened with the censures of the Church. The monarch who profited by the spoliation of his subjects could therefore, strictly speaking, not forego it without papal authorization, leading at times to some curious and intricate questions...In the case of Bartolomé Sanchez, who appeared in the Toledo auto de fe of 1597, cleanliness was regarded as a suspicious circumstance - doubtless from the Moorish habit of bathing - and though he overcame the torture he was finally brought to confess and was punished with three years in the galleys, perpetual prison and confiscation. Miguel Caneete, a gardener, for washing himself in the fields while at work, was tried in 1606; there was nothing else against him but he was tortured without success and his case was suspended.'

Dr. Lea also writes in `The Moriscos of Spain' (GreenwoodPress, 1968),

`They came to be known by the name of Mudéjares - the corruption of Mudegelin, an opprobrious term bestowed upon them by the Moors...No forcible conversion was allowed, but only persuasion, and the convert had all the rights of the Old Christians save eligibility to holy orders; he was never to be insulted but was to be held in honor...The Church, in fact, had long regarded with disfavor the careless indifference which led Alfonso VI. to style himself imperador de los dos cultos - which was satisfied to allow subject Moors to enjoy their religion in peace. When, in 1212, Alfonso IX., at the head of a crusade, won the great victory of Las Navas de Tolosa and advanced to Ubeda, where 70,000 Moors had taken refuge, they offered to become Mudéjares and to pay him a ransom of a million doblas. He accepted the terms but the clerical chiefs of the crusade, Rodrigo of Toledo and Arnaud of Narbonne, forced him to withdraw his assent, with the result that, after some further negotiation, the Moors were all massacred except such as were reserved as slaves. In a similar spirit Innocent IV., in 1248, ordered Jayme I. of Aragon to permit no Moors, save as slaves, to reside in the Balearic Isles...In 1266 Clement IV. returned to the charge in a brief urging upon him the expulsion of all Saracens from the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon. The pope told him that his reputation would suffer greatly if in view of temporal profit he should permit such opprobrium of God, such infection of Christendom as is caused by the horrible cohabitation of Moors and Christians, while by expelling them he would fulfill his vow to God, close the mouths of his detractors and show his zeal for the faith...Hernado de Talavera, the saintly Archbishop of Grenada used to say `They ought to adopt our faith and we ought to adopt their morals.'...There were no beggars among them, for they took affectionate care of their own poor and orphans...In short, they constituted the most desirable population that any land could possess...To the conscientious medieval churchman, however, any friendship with the infidel was the denial of Christ; the infidel was not to be forcibly converted, but it was a duty to lay upon him such burdens that he would seek relief in conversion. Accordingly the toleration and conciliation, which were the basis of the Spanish policy, were vigorously opposed in Rome...The Church was succeeding in gradually awakening the spirit of intolerance, but its progress was slow...the final policy of expulsion was suggested, in 1337, by Arnaldo, Archbishop of Tarragona, in a letter to Benedict XII, imploring the pope to order the King of Aragon to adopt it...the resistance of the nobles might be overcome by empowering them to seize and sell the persons and property of the Moors, as public enemies and infidels, while the money thus obtained would be serviceable for the defense of the kingdom - an inhuman proposition which we shall see officially approved by the Church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries...Morerías and Juderías were ordered to be established everywhere, surrounded by a wall having only one gate; any one who within eight days after notice should not have settled therein forfeited all his property, with personal punishment at the king's pleasure, while severe penalties were provided for Christian women entering the forbidden precincts. It was easier to enact than to enforce such laws and in 1480 Ferdinand and Isabella state that this had been neglected, wherefore they renewed it, allowing two years for the establishment of these Ghettos after which any Jew or Moor dwelling outside of them was subjected to the prescribed penalties and no Christian woman should be found within them. Under Ferdinand and Isabella laws were no longer neglected and these were enforced with their accustomed vigor...In 1598 the Venetian envoy, Agostino Nani, writes that expulsion is considered too prejudicial, as it would depopulate the land; that sometimes the idea has been entertained of a Sicilian Vespers [genocide], at others the castration of all male infants, and the former measure was advocated by Gomez Davila of Toledo in a long memorial addressed to Philip III...Hideous as was this project, it was resolved upon at one time and came near being attempted. In 1581, when Philip II. was in Lisbon, regulating his newly acquired kingdom of Portugal, a junta of his chief counselors, including the duke of Alva, the Count of Chinchon and Juan de Idiaquez, concluded to send the Moriscos to sea and scuttle the vessels...A variant of this was the proposition, in 1590, that the Inquisition should proceed against all the Moriscos of the crown of Castile, without sparing the life of a single one...Not much more humane was the suggestion of Archbishop Ribera to enslave all the males of proper age and send them to the galleys or to the mines of the Indies...Ferocious and inhuman as were all these projects, they evoked no scruples of conscience. Theologians there were in plenty to prove that they were in accord with the canons. By baptism the Moriscos had become Christians; as such they were subject to the laws of the Church, and as heretics and apostates they had incurred the death penalty...Even more outspoken was Fray Bleda, who proved by irrefragable authorities that the Moriscos could all be massacred in a single day...Bleda's work was...pronounced free from error, and Clement VII. read it with pleasure at the suggestion of his confessor, Cardinal Baronius. In the midst of all these conflicting projects the idea of expulsion gradually forged to the front...the last year of Philip's life. His end came at last, September 13, 1598...consumed by gout, strangled with asthma, for almost two months he lay near motionless and with but enough of life to render him capable of suffering. Covered with tumors and abscesses, which when opened continued to discharge till the stench in the death-chamber could not be overcome by the strongest perfumes, the long-drawn agony was greater than any of his executioners had invented for the torture-chamber...No spectre of Cazalla or Carranza, of Montigny or Egmont came to disturb the serenity of his conscience...When once this resolution was reached the Moriscos lost no time in converting into coin whatever movables they possessed. The land became a universal fair...The troops marched out to meet them and escort them to the galleys, which was necessary to protect them from the robbers who flocked thither...While thus all proper effort was made to smooth the path of the exiles it was impossible to restrain the savage greed of the Old Christians...They sallied forth in squads, robbing and often murdering all whom they encountered. Fonseca tells us that in going from Valencia to San Mateo he saw the roads full of dead Moriscos...It was a massacre rather than a battle...the well-armed Spaniards, who mowed them down, and, when they broke and fled, slaughtered them without sparing women and children. Three thousand Moriscos lay dead...The great mass of the insurgents found refuge on the top of the mountain, where they could get neither food nor water...gave themselves up...in numbers of which the estimates vary from 11,000 to 22,000, so starved with hunger, thirst and cold that even the soldiery were moved to compassion, although this did not prevent their stealing numbers of women and children and selling them as slaves. Mexia granted them their lives and escorted them to the port of embarkation...The estimates of the number of exiles vary greatly...Navarrete speaks of 2,000,000 Jews and 3,000,000 Moriscos having been at various times expelled from Spain...No computation, that I am aware of, has been attempted of the number of children taken from their parents and retained...The fate of the exiles was deplorable. Torn from their homes without time to prepare for the new and strange life before them, and stripped of most of their property, at best their suffering was terrible, but man's inhumanity multiplied it tenfold. In whatever direction they turned they were exposed to spoliation or worse. While the voyage to Africa, in the royal ships, was doubtless safe enough, the masters of the private vessels which they chartered had no scruples in robbing and murdering them...The Moslems of Tetuan were not so tolerant, and it adds a new horror to the whole unhappy business to learn that there the Christian Moriscos who were firm in their religion were lapidated or put to death in other ways for refusing to enter the mosques. The Church which had impelled them to martyrdom, however, took no steps to canonize these obscure victims.'

The Roman Catholic Church insists she has always been God's True Church, even when Rome was employing the Inquisition to compel obedience to Rome. Rome has always insisted that the True God / True Jesus says Rome has always been God's True Church. Rome says that the True God / True Jesus and says it is evil to rebel against Rome / God's True Church, even when Rome / God's True Church was using cruel tortures on people. This is who the True God / True Jesus is, according to Rome. The Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome has always been God's True Church.

But if the True God / True Jesus says that Rome is not God's True Church, if the True God / True Jesus say Rome is a false church, a false church which leads people away from heaven and to perdition, then that is indeed what the True God / True Jesus says.

You want to know the True God, recall 2 Thess 1. 8 – hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 2 Thess 1. 8 is more or less a re-statement of John 15. 6, which is very much like Matthew 25. 31-46, which is like Revelation 20. 12-15, which is like Malachi 4.1 etc.

So, to review some more, the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven, because Rome is God's True Church.

But if the True God / True Jesus says Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition, a satanic church which claims to lead people to heaven but in fact drags people down to eternal perdition, then the Roman Catholic crucifix – which is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome is God's True Church – an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven – is the image of a lie, the image of an evil false version of the True Jesus. And so the image of the beast from Revelation 13 and 14 comes to mind if the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of an evil lie.

And of course one can make similar arguments against the Eastern Orthodox crucifix, the Russian Orthodox crucifix, the Anglican crucifix etc.

This section runs you through some arguments which say Christianity is true, but not every church you encounter is God's True Church. God's True Church leads people to heaven. False churches lead people to perdition. That's just what false churches do, whereas God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, Matthew 16. 13-19, leads people to heaven. It may be that some people who are lost in false churches enter heaven, by a special decree of Divine Mercy, so to speak, but, generally speaking, if you are divorced from God's True Church then you are damned. If some little kid dies young, before he has a chance to find the True Faith and the True Church, then perhaps...

Suppose an adult leads a little kid into sacrilege, suppose an adult leads a little kid away from heaven and to perdition, then Christians tend to agree this adult will be damned. I mean, it is not as if the New Testament is crammed with scriptures which say you can teach sacrilege to little kids and still go to heaven.

We don't want to be too distracted in this section by non-Christians who insist Christianity is a false religion. We don't want to get lost in a maze of confusing assertions coming from people who reject John 1. 1-14, Matthew 1. 23, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 – all of these scriptures say that Jesus is God. The Muslims say it is blasphemy to say Jesus is God. The Muslims say you're damned to hell if you reject Allah and Islam. The Jews say it is blaspmemy and sacrilege to say Jesus is God. We don't want to be distracted by these anti-Christian assertions. Those of us who are Christians insist Christianity is true, and we don't need to hear any blasphemies from non-Christians who say Christianity is a lie, who say Jesus is a false god not the True God.

Now, therefore, since Jesus is God, you can trust what God / Jesus is saying in John 6. 53-55 (you must take communion to attain heaven and escape perdition), and you can trust what God / Jesus is saying in John 15. 6, Matthew 25. 31-46 – these are some famous hellfire scriptures.

Ultimately some Christian prophesies must come true in order for Christianity to be conclusively proven true. The Antichrist will have to show up. 2 Thess 2 tells us the man of sin / son of perdition / aka the Antichrist will be revealed prior to the Second Coming of Christ. If 2 Thess 2 never comes true, then this tells us that Christianity can't be trusted. But if the prophesy of 2 Thess 2 does come true, then this is conclusive evidence in favor of Christianity.

Revelation 14. 6-11 tells us 3 angels from heaven will show up prior to the Second Coming. If this prophesy never comes true then there are big problems with Christianity. But if this prophesy comes true then Christianity is vindicated.

In regards to the cross, just as it is with the crucifix, we have 2 Cases to consider.

Case 1 says the cross is sacred in the eyes of God. Case 1 says you are guilty of sacrilege if you say the cross is a symbol of evil. If you are guilty of sacrilege then you must repent, or else you will go to hell.

Case 2 says the cross is evil in the eyes of God. Case 2 says you are guilty of sacrilege if you say the cross is sacred, as it is sacrilege to say evil things are sacred, and the cross is evil, so it is sacrilege, a mortal sin, a sin which leads one straight to perdition, to say the cross is sacred.

The basic idea behind Case 2, from the Christian perspective, is that while the sacred cross of Christ mentioned in scriptures is indeed sacred, this cross of Christ is a spiritual thing not anything material. Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred, but the actual cross that Christ was crucified on, the pagan instrument of torture, is not at all sacred in the eyes of God. And material crosses, which are material representations of the cross Christ was crucified on, are evil, not sacred, in Case 2.

In Case 1 material crosses are sacred to God.

But in Case 2 crosses are evil in the eyes of God. They are evil in the same way the Nazi swastika is evil. The Nazis perpetrated evil for a few years and as a result we say the Nazis swastika reflects the evil perpetrated by the Nazis. The people under the sign of the cross perpetrated evil for century after century, and the cross reflects this evil. It is like if a kid draws a picture of God and tells you to bow down before his picture of God, on the logic that since God is sacred, his material representation of God is also sacred. You might tell the kid that his drawing of God is evil, because, while God is sacred, his drawing is evil because it violates the 2nd Commandment. So, while Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred, a material representation of the spiritual cross of Christ is not sacred.

Case 1 says the cross is sacred to God and you will go to hell if you commit sacrilege and say the cross is evil. Case 1 says that when the Antichrist shows up he will try to convince people that the cross is evil, will try to persuade people to get rid of the cross.

Case 2 says that when the Antichrist shows up he will try to persuade people that the evil cross is the sacred seal of God, the seal which protects one from the torments described in Revelation 9.

Case 1 says the cross is the seal of God, and you need this seal of God on your forehead in order to escape the torments described in Revelation.

Case 2 says the cross is the mark of the beast, and one burns in hell forever and ever if one has the mark of the beast on his forehead, Revelation 14. 11. Case 2 says all of the evils perpetrated over the centuries by people under the cross are reflected in the cross.

Lord Acton told us in his essay `Human Sacrifice,'

`And yet, long after the last victim had fallen in honour of the sun-god of the Aztecs, the civilised nations of Christian Europe continued to wage wholesale destruction...Protestants and Catholics, clergy and laity, vied with each other for two hundred years to provide victims, and every refinement of legal ingenuity and torture was used in order to increase their number. In 1591, at Nördligen, a girl was tortured twenty-three times before she confessed...Three years later, in the same town, a woman suffered torture fifty-six times without confessing she was a witch...In the north of Italy, the great jurist Alciatus saw 100 witches burnt on one day...In England alone, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, the victims of this superstition amounted to 30,000. Yet, from the appearance of Spee's _Cautio_ in 1631 to the burning of the last witch in 1783, all sensible men were persuaded that the victims were innocent of the crime for which they suffered intolerable torments and an agonizing death. But those who hunted them out with cunning perseverance, and the inflexible judges who never spared their lives, firmly believed that their execution was pleasing in the sight of God, and that their sin could not be forgiven by men.'

Case 1 says that whatever evils were perpetrated over the centuries by people under the cross, all of these evils are divorced from the cross, because the cross is sacred in the eyes of God.

Case 2 says the cross of Christ mentioned in scripture is something spiritual and sacred. Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred. But material crosses are not sacred. All of the evils perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses are reflected in the cross, and so the cross is evil. Christ and the apostles never used the cross as their symbol. They never said material crosses are sacred.

We know that if you have no mark whatsoever on your forehead or your right hand, then you will never be shipped off to eternal hell for the sin of having the mark of the beast on your forehead or right hand. The New Testament is quite clear: the Antichrist and his followers have an evil mark on their foreheads or right hands.

Case 1: A person might say he will never put any sort of mark on his forehead or right hand, a person might insist he will never follow the Antichrist, but as soon as one starts to think the cross is evil, as soon as one begins flirting with blasphemy and sacrilege, with betrayal of Christ and Christianity, then one is embarking down the same path that Judas took: one is making oneself vulnerable to Satanic possession, recall Luke 22. 3, `Then Satan entered Judas.' And once one is possessed by the Devil, then all of one's previous promises to never put any sort of mark on one's forehead or right head are worthless promises.

Case 2: it's just insanity to ever put the mark of a cross on your forehead or right hand. It is the easiest thing in the world to prove that immense evil was perpetrated for century after century by people under the sign of the cross. A person has to be a brainless idiot if he can't understand something as simple as: Don't put the mark of a cross on your forehead or right hand! You'll burn in hell forever and ever if you do that. Suppose some `prophet' tells you that he has spoken to God, and he says God says that you must put some sort of mark on your forehead to escape the torments described in Revelation 9. And what if the Devil, masquerading as God, has deceived your so-called prophet? Recall 1 Peter 5. 8 `the devil, your great enemy, walks about like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.' In some ways, don't you think, Satan and the Antichrist are not just evil, but they are really quite brainless and idiotic? You have to be a huge brainless idiot to live your life in such a way that a benevolent Deity finds it necessary to torture you in hell forever and ever. Nevertheless, Case 2 says it is stupid to ever put a mark on your forehead or right hand. God will mark you with the seal of God, don't try to do it yourself! Don't listen to these false prophets who claim to speak with God!

The above was all part of Case 2.

Case 1 says: Be prepared to put the sacred cross on your forehead. It's the seal of God which protects one from the torments described in Revelation 9. It may be that God will use one of his holy priests to direct people to put the mark of the cross, but we already know the cross is sacred. Once you start thinking the cross is evil then Devil has got you in his clutches. Once you start thinking the cross is the mark of the beast, then you are akin to Judas when Satan possessed him, Luke 22. 3 If you refuse to put the seal of God / the cross on your forehead, if you are too far sunk in evil to recognize the holy cross as holy, if you are too much of a devil-possessed Judas to embrace the cross, then you deserve the torment that you will get.

Case 2: You'll burn in hell forever and ever if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead or right hand. The cross is evil!

Notice that if Case 1 is true, if the cross is sacred to God, and is the seal of God which protects one from months of torment, then you want to do and say whatever you can to persuade people to put the mark of a cross / the seal of God on their foreheads, to save them from the torments described in Revelation 9. You do what is necessary to save people.

But if Case 2 is truth, if the cross is evil, if the cross is the mark of the beast, then you do and say whatever works to persuade people to not put the mark of a cross on their foreheads or right hands. You do whatever it takes to save them from eternal hellfire.

So, if a kid asks you how he can attain heaven and escape perdition, but if you steer that kid into evil sacrilege on the issue of the cross, if you lead that kid toword hell, then you're also leading yourself to hell, even though you might not have any evil marks on your forehead or right hand.

And if you can't lead a kid away from hell and to heaven, then you most definitely don't have any Divine Law written on your heart, to recall Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34. If you don't have the Divine Law written on your heart then you're not a legit Christian. If you are not a legit Christian then you will go to perdition, unless something changes, and you become a legit Christian.

Most Christians in the Middle Ages were not fiends who delighted in torturing people to death. Nevertheless, they held communion with such people, and therefore they celebrated the Eucharist in an unworthy manner, a terrible sin, recall 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29.

We might look at a few ways in which modern Christians have themselves convinced that they have a Divine Law written on their hearts, and they have convinced themselves that they are on the road to heaven, and they are under the delusuion that they can't possibly be on the road to eternal perdition. Their whole problem is they drink damnation into their souls because they celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner. They take communion with people who make no secret that they are Sabbath violators, with people who take God's name in vain, with people who flout the fact that they are pro-gay marriage – homosexuality is plainly forbidden under 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10, they might be pro-life themselves, but since they take communion with pro-choicers, then both the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers drink damnation into their souls.

Tens of millions of legal abortions have been performed in the USA because millions of people under the sign of the cross in the USA want abortion to be legal. Millions of people under the sign of the cross in the USA want to make abortion illegal, but it is still true to say that millions of people under the cross in the USA want abortion to be legal.

George Will, in a column he wrote in 1995, gave us the following account of a partial-birth abortion as witnessed by a Dayton Ohio nurse:

`The mother was six months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms - everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby's head just inside the uterus. The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby's brains out.'

The above partial-birth abortion is actually an example of one of the more humane varieties of the various abortion procedures. A stab to the back of a baby's skull is indeed brutal but at least death arrives quite swiftly and there is less pain for the aborted child in a partial birth abortion than in some other types of abortion, types which the Supreme Court has not outlawed, abortions which the American medical profession performs every day with the blessing of the American government.

John Whitehead told us in `The Stealing of America', pp. 57-8, that there are four principal ways to abort a child. After giving the mother chemicals which impair heart function and circulation, the child will either be born dead or close to death. Sharp curettage involves mutilation with a knife. Suction curettage uses a pump which dismembers the child and sucks out his or her body parts in pieces. These latter two methods are generally used during the first trimester. During the second and third trimesters the child is often killed with a saline solution. Mr. Whitehead says the unborn child might feel all the pain that we feel as early as 77 days after conception. When killed via the saline method the child may suffer pain similar to being burned in acid, for the skin of the dead baby resembles skin burned in acid, and intense pain may linger for up to two hours before death arrives.

The Britannica (1963), in its article on human embryology states:

`The heart begins to beat at toward the end of the third week. The voluntary muscles are able to contract in response to external stimuli (touch or pin prick) after the eighth week and spontaneous movements may begin as early as 9 1/2 weeks.'

Approximately 70 million abortions have been performed in America since `Roe v. Wade' (1973).

Arland K. Nichols writes in `New Oxford Review' (Dec, 2010, p. 35),

`A woman eighteen weeks pregnant was lying on the operating table before a young female doctor. By coincidence, the doctor was also eighteen weeks pregnant and would, in a matter of months, welcome her child into the world. Turning to the patient, she dutifully began the surgery that had been scheduled - an abortion. This physician, by means of a popular pro-abortion blog, described the graphic and shocking details of her experience: "I realized that I was more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts when I was done, since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus. I went about doing this procedure as usual...I used electrical suction to remove the amniotic fluid, picked up my forceps and began to remove the fetus in parts, as I always did.

With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick - a fluttery `thump, thump' in my own uterus...There was a leg and a foot in my forceps, and a 'thump, thump' in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body..."...Abortion...is one thing and one thing alone - murder of the most gruesome sort. And yet, this doctor and mother's experience did not hinder her from continuing to dismember and kill not only this one but other innocent, vulnerable, and dependent human beings. She writes, "Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder." To think that this mother continues to directly participate in the murder of innocent children dependent upon the nurturing and loving care of their mothers is perfidious...'

Again, 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29, as everyone knows, says that you drink damnation into your soul if you celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner.

In the USA, those of us who are pro-life are accustomed to immediately welcome pro-choicers who convert to the pro-life side. Obviously most churches give the bread and the wine to pro-choicers, even to doctors who perform abortions. Now suppose you have a serial killer, or a serial rapist, and suppose he is murdering and raping people on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday he says he has repented, well it seems terribly evil to share the bread and the wine on Suday with a psychopath who was raping and murdering people the previous Tuesday. But if a church is giving the bread and the wine on Sunday to people who just stopped killing unborn babies the previous Tuesday, then that's bad enough. But if a church is giving the bread and the wine to people who have not even stopped killing unborn babies then that is terribly evil. So, you might be soldidly pro-life, but if you are in a church which gives communion to pro-choicers, then it stands to reason that you are drinking damnation into your soul, every time you celebrate holy communion, because you are celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner, and you only have to recall 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 to discover the penalty for this.

Look at the born-again Christians, specifically one named Susan Atkins. She was seen as the cruelest of the women in the Manson Family. Sharon Tate was pleading for her life, and pleading for the life of her unborn child, but Susan Atkins refused to give them any mercy: she was intent on stabbing and stabbing and stabbing. That's one account anyway. Susan Atkins later said that she didn't murder Sharon Tate, though she participated in the Manson murders. Well of course she wasn't a born-again Christian when she was murdering people! She became a born-again while in prison. I haven't done much investigating of her bio aside from Wikipedia. Google Images has both some creepy shots of her as well as some where she's sort of photogenic. Born to alchoholic parents. Probably sexually abused by a relative when she was young. If you were her defense attorney you would want to know what drugs she was using before the murders, and you would want to know how these drugs affected her, in an attempt to save her from the gas chamber. Anyway, we have these people who do these terrible evil things, and then they become born-again Christians, like Tex Watson and Susan Atkins etc., and you're left to wonder: Do I celebrate communion in an unworthy manner if I celebrate communion with them? Do I commit mortal sin if I refuse to celebrate communion with them? What do I do? Well, at the minimum, you at least let a few years pass between the time that you share communion with them and the time that they claim they have repented, don't you think? Obviously some will argue that it is always wrong to celebrate holy communion with a Manson family murderer. Perhaps they are right. I don't know. Suppose an abortionist is murdering babies on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday he claims he has seen the light and says has repented and has become a good Christian, so you're asking yourself if you commit a mortal sin if you celebrate holy communion with him on Sunday. Shouldn't you at least let a few months pass?

In our time we see satanic imagery in State Capitols in the USA. It takes no great genius to see that a church celebrates communion in an unworthy manner if it gives the bread and the wine to people who support satanic imagery in the State Capitols. Notice the intersection of religion and politics here. If you are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris etc., you don't want to have to win the Democratic nomination in the summer of 2020 by telling Democrats that Democratic Party favors having satanic images in the State Capitols across the USA. Doing that will come back to haunt the Democratic nominee in the general election, which happens on the 1st Tuesday of November in 2020.

The Democratic Party is a huge conglomeration of Liberal Protestants, Liberals Catholics, Liberal Jews, Liberal Muslims, Liberal Atheists etc., and if a Democrat has to swing far to the left to win the nomination, if he has to say something like: `I support free speech, and when you support free speech then you must accept satanic images in the State Capitols across this great nation of ours,' then this will help the Republicans win in November of 2020. So, while it might not be perfectly obvious at first glance that these Satanists who put their satanic images in State Capitols are friends of the Republicans, well, nevertheless, their actions serve to get Republicans elected. But we are more interested in religion, in attaining heaven and escaping hell, than we are in politics. So, if you are taking holy communion with various Democrats, with people who support satamic images, then, though you might detest satanic imagery, yourself, but nevertheless you are drinking damnation into your soul, because you are taking holy communion with people who do support satanic imagery.

Now if you are drinking damnation into your soul then you are completely delusional if you think you have any sort of Divine Law written on your heart, albeit with a few changes, here and there, you might get the Divine Law written on your heart. If you are delusional when you say you have a Divine Law written on your heart, then perhaps you are also delusional when you claim you know how to avoid sacrilege in regards to the cross and the crucifix.

So, on the one hand, you can see why the cross would be very evil if all of evils perpetrated by people under the sign of the cross over the centuries were reflected in the cross. And if the cross is very evil, and if the cross is the mark of the beast, then you don't want to put the mark of a cross on your forehead, as doing that will result in suffering the torture of eternal hellfire.

But then, on the other hand, if the material cross and the sign of the cross are sacred to God, then you can see why the cross might be this seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, in which case you want the cross on your forehead, because it protects one from the torments described in Revelation 9.

Of course churches such as the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church insist they have always been God's True Church; they insist they have never strayed into satanic heresy; they insist they have always led people to heaven. What becomes especially interesting in the 21st century is that we have millions of people who, in one breath, will tell you that the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, the True Church which leads people to heaven, the True Church which leads no one to perdition, but then these millions will then proceed in one way or another to rebel against the church they claim is God's True Church. If you will always be led to heaven if you obey Church X, but if you might go to hell if you rebel against Church X, such as by rejecting one or more of its official doctrines, then it just seems so insane, so delusional, to rebel against Church X.

2 Thess 2 not only deals with the Antichrist but it also deals with strong delusion. Suppose the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Church which the gates of hell will not prevail against – Matthew 16. 13-19 – then you will go to heaven if you always obey Rome, but you might very well go to hell if you rebel against Rome, against God's True Church. So, if Rome is God's True Church it would be stupid to rebel against Rome such as by refusing to venerate a person Rome has declared to be a saint, and Rome orders people to venerate as saints those people declared by Rome to be saints.

You can spend years on issues pertaining to 1 Corinthians 11. 27. You can spend years or decades going over all the possible ways some church might celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner, and thereby cease to be God's True Church, cease to be the Bride of Christ which leads people to heaven, and instead become a false church which leads people to eternal perdition. Suppose God is on one side of the abortion debate, and suppose the Devil is on the other side. Then if your church gives the bread and the wine to people on the Devil's side, then the reasoning runs that your church celebrates communion in an unworthy manner, and so your church is a false church which leads people to eternal perdition.

Hebrews 8 deals with the Divine Law prophesied in Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Long story short, we Christians are absolutely supposed to have this Divine Law written on our hearts. Some might be comfortable going so far as to say that the people who have the Divine Law written on their hearts are able to teach faith and morals with the authority of the Creator of the Universe. There would be a big discrepancy if millions of Christians insisted they had the Divine Law written on their hearts, but where deluded, and didn't have it written on their hearts. Whenever the subject of religious delusion comes up then 2 Thess 2 springs to mind. St. Paul writes in 2 Thess 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

The Non-Christians say we Christians are suffering under strong delusion because we insist Jesus is God. But we Christians say the non-Christians are suffering under strong delusion because they insist Jesus is a false god.

Christianity is torn with no end of doctrinal strife, torn with no end of factional enmity. If you have the Divine Law written on your heart, and if some other guy claims he has the Divine Law written on his heart, but if he doesn't agree with your version of Christianity, then he must be a satanic liar for claiming he has the Divine Law written on his heart, or so the reasoning runs. Some of Christianity is perfectly simple to understand. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10:

`...Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.'

In Galatians 1. 8-12 St. Paul says he learned his doctrines directly from Christ, and he says even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters these doctrines.

St. Paul's words in Acts 26. 12-18:

'Where as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun...And I said, Who art thou, Lord, and he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But arise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared to thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness...delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God...:

You can't expect any church to be perfect. A church filled with human beings will be imperfect. But how many atrocities can a Church perpetrate before it falls away from the True Faith and ceases to be the True Church?

Suppose a medieval girl wants to marry man X, but her parents lock her away in a nunnery until she agrees to marry man Y, and suppose the church supports the parents not the girl in this matter, does all this mean that the church has become so corrupt that it simply can not be the Church which Christ founded upon a rock? J. C. L. de Sismondi writes of Guelphs and Ghibelines and 13th century Italy in History of the Italian Republics,

`In 1215, a Guelph noble of the upper Vale of the Arno, named Buondelmonte, who had been made a citizen of Florence, demanded in marriage a young person of the Ghibeline house of Amidei, and was accepted. While the nuptials were in preparation, a noble lady of the family Donati stopped Buondelmonte as he passed her door, and, bringing him into the room where her women were at work, raised the veil of her daughter, whose beauty was exquisite. "Here," said she, "is the wife I have reserved for thee. Like thee she is Guelph; whilst thou takest one from the enemies of thy church and race?" Buondelmonte, dazzled and enamoured, instantly accepted the proffered hand. The Amidei looked upon this inconstancy as a deep affront. All the noble Ghibeline families of Florence, about twenty-four in number, met, and agreed that he should atone with his life for the offense. Buondelmonte was attacked on the morning of Easter Sunday, just as he passed the Ponte Vecchio, on horseback, and killed at the foot of the statue of Mars, which still stood there. Forty-two families of the Guelph party met and swore to avenge him; and blood did indeed atone for blood. Every day some new murder, some new battle, alarmed Florence during the space of thirty-three years. These two parties stood opposed to each other within the walls of the same city; and though often reconciled, every little accident renewed their animosity, and they again flew to arms to avenge ancient wrongs.'

I've never come across any evidence saying women and girls in the early Christian Church, in the first three centuries, were bought and sold into marriage. Wasn't there a falling away, a falling away into the old Pagan ways, when people under the sign of the cross began selling their daughters to the highest bidders?

G. G. Coulton's article on Knighthood in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ (1963) includes:

`In its own age chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour;...Far too much has been made of the extent to which the knightly code, and the reverence paid to the Virgin Mary, raised the position of women. As Gautier himself admits, the feudal system made it difficult to separate the woman's person from her fief: lands and women were handed over together, as a business bargain, by parents or guardians. In theory, the knight was the defender of widows and orphans; but in practice wardships and marriages were bought and sold as a matter of everyday routine like stocks and shares in the modern market.'

Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser, in their _A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present_ (HarperCollins, I., p. 363) said that prostitutes in Renaissance Rome who were suspected of swindling their customers were to be gang-raped. The trentuno punishment meant being raped by 33 men. The trentuno reale meant being raped by 69.

Still on this issue of whether the evils perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses are reflected in the cross, whether it is sacrilege to say the cross reflects evil, or whether it is sacrilege to say the cross is sacred to God, Jules Michelet writes in 'The Witch' (translated from the French by A. R. Allinson),

`The Church always granted the judge and the accuser a right to the confiscated property of those condemned for Sorcery. Wherever the Canon Law remains powerful, trials for Witchcraft multiply, and enrich the clergy...A first gleam of light is visible as early as the middle of the fifteenth century, and it emanates from France. The revision of the case against Jeanne d'Arc...A vile Sorceress in the eyes of the English and in those of the wisest Doctors of the council of Bâle, for the French she is a Saint and a divine Sibyl. The rehabilitation of the Maid of Orleans inaugurates in France an era of toleration. The Parlement of Paris likewise rehabilitates the so-called Vauclois of Arras...Not a single condemnation for Sorcery was registered under Charles VIII., Louis XII., or Francies I. Just the opposite in Spain; here under the pious Queen Isabella (1506), under Cardinal Ximenes, they begin burning Witches. Geneva, then governed by its Bishop (1515) burned five hundred in three months...[the Emperor Charles V. attempts to ban confiscation of property] The smaller Prince Bishops, of whose revenues Sorcery supplied a principal source, go on savagely burning all the same. The microscopic Bishop of Bamburg sends six hundred individuals to the stake in one batch, and that of Wurzburg nine hundred! The procedure is of the simplest. To begin with, apply torture to the witnesses, and build up a travesty, a caricature of evidence, by dint of pain and terror. Then drag a confession from the accused by excruciating agonies, and believe this confession against the direct evidence of facts. For instance, a Sorceress confesses she had recently dug up a child's dead body from the churchyard, to use it in her magic compounds. Her husband says, "Go to the churchyard and look; the child is there now." The grave is opened, and the body found intact in its coffin. Yet the judge decides, against the testimony of his own eyes, that it is only an appearance, an illusion of Satan. He credits the woman's confession in preference to the actual fact, - and the poor creature is burned...In the region of the great forests, Lorraine and the Jura, women readily became wolves and devoured travelers, if we are to believe their own accounts...Anyway they were burned. Young girls would solemnly declare that they had sacrificed their maidenhood to the Devil, and on examination be found virgins still. They were burned likewise...The first avowed plea for toleration against the dull-witted Sprenger, his horrible Manual and his persecuting Dominicans, was advanced by a lawyer of Constance, Molitor by name...The gloomy reign of Henry II. and Diane de Poitiers ended the days of toleration...The magistracy, which for nearly a whole century had shown itself just and enlightened, now largely involved in the Catholic Bond of Spain and the fiercely bigoted Ligue, prove themselves more priestly than the priests. While driving the Inquisition out of France, they match it and would fain eclipse it with their own severities. Indeed, they went so far that on a single occasion and single-handed the Parlement of Toulouse burned four hundred human bodies at the stake. Imagine the horror of it; think of the thick, black smoke from all this burning flesh, picture the masses of fat that amid yells and howls melt in horrid deliquescence and pour boiling down the gutters! A vile and sickening sight such as had not been since the broiling and roastings of the Albigensians!...Lorraine was swept by a dreadful contagion, as it were, of Sorcerers and Visionaries. The populace, driven to despair by the everlasting depredations of marching armies and marauding bands, had long ceased to pray to any deity but the Devil. Many villages, in their terror, distracted between two horrors, the Sorcerers on the one side and the judges on the other, longed, if Remy, Judge of Nancy, speaks truth, to quit their lands and all they possessed and fly to another country. In his book dedicated to the Cardinal de Lorraine (1596), he claims positively to have burned within sixteen years eight hundred Sorceresses. "So good is my justice," he says, "that last year there were no less than sixteen killed themselves rather than pass through my hinds."'

Jules Michelet writes in his `La Sorcière' (tran. by A.R. Allinson, Lyle Stuart Inc.),

`It was the very same year that Urbain Grandier was burned, and all France was talking of nothing else but the devils of Loudun...A certain Anne of the Nativity was introduced into the convent...Anne declared she saw the Devil standing stark naked by Madeleine's side. Madeleine swore she had seen Anne at the Witches' Sabbath, along with the Lady Superior, the Mother Delegate, and the Mother of the Novices...Madeleine, condemned without a hearing, is to be degraded, and examined to discover on her body the satanic sign-manual. Her veil and robe are torn off her wretched body...ready to pry into her very vitals to find excuse to send her to the stake. The Sisters would entrust to no hands but their own this cruel search, in itself a terrible punishment. These virgin nuns, in the guise of matrons, verified her condition, whether pregnant or no, then shaved her in every part of her person, and pricking her with needles, driving them deep in the quivering flesh, sought if there was any spot insensible to pain, as the devil's mark is bound to be. But every stab hurt; failing the crowning triumph of proving her a Witch, at any rate they had the satisfaction of gloating over her tears and cries of agony...Beneath a subterranean gallery was a cellar at a lower level still, beneath the cellar a dungeon where the prisoner lay rotting in damp and darkness...She suffered both from pain and from her filthy condition, lying as she did in her own excrements. The perpetual darkness was disturbed by the dreadful scampering of hungry rats, the object of much terror in prisons, as they will sometimes gnaw off the helpless prisoners' noses and ears...She was seized with a heartfelt, wild desire for death. She swallowed spiders, - she merely vomited, without further bad effects...Putting her hand on an old blunt knife, she tried hard to cut her throat, - but could not succeed. Next, choosing a softer place, her belly, she forced the iron into her... For four whole hours she worked, and writhed and bled...She became a woman once more, and alas! desirable still, a temptation for her gaolers, brutal fellows of the Bishop's household, who, in spite of the horrors of the place, the unhealthy and unclean condition of the wretched creature, would come to take their pleasure of her, deeming any outrage permissible on a Witch. An angel came to her succour, so she declared. She defended herself both from men and rats...Witch-burnings are still common everywhere in the eighteenth century. Spain, in a single reign, that of Philip V., burns 1600 persons, even burning a witch as late as 1782...Rome burns still, on the sly, it is true, in the furnaces and cellars of the Inquisition. "But doubtless France at any rate is more humane?" - France is inconsistent. In 1718 a wizard was burned at Bordeaux. I am not here speaking of executions the people carried out on their own account. A hundred years ago, in a village of Provence, an old woman, to whom a landowner refused an alms, flew into a passion and said, "You will be dead to-morrow!" He had a stroke and died. The whole village, - not the poor peasants only, but the most respectable inhabitants, - gathered in a crowd, seized the old woman and put her on a pile of vine-cuttings, where she was burned alive. The Parlement made a pretence of inquiry, but no one was punished. To the present day the people of the village in question are called woman-burners (brulo-fenno) by their neighbors...Lorraine was swept by a dreadful contagion, as it were, of Sorcerers and Visionaries. The populace, driven to despair by the everlasting depredations of marching armies and marauding bands, had long ceased to pray to any deity but the Devil. Many villages, in their terror, distracted between two horrors, the sorcerers on the one side and the judges on the other, longed, if Remy, Judge of Nancy, speaks truth, to quit their lands and all they possessed and fly to another country....A beggar-girl of seventeen, Little Murgin, as she was called (Margarita), who had found in Sorcery a profitable speculation...had been in the habit of bringing children and offering them to the Devil...She both terrified and diverted the judges, twisting them round her little finger and leading them whither she pleased like a pair of dummies. They actually entrusted this vicious, irresponsible, passionate girl with the grim task of searching the bodies of young women and boys for the signs of the spot where Satan had put his mark. The place was recognized by the fact of its being insensible to pain, so that needles could be driven into it without extracting a cry from the victim. A surgeon tortured the old women, Margarita the younger ones, who were called as witnesses...An odious consummation truly, - that this brazen-bowed creature, thus made absolute mistress of the fate and fortune of these unhappy beings, should go pricking them with needles at her pleasure, and might adjudge, if such were her caprice, any one of their bleeding bodies to a cruel death!...Denunciations came pouring down like hail. All the women of the countryside came filing in unceasingly to lay accusations one against the other. Eventually the very children were brought and made to give incriminating evidence against their own mothers.'

Thomas Lindsey in his 'A History of the Reformation' (Books for Libraries Press, 1972) writes of Charles V. and the persecution of the Anabaptists:

`They had been tortured on the rack, scourged, imprisoned in dungeons, roasted to death before slow fires, and had seen their women drowned, buried alive, pressed into coffins too small for their bodies till their ribs were broken, others stamped into them by the feet of the executioners. Is it to be wondered at that those who stood firm sometimes gave way to hysterical excesses; that their leaders began to preach another creed than that of passive resistance; that wild apocalyptic visions were reported and believed?...The insurrections were made the pretext for still fiercer persecutions. The Anabaptists were hunted out, tortured and slain...It is alleged that over thirty thousand people were put to death in the Netherlands during the reign of Charles V.'

Roland H. Bainton writes in his `The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century' (Beacon Press):

`And the Anabaptists did become numerous...Every member of the group was regarded as a missionary. Men and women left their homes to go on evangelistic tours. The established churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, were aghast at these ministers of both sexes insinuating themselves into town and farm. In 1529 the imperial meeting at Speyer declared with the concurrence alike of Catholics and Lutherans that the death penalty should be inflicted upon the Anabaptists. Menno Simons, one of their later leaders, reported the outcome: "Some they have executed by hanging, some they have tortured with inhuman cruelty...Some they roasted and burned alive...They must flee with their wives and little children from one country to another, from one city to another. They are hated, abused, slandered and lied about by all men."'

Gibbon said he was more scandalized by Calvin's participation in the burning of Michael Servetus (Calvin wanted him executed not burned alive; but other Calvinists burned him alive over a slow fire for denying the Trinity) than he was by all the hecatombs of the Inquisition. Calvin and Luther had determined that the sins of Rome had become so vile that Rome simply had to be the church of the Devil - she had to be this whore of Babylon mentioned in Revelation. One would think the Lutherans and Calvinists would have recalled that Christ and His apostles did not use the rack and the stake and the hangman's rope to compel obedience to the Gospel. One would think the Lutherans and Calvinists would not have repeated the errors of Rome and the Inquisition by descending into barbarous cruelty. But such was not the case. So barbaric was the 16th century that even the reformers were barbarians!

If the material cross is evil: if the evils perpetrated by people under the sign of the cross are reflected in material crosses and the sign of the cross, then one should recall the eternal hellfire mentioned in Revelation 14. 11 inflicted on to those who have the evil mark of the beast on their foreheads or right hands --`and the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever.'

If the sign of the cross and material crosses are sacred to God, then one should recall Revelation 9. 1-11,

`Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. And to him was given the key to the bottomless pit...They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man...And they have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abbaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.'

Those of us who are Christians are driven by some very powerful logic, and it runs as follows: if you are a True Christian, if you really are a person with the Divine Law written on your heart - Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Matthew 26. 28 etc. - if you really are in the True Church - Matthew 16. 13-19, John 15. 6, Ephesians 4.4 etc. - then you will know how to teach the truth about the sign of the cross. You will know how to correct those who commit sacrilege. If you don't know how to correct people who are guilty of sacrilege, if you don't even know how to avoid the sin of sacrilege yourself, then you have certainly fallen away from the True Faith, and you are on the road to eternal perdition.

Lecky told us that the first Christians, Jews abiding in the Holy Land, employed the outline of a fish as their symbol, certainly not the cross, not a representation of a pagan instrument of torture and execution.

Christ stated in Mark 8: 34-5,

`Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For who ever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it.'

This means one must never renounce the True Faith, and one must be prepared to suffer a cruel martyrdom, such as by crucifixion, if one wishes to attain eternal life. Does it also mean that material crosses and the sign of the cross are sacred to God?

Does it make any sense to say that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sees a pagan instrument of torture and murder, a cross, or a representation of that instrument, as something sacred? Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 are quite clear in indicating that the `cross of Christ' is sacred. But this can be interpreted as meaning that Christ's sacrifice on a cross is sacred - the cross itself – the pagan instrument of torture - and representations of that instrument – crosses - are not sacred.

If there is at least one church under the sign of the cross which leads people to heaven, and not to perdition, because this church has not fallen away from the True Faith, because it is indeed God's True Church, then we can trust this church when it says the cross is sacred. But if every church under the sign of the cross leads people to perdition, because every church under the sign of the cross has fallen away from the True Faith, and not one of them is God's True Church, then there is something satanic about every church under the sign of the cross, though even in this scenario one could say this doesn't prove the cross is evil, it just proves that every church under the cross is evil.

When you look at the Roman Catholic Church you find no end of people who we call Cafeteria Catholics – they select certain doctrines from Rome but they reject other doctrines. It resembles dining in a cafeteria. If you are in a Cafeteria then you walk down a line with a tray and you select some food items but you reject others. The Roman Catholic Churches serves up doctrines and says these doctrines are true and they lead people to heaven. The Cafeteria Catholics tell Rome: we'll accept some of your doctrines but we will reject others.

The Cafeteria Catholics seem to be oblivious to common sense. I mean, if the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven, if the Roman Catholic Church has not fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome is indeed God's True Church, then it is lunacy to be a Cafeteria Catholic. You can not lose if you always obey Rome, if you accept 100% of the doctrines offered up by Rome, provided The Church of Rome is God's True Church. But you might be shipped off to hell if you rebel against Rome / True Church, such as by being a Cafeteria Catholic. That's Case 1. Case 1 says Rome is God's True Church and so Rome leads people to heaven.

Case 2 says Rome leads people to perdition, because Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, because Rome is a false church, and false churches drag people down to eternal perdition – that's just what false churches do. Rome is a false church because Rome simply isn't God's True Church. Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. This is Case 2.

Case 1 says Rome is God's True Church and says you are foolish to ever rebel against God's True Church, as the Cafeteria Catholics do.

Case 2 says Rome is a false church which leads people to eternal perdition. So, if Case 2 is true then it makes no sense to be any sort of Roman Catholic. It makes no sense to be a Good Catholic if Case 2 is true. And it makes no sense to be a Cafeteria Catholic if Case 2 is true.

So, in every scenario, in both Case 1 and Case 2, it makes no sense to be a Cafeteria Catholic. And yet the world is full of crazy delusional Cafeteria Catholics. There are hundreds of millions of these people.

If Rome can be trusted on the sign of the cross, because Rome leads people to heaven, because Rome has not fallen away from the True Faith, because the Church of Rome is God's True Church, then why do we have these Presidents and Prime Ministers and Supreme Courts and Parliaments and Senates? We don't need these manifestations of rebellion against God's True Church, if indeed the Church of Rome is God's True Church! We don't need any rebellious organizations which drag souls down to perdition! If Rome is God's True Church, then Rome is the only government we need.

But, on the other hand, if Rome leads people to perdition, if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome is not God's True Church, then it is not very sensible to say that the Church of Rome is the only government that we require.

We read Jesus' words in the Matthew 24: 30,

`Therefore when you see the "abomination of desolation," spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place' (whoever reads, let him understand), `then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains...Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.'

The Catholic Church has for many centuries asserted that this sign of the Son of Man which will appear in heaven is none other than the sign of the cross. In George Brantl's `Catholicism' we read, p. 238, that St. Cyril of Jerusalem has declared, lest hostile powers dare counterfeit it, the sign of the cross is this very sign of the Son of Man. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church take very clear and strong stands in favor of the sign of the cross. Catechism of the Catholic Church, in Paragraph 2148, indicates that it is blasphemy to state that the cross is a symbol of corruption. Paragraph 1182 states that the Lord's Cross is the altar of the New Covenant. Paragraph 1235 tells of the sign of the cross marking the baptized Catholic as one belonging to Christ. Paragraph 2157 informs one that the Christian is to begin his day, prayers and activities with the Sign of the Cross. The sign of the cross is also said to strengthen one in his trials and temptations. Catholic tradition has the Bishop making the sign of the cross over the forehead of the one being confirmed in the Catholic Church. `The Catholic Encyclopedia' (edited by Robert Broderick, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1987, p. 553) states that as many times that the devout make the sign of the cross they are granted an indulgence of three years; making the sign of the cross with blessed water may secure oneself an indulgence of seven years.

Gibbon narrates,

`Ninety thousand Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism; the fortunes of the obstinate infidels were confiscated; their bodies were tortured...Their frequent relapses provoked one of the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his dominions...But the tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they delighted to torture...The Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition.'

Jules Michelet writes in his 'History of France,'

`Every one set the red cross upon his shoulder; every red garment, every piece of red cloth, was torn up for that purpose. Who could enumerate the children and the old women who prepared for war? Who could reckon up the virgins, and the old men trembling under the load of years? You would have laughed to see poor men shoeing their oxen like horses, and drawing their slender stock of provisions and their little children in cars, and these little ones, at every town or castle they perceived, asking in their simplicity, `Is not that Jerusalem?'...Amongst so many thousands of men, there were not eight horses...the whole combined body descended the valley of the Danube, Attila's route, the great thoroughfare of the human race. They lived by pillage upon the way, paying themselves beforehand for their holy war. All the Jews they could lay hold on they tortured to death, deeming it their duty to punish the murderers of Christ before they rescued his tomb. Thus, they arrived ferocious, drenched with gore, in Hungary and the Greek Empire...At last, after the crusaders had for eight days marched barefooted round the walls of Jerusalem [recall Jericho] the whole army began the assault...on Friday the 15th of July, 1099, at 3 o'clock on the day, and at the very hour of the Passion, Godefroy de Bouillon descended from his tower upon the walls of Jerusalem. The city being taken, the massacre was frightful...The native Christians had suffered the most cruel treatment at the hands of the infidels during the siege...The crusaders...in the blind fervor of their zeal, thought that in every infidel they met in Jerusalem, they smote one of the murderers of Jesus Christ...Six hundred thousand men had taken the cross; they were but 25,000 when they left Antioch; and when they had taken the holy city, Godefroy remained to defend it with 300 knights. There were a few more at Tripoli with Raymond, at Edessa with Beaudoin, and at Antioch with Bohemond. Ten thousand men beheld Europe again; what became of the rest? It was easy to find their traces; they were visible through Hungary, the Greek Empire, and Asia, along a road white with bones.'

Savanarola, who was tortured and burned by Rome, saw in his visions a huge black cross rising from Rome and inscribed with the words `The Cross of God's Anger.' He saw also a mighty gold cross, bathed in sunlight, ascending into the sky over Jerusalem - see Christopher Hibbert's The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, p. 165.

In `The Jews in the Medieval World: A Source Book: 315-1791' (Revised edition, 1999, pp. 10-12, Hebrew Union College Press), Jacob Rader Markus described for us the Ecclesiastical History by Salamanius Hermias Sozomenus (c. 443-450). This author was a native of Palestine who drew his account of the attempted rebuilding of the Jewish Temple from the testimony of eye-witnesses. An earthquake first hindered Julian the Apostate's laborers, and when fireballs arose from the earth and further prevented these laborers from rebuilding the Temple, the sign of the cross miraculously appeared on the clothing of these workmen. Julian, by trying to rebuild the Temple was attempting to refute Christ's prophecy, saying that Jerusalem would be trampled by the Gentiles until God decided the time of the Gentiles was fulfilled. Christ states in Luke 21. 20-24,

`But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you know its destruction is near...And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.'

In any event, the most famous of these sorts of supernatural incidents involving the cross was Constantine's vision, when, before a great battle, a battle which he won, and which gave him command of the Roman Empire, he saw a cross in the sky along with the words _In hoc signo vincas_ (Conquer by this sign). Christ is also said to have appeared in a dream which Constantine later had, and confirmed that he would be victorious (`The Civilization of Rome', Donald R. Dudley, Mentor, 1962, p. 215).

We find in Dr. Littledale's `Plain Reasons Against Joining the Church of Rome',

`The following quotations are from the greatest of all Roman theological works, the "Summa" of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which the present Pope Leo XIII., in a recent encyclical, has ordered the teaching of the schools of religious philosophy to be strictly conformed: "The same reverence should be displayed towards an image of Christ and towards Christ Himself, and seeing that Christ is adored with the adoration of latria (i. e., supreme religious worship), it follows that His image is to be adored with the adoration of latria...The Cross is adored with the same adoration as Christ, that is, with the adoration of latria, and for that reason we address and supplicate the Cross just as we do the Crucified Himself."...And if we inquire into the "unanimous consent of the Fathers" as to images, we find them expressly condemned by the following, without mentioning those whose entire silence implies their ignorance of any such use. St. Irenaeus (A. D. 120-190) mentions the use of images of Christ, with religious honour done to them, as a peculiarity of the Carpocratian heretics, distinguishing them from Catholic Christians ("Adv. Haer." i. 25.) Minucius Felix (A. D. 220): "Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You (heathens), who consecrate wooden gods, do worship wooden crosses, perhaps as parts of your gods; for your standards, as well as your banners and ensigns of your camp, what are they but crosses gilt and decked?" -("Octavius," xxix) Origen (A. D. 230): "We say that those are the most untaught who are not ashamed to address lifeless objects...and though some may say these objects are not their gods, but imitations and symbols of real ones, nevertheless they are untaught, and slavish, and ignorant..." Lactantius (A. D. 300) "It is indisputable that wherever there is an image there is no religion. For if religion consist of divine things, and there be nothing divine except in heavenly things; it follows that images are outside of religion, because there can be nothing heavenly in what is made from the earth...there is no religion in images, but a mimicry of religion." ("Div. Inst." ii. 19.) Fathers of the Council of Elvira (A. D. 306): "It has been decreed that there ought not to be pictures in churches, lest what is worshipped and adored be painted on the walls." (Canon XXXVI.)...St. Epiphanius (A. D. 370), in a letter preserved in St. Jerome's translation, tells how he found a painting of Christ on a curtain in a church at Anablatha, and tore it up, as "contrary to the authority of the Scriptures and contrary to our religion." (St. Hieron. Epist. 51.) St. Ambrose (A. D. 370), writing of the alleged finding of the true Cross by St. Helen, says: "She therefore found the title; she adored the King -truly not the wood, for this is a heathen error, and the vanity of the ungodly, but she adored Him who hung on the wood." ("De Obit. Theodos.") Compare this with the Good Friday Office for the adoration of the Cross in the Roman Missal, with its rubrics: "The priest, taking off his shoes, advances to adore the Cross, genuflecting thrice before he kisses it...Later on an antiphon is sung, beginning, `We adore Thy Cross, O Lord."...St. Augustine. "Confounded be all they that serve graven images"...it is plain that down to St. Augustine's death in A. D. 430 there was no devotional use of pictures and images lawful amongst Christians. He does say in one place: `I know of many who are worshippers of tombs and pictures;' but adds, that `the Catholic Church condemns them, and daily strives to correct them, as evil children.' -"De Mor. Eccl." I. xxxiv. 75, 76).'

One never reads of Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel etc., worshipping images of God. The New Testament certainly never depicts the apostles worshipping or venerating images of Christ. We never read in the New Testament of Christians venerating each other as saints! We never read of Christians making the sign of the cross, or directing any prayers to any saints or to any images of any saints.

Of course Christianity promises a beautiful heaven to good Christians and of course Christianity has its hellfire scriptures. John 15. 6 says those who do not abide in Jesus are like sticks tossed into the flames. 2 Thess 1. 8 says fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Revelation 20. 12-15 says you go to heaven if your name is founded written in the Book of Life, but if your name is not found written in the Book of Life then you get tossed into a lake of fire.

§ 3. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

One doesn't want to crush anyones hopes for heaven by convincing them they have committed an unforgiveable sin in blaspheming the Holy Spirit, especially if they have not quite committed an unforgiveable sin, though they are perilously close to doing so. But, nevertheless, one must explain to people why one must not say or imply the Holy Spirit guides churches which perpetrate evil for century after century. It is a very simple matter to present evidence which proves the Roman Catholic Church has perpetrated evil for century after century. Rome claims to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Isn't it blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to say the Holy Spirit guides a church which has perpetrated evil for century after century? I don't want to persuade anyone they are damned no matter what they do, because they have committed an unforgiveable sin, but on the other hand, if it is obvious that a church has perpetrated evil for century after century, and then if someone says the Holy Spirit has guided this church for century after century...

The Jewish Encyclopedia,

`CAPISTRANO, JOHN OF: Franciscan monk; born at Capistrano, Italy, 1386; died 1456. Owing to his remarkable power as a popular preacher, he was sent by Pope Nicholas V. (1447-55) as legate to Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, with the special mission to preach against the Hussites...Knowing how easy it is to excite the masses by appealing to their prejudices, Capistrano, in his discourses, accused the Jews of killing Christian children and of desecrating the host...His admirers called him the "scourge of the Judeans"...In Silesia the Franciscan was most zealous in his work. When Capistrano arrived at Breslau, a report was circulated that one Meyer, a wealthy Jew, had bought a host from a peasant and desecrated it. Thereupon the local authorities arrested the representatives of the Breslau Jewish community and confiscated their houses and property for the benefit of the city. The investigation of the so-called blasphemy was conducted by Capistrano himself. By means of tortures he managed to wring from a few of the victims false confessions of the crimes ascribed to them. As a result, more than forty Jews were burned at the stake in Breslau June 2, 1453. Others, fearing torture, committed suicide, a rabbi, Pinheas, hanged himself. The remainder of the Jews were driven out of the city, while their children of tender age were taken from them and baptized by force. In Poland Capistrano found an ally in the archbishop Zbigniev Olesniczki, who urged Casimir IV. Jagellon to abolish the privileges which had been granted to the Jews in 1447...This led to persecutions of the Jews in many Polish towns. Capistrano was canonized in 1690.'

The Roman Catholic Church says you are a blasphemer if you use abusive language against anyone Rome has canonized, that is, formally declared to be a saint. Rome says all good Christians must venerate those whom Rome has canonized.

We have a Case 1 and a Case 2.

Case 1 says the Church of Rome leads people to heaven because Rome is God's True Church: the gates of hell have not prevailed against Rome, so Rome leads people to heaven and leads no one to perdition. Rome can make mistakes, but Rome never makes the mistake of leading anyone to perdition – Rome always leads people to heaven. Therefore it is crazy to ever rebel against any of Rome's official doctrines. It is idiotic to refuse to venerate Capistrano as a saint. You can't lose, you see, you can not be shipped off to hell, if you could just have enough sense to always obey Rome, God's True Church. But you might certainly be shipped off to hell if you rebel against God's True Church, such as by refusing to venerate Capistrano as a saint. One is under the power of Satan if one rebels against God's True Church, the Roman Catholic Church. It is evil for kings, presidents, parliaments, congresses, supreme courts etc., etc., to ever rebel against the Church of Rome, because the Church of Rome is God's True Church, and you will go to hell if you rebel against God's True Church. That's Case 1.
Case 2 says the following. Rome leads people away from heaven and straight to perdition because the Roman Catholic Church is simply not God's True Church, is simply not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. The gates of hell have prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church. Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, and therefore Rome is a false church. Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and therefore Rome leads people away from heaven and to perdition. Recall the `falling away' in 2 Thess 2. The Church of Rome has fallen away from the True Faith and leads people away from heaven and to perdition – therefore Rome is evil, fallen, corrupt, satanic etc., etc. You're thoroughly deluded, and your soul will go to perdition, if you can not understand that you need to renounce the false, fallen, corrupt, evil Roman Catholic Church, and that you need to look elsewhere for God's True Church. That's Case 2.

You can articulate the same 2 arguments for any church which aspires to be God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, Matthew 16. 13-19.

Of course of course you can have the 100% correct perspective on the sign of the cross, with no blasphemy or sacrilege from you on this issue, and still end up in hell.

There are lots of ways that you can end up in hell.

John 6. 53-55 tells us that you must take communion in order to attain heaven and escape perdition. And in 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 St. Paul tells us that you drink damnation into your soul if you celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. This is where Christianity becomes very complex. It is just often not clear at all what is an unworthy manner and what isn't! What do you do with men who molest little kids but then claim they have repented? Do you give them the bread and the wine after a few years? Do you keep them excommunicated forever? What do you do with abortionists? How long do you keep various criminals excommunicated after they claim they have repented? Of course most churches under the sign of the cross, in 2020, give the bread and the wine to anyone who wants to partake: to pro-choicers, Sabbath violators, to people whyyo take God's name in vain etc. The people in these churches don't seem to care that they are drinking damnation into their souls. So many of these people think you only need to read John 3. 16, and then you are transformed into a saint irrevocably destined for heaven.

In the first 3 centuries of Christianity Christians were generally non-violent. But beginning in the 4th century, the typical Christian might not have been a murderous thug, but he celebrated holy communion with people who were murderous thugs. The early Christians, who were poor people, and slaves, managed to convert the ruling class of the Roman Empire to Christianity in the 4th century. The problem is this ruling class remained evil and selfish and cruel. This ruling class was intent on remaining the ruling class, even after their conversion to Christianity. And cruelty and oppression and anti-Christian methods are the means by which a ruling class remains a ruling class: so their conversion was a sham, it was just a big lie, it was not a legit conversion to Christianity. In our time a person can grow rich by industry and by sensibly saving his wages. But in the old days the only way one could become rich, and then remain rich, was by aligning yourself with an aristocracy which employed a huge army, a huge army which was used by the rich to keep the rich in luxury and comfort, and keep the poor laboring away as serfs and slaves in order to enable the rich to live in luxury and comfort.

Over the centuries, people who might be called ordinary Christians, celebrated holy communion with evil Christians. Again, 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 says you drink damnation into your soul if you celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. So, if you are celebrating communion with people who make no secret that they are evil, you are celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner, and so you drink damnation into your soul.

You might be saying Christianity is too complex to ever be written on human hearts. Or you might be saying there is no God. And you might be saying that Christianity is a big lie. Or you might be saying that God exists but you might also be saying that it is a blasphemy to say that Jesus is God, as you might be a Muslim, or you might be Jewish, and you might be recalling Malachi 4. 1, insisting that the True God will set on fire all of us wicked Christians who commit wicked blasphemy by insisting that Jesus is God. The scriptures which say that Jesus is God include Matthew 1. 23, John 1. 1-14, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16. The Old Testament scripture of Psalm 2 implies the Son is God, on the logic that since the Father is God, and since the Son is begotten of the Father, then the Son must also be God. Isaiah 9. 6 is more emphatic than Psalm 2 in declaring that the Son is God.

You'll notice that in attempting to paraphrase Christianity that while John 3. 16 is short and concise, John 3. 16, all by itself, is a terribly inadequate paraphrase of Christianity. John 3. 16 gives us no guidance on the issue of Jesus being God, which is the most important issue in Christianity. 1 Peter 5. 7-8 tells us to cast all of our cares and anxiety on God, and it tells us, in so many words, that we have a lot to be anxious about, because that scripture says the Devil walks round like roaring lion looking to devour people. So, there is quite a bit of important info packed into 1 Peter 5. 7-8, but you still wouldn't say that 1 Peter 5. 7-8, all by itself, is an adequate paraphrase of Christianity. Galatians 1. 8-12 tells us St. Paul learned his doctrine directly from Christ and even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters this doctrine. So, that's rather eye-opening. Don't contradict St. Paul! The scriptures which tell slaves to obey their masters and the scriptures which say women are not to have authority over men will require some explaining. Christianity is easy to paraphrase in some ways. St. Paul wanted slaves to obey their masters. Notice how the enemies of Christianity might try to use this teaching from St. Paul to discredit Christianity.

The defenders of Christianity merely have to say that St. Paul was addressing Christian slaves of the Roman Empire. If slaves in the Roman Empire revolted they most likely would have been tortured to death. If she escapes capture a fugitive female slave might support herself as a prostitute. That's no profession for a Christian. An escaped male slave might become a gladiator or join the Roman army, again those are not professions for a Christian. There were very few honest jobs available for escaped slaves in the Roman Empire. Nearly all labor was done by slaves. St. Paul could only advise Christian slaves to live like good Christians, and accept their chains, and they will attain heaven in the afterlife. St. Paul didn't want women to have authority over men. How does a Christian defend this teaching? If a Christian woman in the Roman Empire inherited an estate from her late husband, St. Paul never said her male slaves had a right to launch a rebellion against her. St. Paul never told Christians to rebel against Queens.

In various prophesies St. Paul looks into the future and sees that Christianity will be corrupted. Note Acts 20. 29-31, 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15 and 1 Timothy 4. 1-3. Perhaps one of the unstated reasons St. Paul wanted to keep women out of the clergy was because he knew the clergy would become corrupt, and would fall into heresy, and therefore the corrupt clergy would lead people away from heaven and to perdition. As women are the main defenders of children, it makes perfect sense to keep women out of the clergy, especially if the clergy is going to become corrupt. Women today are presented with two options, 1) The gates of hell have not prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church. The male-only clergy of the Roman Catholic Church has not fallen into heresy, and so these clergymen lead souls to heaven, or 2) The gates of hell have prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church. The male-only clergy of the Roman Catholic Church is corrupt and has fallen into heresy. The Roman Catholic Church leads people straight to perdition. So, in Case 1, where the gates of hell have not prevailed against Rome, there is no reason for women to complain against Rome. Just obey Rome and you will go to heaven! Nothing to complain about here. But if Case 2 is true, if the gates of hell have prevailed against Rome, why would any sensible woman want to be a priestess in a fallen church which leads people to perdition?

The same logic applies to any Church with a male-only clergy. If Church X has a male-only clergy, and if Church X leads people to heaven, then just obey Church X and you will go to heaven. That's a good deal for you, going to heaven and not going to hell. There's nothing to complain about here. Of course if a church with a male-only clergy leads people to perdition and not to heaven, then a woman would have to be a crazy woman to want to be a priestess in that worthless church. Popes and Protestants gave their blessing to the African slave trade. The following is from `Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829,' Pocket University - Doubleday, written by Robert Walsh, an Irish clergyman active in the English Society for the Abolition of Slavery:

"She was a very broad-decked ship, with a mainmast, schooner-rigged, and behind her foremast was that large formidable gun, which turned on a broad circle of iron, on deck, and which enabled her to act as a pirate, if her slaving speculation had failed. She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males, and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty-five. The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways, between decks. The space was so low, that they sat between each other's legs, and stowed so close together, that there was no possibility of lying down, or at all changing their position, by night or day. As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded, like sheep, with their owners' marks of different forms...These were impressed under their breasts, or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference...`burnt with the red-hot iron.' Over the hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow, with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave- driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them, and seemed eager to exercise it...But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly, was, how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram...The heat of these horrid places was so great, and the odour so offensive, that it was quite impossible to enter them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water...the poor beings were all turned up together...517 fellow-creatures of all ages and sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste the luxury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up, like bees from the aperture of a hive, till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation, from stem to stern...On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying nearly in a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand.

After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs toward it. No entreaties, or threats, or blows, could restrain them; they shrieked, and struggled, and fought with one another, for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it...On one occasion, a ship from Bahia neglected to change the contents of the casks, and on the mid-passage found, to their horror, that they were filled with nothing but salt water. All the slaves on board perished!...When the poor creatures were ordered down again, several of them came, and pressed their heads against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect of returning to the horrid place of suffering below. It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life, in their short passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May, and had been out but seventeen days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other complaints, in that space of time, though they left the coast in good health...It was dark when we separated, and the last parting sounds we heard from the unhallowed ship, were the cries and the shrieks of the slaves."

So, you see, a Pope or a Protestant might say `the New Testament supports slavery, therefore, there is nothing evil or anti-Christian with the African Slave Trade!' But one has to be able to make key distinctions. The ancient Roman Empire was a huge slave empire run by pagans. The apostles didn't tell Christians to launch raids to capture and enslave people. The apostles were faced with 2 alternatives: 1) They could advise slaves to rebel against their masters, in which case they would be tortured to death, or 2) They could advise slaves to endure their chains and look to the afterlife.

Lots of Popes and Emperors and other Christians in the Dark Ages knew that it was evil for Christians to launch raids to capture and enslave people, but this changed in the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, when Christians fell into lazy and evil thinking, where they reasoned that since parts of the Bible appear to support slavery then it must be Pro-Christian to enslave Africans, and it must be Anti-Christian to oppose enslaving Africans.

Generally it is very bad form to repeat yourself in a history book. If you write on page 15 that Elizabeth I. was Anne Boleyn's daughter, and Mary I. was Katherine of Aragon's daughter and Edward VI. was Jane Seymour's son, and then if you repeat all of this info on p. 55, and repeat it again on p. 245, and repeat it again on p. 457, and again on p. 1001 etc., then your writing is all wrong, at least all wrong stylistically if not factually. But in reading a book which is mostly about religion you have to expect some repetition. Take a scripture like Revelation 22. 18-19. It mentions curses put on those who add to or subtract from the Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation says that the dead, both the saints and the damned, sleep until the Last Judgment, and the Last Judgment transpires far in the future – after the Great Tribulation, after the Second Coming, after the Millennium. The Roman Catholic Church insists that the soul of a saint goes immediately to heaven and into the presence of God upon death.

And one is always hearing Protestants say that so-and-so is now in heaven. But Revelation 22. 18-19 tells of curses on those who corrupt the Book of Revelation, so if you are saying that someone is in heaven, when the Book of Revelation is very clear in saying that they are sleeping and are awaiting judgment at the Last Judgment, then you are corrupting the Book of Revelation, and Revelation 22. 18-19 specifically mentions curses on those who corrupt the Book of Revelation!

Lots of Protestants will insist that when you're saved then you're saved, and if you try to tell them that they have to celebrate communion in a worthy manner, and they can't violate the Sabbath and expect to go to heaven, they look at you as if you're preaching satanic theology. Lots of Protestants seem to think that once you profess what is written in John 3. 16 then you're saved and nothing aside from renouncing Christ can ever prevent you from being saved. But look what is written in Matthew 25. 31-46, 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29, 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10, Revelation 20. 12-15, Luke 16. 19-31.... To my mind it seems that if you mention Revelation 22. 18-19 only once in huge book, then readers will have a tendency to completely forget what it says, so there's a tendency on my part to repeat info over and over; there's a big tendency towards indoctrination. I don't know how many times I repeat in this volume scriptures like Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Matthew 16. 13-19, 2 Thess 2, Acts 26. 13-18, Galatians 1. 8-12, 1 Timothy 4. 1-3...

John 14. 23-26: Those who love Jesus keep His words, those who don't love Christ don't keep His words. So, if you love Christ you will not reject what Christ said in Matthew 16. 13-19,

`When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the son of Man, am? So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'

Matthew 16. 13-19 tells us that Jesus founded one Church - not two or three or four Churches - but, one Church, the True Church.

As we know, Jesus says in John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

If one abides in Christ then one is in the True Church. If one does not abide in Christ then one is not in the True Church.

Revelation 20. 12-15,

`And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the _Book of Life_. And the dead were judged according to their works the things written in the books...And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.'

Those who have their names written in the Book of Life are members of the True Church. Those who are cast into the lake of fire are not members of the True Church. So this is simple stuff.

The True Church is not a cathedral or any sort of building. It is a collection of people, a collection of saints, who teach doctrines which lead souls to heaven, and who do not teach a single doctrine which leads souls to perdition.

The saints in the True Church are not perfect and sinless. Only God is perfect. And the True Church can teach errors. The key attribute of the True Church is that she leads souls to heaven and she does not lead anyone to perdition. Whatever mistakes the True Church makes are minor – or at least these mistakes don't lead anyone to perdition. If a church leads souls to perdition then it can not be the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

As we saw earlier, St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4. 4-6

`There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'

In St. Paul's terminology this phrase - `there is one body' - means there is only one True Church. Note Ephesians 5. 30, where St. Paul says of the Church and Christ,

`For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.'

Matthew 7. 13-16 indicates the True Church is rather exclusive,

`Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits...'

Abram Leon Sachar, a former president of Brandeis University, wrote in A History of the Jews (Knopf, 1960):

`This time the villain of the piece is the papal legate John of Capistrano, a Franciscan monk whose persecuting zeal earne him the unenviable title of "Scourge of the Jews."...Wherever he went, thousands...were carried away by his immense sincerity, his ferocious energy. Riots were common in Germany and Slavic lands after his tongue had lashed heretics and Jews...In Breslau a Bernadine chapel was built with Jewish money after nearly the whole community had been burnt alive for blasphemy...So went the tale of woe decade after decade, endlessly. Four hundred years had now passed since the hideous nightmare had begun. Hounded by successions of crusaders...Even sunny Spain was beginning to use the thumb-screw and the torch...Jews turned to their Bibles and prayer-books, scanning the tear-stained pages in vain for the consolation which the living world denied them...While France and England, Germany and Austria ransacked chambers of horror to discover new torments...In Seville several thousand were butchered...The riots spread like a plague...About seventy cities of Old Castile were thus devastated and a trail of broken homes and broken hearts was left in the wake of the bloody hooligans...The fertile province of Valencia, the prosperous seaport of Barcelona, even the islands off the coast of Spain, were all swept by the ferocity of the persecutors. After three months the orgy ended, with thousands of Jewish lives snuffed out and tens of thousands of forced baptisms.'

Recall the logic: the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven, it is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome is God's True Church. But if the True God / True Jesus says Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition, then the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of an evil lie.

So, the Eastern Orthodox crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says the Eastern Orthodox Church leads people to heaven because the Eastern Orthodox Church is God's True Church. But if the True God / True Jesus says the Eastern Orthodox Church is a false church which leads people to perdition, then the Eastern Orthodox crucifix is the image of a false version of Jesus, it is the image of a lie.

And why might one think the Eastern Orthodox Church is not God's True Church? Have centuries upon centuries of people in the Eastern Orthodox Church been celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner? Have they been drinking damnation into their souls? Has the Eastern Orthodox Church been giving the bread and the wine to evil people?

Turning to the Eastern Orthodox Church, Benson Bobrick writes in `Fearful Majesty: The Life and Reign of Ivan the Terrible' (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1987),

`[In Russia under the Russian Orthodox Church] Counterfeiters had molten lead poured down their throats. Those found guilty of sacrilege were torn to pieces with iron hooks...Ivan stepped out of the shadows of his long minority and had Andrey Shuisky thrown to the dogs...At the age of twelve he began torturing animals for fun, and dropped dogs off the Kremlin battlements "to observe their pain and convulsions." At fourteen, he gathered about him a gang of teenage thugs...and not unlike the Emperor Nero...he roamed the streets and squares of Moscow...He stressed social `justice,' but something of the primitive intelligence he brought to the matter may be glimpsed in a refinement he proposed for judicial duels: "Let the litigants be left, unarmed and naked, in a dungeon where a single razor is hidden. Whoever finds the razor wins the duel, and has the right to butcher his opponent on the spot...To staff his new court and administration and (as was soon apparent) to enforce the expropriation of land, Ivan assembled a sort of Praetorian Guard. Weirdly foreshadowing Hitler's SS, these Oprichniki, as they were called, donned black uniforms, displayed enigmatic or morbid insignia...Whereas the SS sported a death's head badge and runic double-S flash, the Oprichniki rode on black horses and carried at their saddlebrow a dog's head and broom as symbols of their determination to guard, day and night, the safety of their master and to sweep away his enemies...Torture, once an instrument of the code, began to dominate it; hearsay permitted a judge "to begin to pull a person's joints out and break his bones, to lacerate his body with the knout and burn him with fire"...Another prince, impaled on a stake "which came out at his naeck, languished in horrible paine for fifteen hours, and spake unto his mother brought to behold that woefull sight...the Emperor saying, `such as I favour I have honoured, and such as be treytors will I have thus done unto'"...During the meal, Ivan stood and read occasionally from the lives of the saints...Not infrequently...he would descend into the dungeons to observe acts of torture. "Blood often splashes his face,' goes one eyewitness account...he occasionally convened the brethren for an orgy...Ivan embarked on the most infamous atrocity of his reign...On January 2, 1570, Ivan came within sight of Novgorod...Some 400 prominent citizens - boyars, courtiers, abbots, officials, and merchants - were hauled off to Gorodischche for trial. The method of investigation was torture; the inevitable verdict, death. Ivan built a kind of hill-slide down to the Volkhov River, bound his torn and broken victims to sleds, and sped them precipitously into the icy water, where Oprichniki armed with pikes and axes moved about in boats hacking and stabbing at anyone who tried to swim. Others were hanged, beheaded, impaled, or thrown off the Volkhov Bridge. The Gorodischche massacres continued for five weeks, and ended with a general pillage of Novgorod...At length, on February 13, Ivan condescended to pardon all who remained alive. He summoned about sixty elders to Gorodischche, spoke to them `with mildness,' we are told, and gazed upon them `with kind and merciful eyes.' With the cruelest irony, he asked them to pray that heaven might grant him a long and happy reign...The scale of Ivan's atrocity has been the subject of much debate, and estimates vary widely at to the total number slain. The Chronicles say 60,000...on the Orthodox `Feast of St. James the Apostle' (whose theology of good works Ivan had so recently extolled) a squad of Oprichniki cordoned off Red Square and hammered twenty heavy stakes into the ground. Transverse beams were fastened to them, and behind them copper cauldrons of iced and boiling water were hung in pairs...300 torn and crippled prisoners were brought forth from the dungeons to hear their doom...Viskovaty was made to advance. For each charge pronounced against him Schchelkalov struck him with a whip. But the aged diplomat denied them all, asserting that he had faithfully served Russia and his sovereign throughout his long career. To Ivan's chagrin he resolutely refused to beg for mercy, and looking around him at the instruments of torture littering the square, exclaimed for all to hear: `a curse on you, you bloodsuckers! God will judge you too, in the next world, for the evil you have done"...The next to die was Nikita Funikov, state treasurer since 1561...Two Oprichniki took turns savagely dousing him with cold and boiling water `until his skin came off like an eel's'...The Tartars had surrounded the city [Moscow]. No one could escape. The tsar's English physician, Arnold Lindsay, and twenty-five London merchants also perished, along with the English lions Ivan had kept in the Kremlin moat. Those not burned to death were smothered by the `fierie eyre;' fully half the population of Moscow and its environs [perished]...contemporary accounts claimed up to a million. 'Mosco,' wrote one eyewitness, `is burnt every sticke'...Ivan began to compile his Synodical, or list of the victims of his terror, to be remembered by the clergy in their prayers. Over 1500 names were inscribed from the sack of Novgorod alone, many followed by the words `with his wife,' `with his wife and children,' `with his daughters,' `with his sons'; while unremembered others were acknowledged by the relentless, sad refrain: `As to their names, O Lord, you know them.' Copies of the Synodical were circulated to all principal monasteries in Muscovy for services... By January 1584, he had begun to show signs of internal putrefaction, to "griviously swell in his coddes," wrote Horsey, "with which he had most horriblie offended, boasting of a thowsand virgins deflowered'...Sixty Lapland witches, "sent forth owt of the North," were brought in haste to Moscow where they were daily consulted...Ivan saw a comet flash through the sky, its tail forming a nebulous cross which lingered between the domes of two cathedrals. He stared at it gloomily and proclaimed to his attendants: "This portends my death"...He was laid to rest among his ancestors in the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel.'

One theory says that The Eastern Orthodox Church leads people to perdition, because it fell away from the True Faith many centuries ago, plus it is a false church is is simply not God's True Church. Certainly a church falls away from the True Faith and becomes a false church when it fails to excommunicate people as vile and as anti-Christian as people such as Ivan the Terrible.

A second theory says: No! The Eastern Orthodox Church leads people to heaven because it is God's True Church, and God's True Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, has never fallen away from the True Faith!

§ 4. The Antichrist Sitting in the Holy Place

2 Thess 2 is a scripture which pertains to delusion. 2 Thess 2 also mentions a falling away - presumably a falling away from the True Faith. And 2 Thess 2 mentions says the man of sin / son of perdition will be revealed prior to the Second Coming of Christ. Presumably the man of sine / son of perdition is none other than the Antichrist mentioned in 1 John 2. 18, who is, presumably, the beast mentioned in Revelation 19. 19.

Many commentators tell us the Temple in Jerusalem will have to be rebuilt in order for the man of sin / son of perdition described in 2 Thess 2 to sit in the holy place, in order for the prophesy of 2 Thess 2 to be fulfilled. However St. Paul tells us that the heart of a True Christian is the temple of God - 1 Corinthians 3. 16. And of course True Christians have the Divine Law written on their hearts – Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34. So, if the Antichrist attempts to write evil on the hearts of True Christians, then the Antichrist will be sitting in the holy place, so to speak, when he attempts to write his law on the hearts of True Christians, and perhaps in this way the prophesy of 2 Thess 2, the prophesy about the man of sin / son of perdition who sees himself as God, and who will be sitting in the holy place, will be fulfilled, even though the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem has not been rebuilt.

Getting back to this issue with the sign of the cross, we have these two scenarios. The cross either reflects no evil or else it reflects some evil. Scenario 1 say that while it is true that the Nazis perpetrated evil for a few years and the Nazi swastika reflects this evil, and while it is true that one can make a strong case saying that people under the cross perpetrated evil for century after century, the huge difference between the cross and the swastika is this: God says the cross is sacred and God says that you stray into sacrilege and put yourself on the road to perdition should you say the cross reflects evil, or that it reflects some evil, when in fact it reflects no evil, because it is holy and sacred to the Creator of the Universe. And then Scenario 2 says: God says the cross reflects evil. God says you stray into sacrilege and put yourself on the road to perdition should you say the cross is sacred to God.

Of course the Atheists and non-Christians will insist there are other scenarios than just those two given above, but I'm primarily interested in explaining Christianity. I'm not all that interested in explaining Atheism or some other non-Christian religion.

Again, Christianity says is a sacrilege to declare that things which are evil in the sight of God are sacred. And it is sacrilege to declare that things which are sacred in the eyes of God are evil. And so while most Christians will insist that I stray into heresy and sacrilege because I say the cross is evil, I have to try to persuade them to keep reading, and I do this by saying: assume I'm wrong, assume the cross is sacred to God, then how do we convert non-Christians to Christianity? And how to we persuade people to not make the same mistake that I make with the cross? Christ stated in Mark 8: 34-5,

`Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For who ever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it.'

This means one must never renounce the True Faith, and one must be prepared to suffer a cruel martyrdom, such as by crucifixion, if one wishes to attain eternal life. Does it also mean that material crosses and the sign of the cross are sacred to God?

In the Old Testament we are informed what is sacred and what isn't. Nadab and Abihu offered profane fire before the Lord, and, as a result, they were both devoured by fire from the Lord. There is no New Testament scripture which says that a material cross, or the sign of the cross, is sacred. We never read of Christ or the apostles making the sign of the cross, or using material crosses for symbols.

The cross of Christ mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 is certainly sacred. But there's some ambiguity about what exactly this cross of Christ is. Does it refer to the literal pagan instrument of torture and execution which Christ was crucified upon? Does it refer to material crosses, which are representations of the actual cross Christ was crucified upon? Does it mean only that Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred, but instruments of torture and execution, crosses, or representations of them, are not sacred to the Creator of the universe? God is sacred, of course, but what about images of God, such as the image of God one sees on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Might that be a violation of the 2nd Commandment? What about crucifixes? Getting back to the sign of the cross, and material crosses – material representations of the instrument of torture Christ was crucified upon, it seems very safe to say that the cross either reflects no evil or else it reflects some evil. We have Option 1 and we have Option 2. If the cross is sacred, then, one commits sacrilege if one says the cross symbolizes some evil. But if the cross is evil in the eyes of God, that is, if the evils perpetrated by the people under the sign of the cross are reflected in the cross, then the cross is evil, and it is a sacrilege to say it is sacred.

If there is at least one Church under the sign of the cross which leads people to heaven, all we need is one Church somewhere under the cross which has not fallen away from the True Faith, has not fallen into heresy, and therefore it leads people to heaven, if there is at least one Church under the sign of the cross which is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, recall Matthew 16. 13-19, then you can trust that Church when it tells you that the cross is sacred, when it tells you the cross does not reflect any evil, because it is pure and holy in the eyes of God. But if every church under the sign of the cross leads people away from heaven and down to perdition, if every church under the sign of the cross has fallen away from the True Faith, if not one church under the sign of the cross is God's True Church, then, while this doesn't prove with 100% certainty that the cross is no good, nevertheless it does prove that every church under the sign of the cross, for one reason or another, has fallen into heresy, and therefore every church under the cross leads people to perdition.

If the sign of the cross is sacred to God then one ought to recall Revelation 9, which deals with a seal of God, which protects one from the torments described in Revelation 9. If the sign of the cross is sacred - because God says it is sacred - then the cross is indeed sacred, and the evil perpetrated by Christians over the centuries is not reflected in the cross. The Nazis perpetrated evil for a few years, whereas people under the sign of the cross perpetrated evil for century after century. The Nazi swastika symbolizes evil, but, if the cross reflects no evil, if God says the sign of the cross is sacred, then perhaps the cross is this seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9. If the cross is the seal of God, then the cross saves on from torments, when placed on ones forehead, according to Revelation 9. Now if God is hostile to material crosses and the sign of the cross, if the cross is evil, then one has to be mindful of Revelation 14. 11, which mentions a mark of the beast, which leads to eternal hellfire. Maybe the cross is the mark of the beast.

Case 1. The evils perpetrated by people under the sign of the cross are not reflected in the sign of the cross, and in material crosses, because the sign of the cross and material crosses are sacred to God. The sign of the cross is the seal of God. This seal of God, the mark of a cross, when placed on ones forehead, protects one from the torments dispensed by Apollyon - see Revelation 9.

Case 2. The spiritual cross of Christ mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 is sacred, but material representations of this cross of Christ are evil. This is similar to the logic that God is sacred but material images of God are evil - they are violation of the 2nd commandment. Suppose some kid in kindergarten draws a picture of God. We know God is sacred and holy, but what about this picture of God drawn by the kid? Are you supposed to fall to your knees and worship the picture of God drawn by the kid? Are you supposed to tell the kid that he violates the 2nd commandment when he draws pictures of God? No doubt if you have the Divine Law written on your heart you would know what to tell the kid. But if you are delusional, if you insist that the Divine Law is written on your heart when it is not written there, then the strong delusion mentioned in 2 Thess 2 comes to mind. Now, suppose you are delusional on the issue of the sign of the cross...

The evils committed by people under the sign of the cross are reflected in the sign of the cross, and therefore the sign of the cross and material crosses are evil. If the cross is evil then it becomes a suspect for this evil mark mark of the beast we read about in Revelation 14 – and if one puts the mark of the beast on ones forehead or right hand one will burn in hell forever. So if the cross is the mark of a beast then every church under the cross leads people to perdition. That is to say, every church under the cross says the cross is sacred. Every church under the cross says you have nothing to fear if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead. But then, if you end up burning in hell forever because the cross is the mark of the beast, then it certainly wasn't God's True Church which gave you the truly worthless advise saying the cross is sacred and so you have nothing to fear if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead, rather it was some worthless church which the gates of hell had prevailed against, some worthless church which promised heaven to people but which actually led people to perdition, because it was lost in heresy, because it simply wasn't the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

Of course Atheists and all non-Christians reject the Book of Revelation. But notice that if we Christians are right to insist that the Book of Revelation is trustworthy, then, if Case 1 is true – again Case 1 says God says the cross reflects no evil because the cross is sacred and holy – if Case 1 is true, then it is perfectly natural to think the cross might be this seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, the seal of God which saves one from the torments described in Revelation 9. But then if Case 2 is true – again Case 2 says that God says that the cross reflects evil: God says the evils perpetrated by people carrying crosses over the centuries are reflected in the cross, rather as the evils of the Nazis are reflected in the Nazi swastika – so if Case 2 is true, and if the Book of Revelation is trustworthy, then it is perfectly rational to suspect the cross is the mark of the beast mentioned in the Book of Revelation.

Let's suppose apocalyptic times hit the earth. Suppose lots of people are asking: how does one attain heaven? And, how does one escape hellfire? Well, so much depends on having the Divine Law written on your heart. And what does the Divine Law say about the cross?

If Case 1 is true – if God is a big fan of the cross, and if God says the cross is the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, and if you must have the mark of a cross on your forehead to save yourself from the torments described in Revelation 9, then, somehow, you must put the mark of the cross on your forehead.

But then, on the other hand, if Case 2 is true, if God sees the cross as an evil symbol, and, furthermore, if the cross is the mark of the beast, then you will burn in hell for all eternity if you put the cross / mark of the beast on your forehead.

Well, of course, if the gates of hell have not prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church, if the Roman Catholic Church has not fallen into heresy, if Rome leads people to heaven, if Rome is God's True Church, then, of course, you can trust Rome, God's True Church, when Rome says the cross is sacred to God. But then, on the other hand, if the gates of hell have prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church, if Rome has fallen into heresy and leads people to perdition, but if some other church under the sign of the cross has not fallen into heresy and is God's True Church, and leads people to heaven, then, if this Church says the cross is sacred then the cross is indeed sacred. But if every church under the sign of the cross has fallen into heresy and if every church under the sign of the cross leads people to perdition, if no church under the sign of the cross is God's True Church, then this complicates matters. The cross might still be sacred to God, or it might not, but if every church under the cross leads people to perdition then every church under the cross has certainly fallen into heresy and none of them understand the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34.

So, again, the cross either reflects no evil or else it reflects some evil. If it is sacred, if it reflects no evil, then you might have to assume it is the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, the seal with saves on from the torment described in Revelation 9. But then, on the other hand, if the cross reflects evil, then, naturally, the mark of the beast in Revelation 13 and 14 comes to mind.

Christ said at the Last Supper, Matthew 26. 28: `This cup is My blood of the new Covenant. Well, of course, if one has the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Matthew 26. 28 written on one's heart then one will not commit sacrilege with the cross, or with anything else. One won't say that things which are evil in the sight of God are sacred. And one won't say that things which are sacred in God's sight are evil.

For century after century Rome called the Inquisition the `Holy Office.' So, if the Inquisition was evil in God's sight, then Rome committed sacrilege for century after century by saying the Inquisition is holy for century after century.

Suppose a church tells you that the cross is sacred to God, and suppose that church tells you the cross is the seal of God which protects one from torment if it is applied to ones forehead, recall Revelation 9, but suppose you end up burning in hell forever and ever – you know, billions and trillions of infinite years pass and you're still burning in hell, and will continue to burn forever and ever, because the cross is evil, and you put the evil mark of the beast on your forehead. Well, obviously,in this scenario, it was not the Church which Christ founded on a rock which gave you the really horrible advice to put the mark of the cross / mark of the beast on your forehead. Rather, it was some worthless church which leads people to perdition, some worthless church which has fallen into heresy, which gave you the really hideous advice. God's True Church is not going to give you any advice which will lead you to burn in hell forever! That we know for certain. But a fallen church, a church which the gates of hell have prevailed against, a church which leads people to perdition, that sort of church would be prone to giving you really terrible advice which leads you to eternal hellfire.

It's easy enough to imagine God having mercy on various people, especially little kids who die young, even though their religious beliefs are less than perfect, even though they are in a church which leads people to perdition. If the General Rule says church C leads people to perdition because the gates of hell have prevailed against church C, but if there are Special Exceptions to the General Rule, that is, if God has mercy on the souls of some people in church C, then the General Rule is still the General Rule: the gates of hell have still prevailed against C, and C still leads people to perdition, even though there might be some Special Exceptions to the General Rule.

So the cross either reflects no evil or it reflects some evil. Case 1 says the cross reflects no evil, and says it is a sacrilege to say the cross reflects some evil. Case 2 says the cross reflects some evil, and says it is sacrilege to say the cross is sacred in the eyes of God, when in fact God says the cross reflects some evil. If Case 2 is true, where, again, the sign of the cross reflects some evil, where it is a sacrilege to say the cross is sacred in the eyes of God, then, even in the extreme case that the cross is the mark of the beast, one can still imagine God having mercy on the souls of 21st century Christians under the cross who were, for example, martyred in China or Egypt or elsewhere in recent years. They attain heaven by Special Exception to the General Rule. The General Rule says that, if the cross is the mark of the beast, then every church under the cross leads people to perdition. In the scenario where the cross is the mark of the beast, then we know that any church which tells you that the cross is sacred to God, and that it is the seal of God which saves one from the torments described in Revelation 9, can not be God's True Church. It must be an evil false church which drags souls down to perdition, because it is giving you advice, advice saying the cross is sacred to God, and advice saying you have nothing to fear if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead, whereas, in fact, if the cross is the mark of the beast, one will burn in hell forever, if one puts the mark of a cross on ones forehead.

Paul Johnson reminds us in _A History of Christianity_ ,

`Tertullian broke with the Church [Rome] when Calixtus of Rome determined that the church had the power to grant remission of sins after baptism, even serious sins like adultery or apostasy...Julian claims Catholics slaughtered "heretics" with state military support. Whole communities were butchered...in the 5th century there were over 100 statutes against heresy. The state now attacked heresy as it had once attacked Christianity...Jerome describes horrible tortures inflicted on a woman accused of adultery [inflicted by the Catholic-State]. In the late 4th century there was despotism in Christendom. The rack and red-hot plates were used. Ammianus gives many instances of torture...the Inquisition was born...Spain was staging pogroms of Jews by the time Augustine became a bishop...Inquisition: anonymous informers, accusations of personal enemies allowed, no right of defending council...Possession of scriptures in any language forbidden...from 1080 onward there were many instances of the Pope, councils and Bishops forbidding the Bible to laymen...people burned for reading the Bible...Erasmus saw 200 prisoners of war broken on the wheel at Utrech, on orders of the Bishop...Justinian Code: provided basis for persecution of dissenters...Protestants adopted the Justinian Code as well...Lutherans and Calvinists just as intolerant as Catholics...Counter-Reformation embodied no reform. It's sole effect was to stamp out Protestant "error"...It is a tragic but recurrent feature of Christianity that the eager pursuit of reform tends to produce a ruthlessness in dealing with obstacles to it which brings the whole moral superstructure crashing down in ruins...The Gregorian papacy, so zealous for virtue, fathered some of the worst crimes of the Middle Ages...mass burnings of Protestants in Spain 1559-1562...Spanish Inquisition was self-sustaining. It confiscated the property of the condemned...women 70-90 years old were tortured...young girls tortured...witch-hunting couldn't survive without torture...witch-hunting had papal sanction to use torture...Luther burned "witches"...Calvinists very fierce...Loyola popularized witch-hunting...Loyola not an anti-Semite...Vicious cycle: torture produced accusations -more torture, more accusations...The Philosophes ransacked the past to expose...evil.'

We see that in the 4th century, there was a change in Christendom, because in the first 3 centuries the Christians were generally benevolent: they didn't torture and burn anyone, whereas from the 4th century onwards there was a great deal of evil under the sign of the cross. Friedrich Heer, former professor of History at the University of Vienna, told us in `The Medieval World: Europe: 1100-1350' (Mentor, 1961, p. 312), that there is nothing in the history of Europe, or even in the history of the world which compares with the magnitude and the duration of the suffering of the Jews in medieval Europe.Will Durant told us in `The Age of Faith' that the Frankish chieftains intermarried with the remnants of the Gallo-Roman senatorial class and produced the aristocracy of France. The same nobles showed amazing contempt for justice: their baptism into Catholicism had no regenerative or redeeming effects upon them. Gibbon wrote of the triumph of barbarism and religion in Catholic, Dark Age France. Barbarism reigned for centuries. Assassination, torture, slaughter, treachery, adultery, fornication and incest were the expedients by which nobles and peasants relieved the tedium of medieval life. By 600 there were Jewish colonies in all the major cities of the Franks. The Merovingian Catholics persecuted the Jews with pious ferocity. King Chilperic decreed that Jews were to embrace the Catholic Church or have their eyes torn out. The Council of Toledo of 633 ruled that those Jews who had submitted to baptism, and then fell back into Judaism, were to be bereaved of their children and sold into slavery.

Durant also told us in `The Age of Louis XIV' of the suffering of the Jews in Poland, Lithuania and Russia from 1648-58, such as in Pereyaslav, Piryatin, Lubny, and hundreds of other towns, was brutal beyond belief. Many thousands of Jews were slaughtered by Cossacks and Lithuanians, Tatars and Poles, by people brandishing crosses. We read of the cruelest tortures: Jews flayed alive, split asunder, clubbed to death, roasted over red-hot coals, scalded with boiling water, thousands of Jewish infants thrown into wells or buried alive.

§ 5. Pop Culture and Christianity

I put together a playlist on You Tube. Search on `The NBA on NBC to Catching Fire – Poison Fog'. The idea here is to assemble lots of clips on pop culture and politics where the viewer gets to exercise his ingenuity, and try to discern truth from lies, try to draw a line between things which are anti-Christian and things which are not anti-Christian. You see, if a person can't recognize anti-Christian things, then he will be led to perdition.

To give you a few examples from the playlist, there are some clips on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some Christians say those Japs got what they deserved for what they done to Pearl Harbor. Other Christians say you will go to hell if you try to argue that burning hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children is not anti-Christian. The problem with these clips is that people will simply see in them whatever they want to see. You can present anti-abortion clips, but if a Christian is convinced that God says the pro-choice position is Pro-Christian and not Anti-Christian, perhaps a video will persuade him otherwise, but don't count on it.

The simplests aspects of Christianity begin with the assertion that Jesus is God, the Divine Son, the 2nd Person in a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christianity say Jesus was born of a virgin, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament scriptures of John 1. 1-14, Matthew 1. 23, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Tomothy 3. 16 and Titus 2. 13 are some of the scriptures which tell us Jesus is God. The Old Testament scripture of Pslam 2 implies the Son is God while Isaiah 9. 6 says it explicitly. Christianity has some hellfire scriptures. Of course Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism also have their hellfire scriptures. The Koran (either Qu'ran or Koran is accepted spelling. `Koran' is the classical form used by authors writing in English) has many verses saying one will burn in hell if one rejects Allah and Islam.

Malachi 4. 1 has the LORD saying:

`The day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud and all who do wickedly will be stubble; the day that is coming will burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, and it will leave them neither root nor branch.'

Again, those of us who are Christians say Jesus is God. By definition, a Christian is someone who professes the Trinity. A Unitarian is not a Christian, neither is a Jehovah's Witness. Jesus tells us in John 15. 6 that those who don't abide in Him are like sticks which are gathered up and tossed into the flames, so this hearkens back to Malachi 4. 1: `the day is coming, burning like an oven...'

If Jesus is in fact God then it is a blasphemy and sacrilege to say Jesus is not God. Of course Non-Christians insist it is blasphemy and sacrilege to say Jesus is God.

I'm a Christian. All of my religious books push Christianity. If you are not a Christian you might at least be interested in knowing what it is that Christianity teaches. We've already seen John 15. 6 says those who don't abide in Jesus are like sticks tossed into the flames. And Jesus / God tells us, in so many words, in John 6. 53-55, that one must take communion in order to attain heaven and to escape perdition. St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthinthians 11. 27 that it is a terrible sin to celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner. If you're not a Christian, but if you are insterested in what Christianity teaches, for general educational purposes, then, you might ask: just how complicated is Christianity? 2 Thess 1. 8 mentions hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We've been over John 15. 6 and Malachi 4. 1. To know God you have to know that Jesus is God, the Divine Son, the 2nd Person in a Divine Trinity. Yes, we have simple easy-to-undertstand scriptures which say Jesus is God. We have lots of easy-to-understand hellfire scriptures in Christianity. Mathew 25. 31-46, Revelation 20. 12-15 etc. Matthew 16. 13-19 is very simple. It tells us Jesus / God founded His True Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. You don't want to be in a false church. You want the True Church. False churches lead people to eternal perdition. The True Church leads people to heaven. But things get complicated, because, for instance, how do you determine which churches are false churches and which Church is God's True Church? And again, 1 Corinthians 11. 27 says it's a terrible sin to celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner, and it is not always clear what is an unworthy manner and what isn't.

Of course every church claims to lead people to heaven. No Christian church brags that it leads people away from heaven and drags their souls down to eternal perdition! But you have to use some common sense. What are the chances that every church you encounter is God's True Church? Aren't any of them lost in heresy? Don't some of them celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner? We have a scripture which says the Devil walks about like a roaring lion looking to devour people, so you have to watch out! You have to watch out for heretics. These are people who push false doctrines which corrupt the True Faith and which lead people to eternal perdition.

Again, 2 Thess 1. 8 mentions hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Revelation 20. 12-15 says your name must be written in the Book of Life or else you get tossed into a lake of fire. Luke 13. 3 says Repent or Perish. Matthew 25. 31-46, John 5, Luke 16. 19-31 are more hellfire scriptures.

At the Last Supper, Matthew 26. 28, Jesus informs His disciples: `This cup is My blood of the New Covenant...' These words refer to the famous prophesy of Jeremiah 31. 31-34, where we are informed that God will write His new law on the hearts of His people, a New Law to amend the Old Law, the Mosaic Law. It's true that much of the Old Testament indicates that the Mosaic Law is an eternal law. Christians interpret this to mean that it will be eternally remembered but not all of it will be eternally enforced. Under the Old Law the Jews were commanded to execute homosexuals, Sabbath violators, blasphemers, adulterers etc. But under the New Law these sorts of executions are abolished. Recall the adultress who was about to be stoned. Jesus said, `let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' The 10 Commandments are still enforced under Christianity. Christians are not permitted to have other gods above the True God. Christians are not free to murder, steal, covet, commit adultery, violate the Sabbath etc. But Christianity gets complicated, because of John 6. 53-55, 1 Corinthians 11. 27, Matthew 16. 13-19. There's confusion over which Church is God's True Church, the Bride of Christ, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. There's confusion over what constitutes celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner and what doesn't. Suppose a guy is looting stores in Minneapolis on Tuesday, but is then given holy communion in church on Sunday. Does that church celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner? Suppose Derek Chauvin – recall he's the ex Minneapolis policeman who killed George Floyd – suppose he claims he has repented and suppose he wants to take communion. How long must a church refuse to give the bread and the wine to Derek Chauvin? Must a church wait 2 days? 2 years? or 2 decades before it gives the bread and the wine to him?

The New Testament is very clear on some issues: You will go to perdition if you refuse to repent, you get tossed into a lake of fire if your name is not written in the Book of Life, you must take communion to attain heaven and to escape perdition, there is a True Church, Jesus is God etc., but the New Testament is very unclear on what is celebrating holy communion in a worthy manner and what isn't. From the context of 1 Corinthians 11. 27 you want to avoid sharing the bread and the wine with fornicators and adulterers. But don't you also want to avoid sharing the bread and the wine with rapists and mass murderers and paedophiles? If it is a big sin to share the bread and the wine with fornicators and adulterers, then wouldn't it also be a big sin to share the bread and the wine with murderers and rapists? For century after century churches under the sign of the cross gave the bread and the wine to evil kings, evil nobles, evil slave traders etc.

Getting back to the playlist on You Tube called, `The NBA on NBC to Catching Fire – Poison Fog', a lot of the clips deal with 1 Corinthians 11. 27. For instance, take the issue of Global Warming. Suppose the people who push Global Warming from CO2 emmissions from human industry are liars. You don't want to celebrate holy communion with liars, as that is celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner. Or suppose Global Warming is true. Suppose the planet will soon become unliveable unless drastic action is taker today. Then you don't want to take communion with people who say Global Warming is a big lie, as they are covetous people who just want to make money now, and they are willing to say `to hell with future generations.' There's the issue of abortion. I'm pushing the idea that God is on the pro-life side, and also pushing the idea that God says that even if you are pro-life you put yourself on the road to perdition if you celebrate holy communion with pro-choicers.

There's the issue of the Central Park 5. You don't want to celebrate holy communion with liars. You might go through 2 of Ann Coulter's columns on the Central 5 case. One is from 6. 12.19, the other is from 6. 19.19. It's somewhat complicated. You have to go through her columns line by line. Of course the actual torture of the Central Park jogger by a gang of juvenile thugs has now become a secondary issue. The primary issue is the issue that the mainstream media in the USA is full of liars. The Central Park 5 case is complicated, but it's not impossibly complicated. The mainstream media tells lies about this case in order to be politically correct, and to make money in a politically correct world. You got these punks who nearly tortured a woman to death, and you got the mainstream media telling lies about the case, saying the punks who nearly tortured a woman to death are innocent victims of a corrupt New York City legal system. Ann Coulter explains everything. The Liberals are slaves to political correctness. They don't want to hear the truth when the truth conflicts with their prejudices, and when it hurts their ability to make money.

There's the issue of Immigration. Recall Malachi 4. 1 is all about hellfire for the proud and wicked. Malachi 3. 5 implies hellfire for those who turn away an alien. But this becomes complicated. If America, or Israel, was to admit every alien who showed up at their borders, then Israel would certainly be destroyed, and America most likely would be destroyed. So you have to use some discernment. Malchi 3. 5 can't mean that Israel must admit aliens who want to destroy Israel, it can't mean that the USA must admit every rapist and murderer who shows up at the border. But suppose a mother with 3 kids shows up at the USA-Mexico border? If she and the 3 kids are covered under Malachi 3. 5, then you don't want to deny them entry into the USA, recall Malachi 4. 1. Malachi 3. 5 doesn't say you have to bankrupt a nation and steal from the middle class via outrageous taxation, by giving welfare payments to every alien who shows up at your border. But then Malachi 3. 5 and Malachi 4.1 give Christians and Jews the hint that you have to think about the issue of aliens showing up at your border.

A lot of the clips in this playlist I have deal with pop culture, movies and music. My thinking is that a film director can have some violence in his film, and some bad language, but he should never have his actors say lines which take God's name in vain.

We were looking at the differences between the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, and the New Law, recall Jeremiah 31. 31-34. All blood sacrifice of animals for the atonement of sin are gone under the the New Law. Under the Mosaic Law the daughter of a priest who became a harlot was to be burned alive. Again, the Jews were commanded to execute enchantresses, Sabbath violators, blasphemers, homosexuals, children who cursed their parents etc. Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry about their incessant rebelliousness. All these practices are banished under Christianity. Again, Christ told the people who wanted to stone the adulteress `let he who is without sin cast the first stone' he was casting the Mosaic Law aside and instituting the New Law. And by what authority did Jesus do this? Psalm 2 implies the Son is God. Isaiah 9. 6 says it explicitly. The New Testament scriptures which say Jesus is God include: John 1. 1-14, Matthew 1. 23, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16.

Obviously if Jesus is not God then all of Christianity is invalidated. But if Jesus is God, as those of us who are Christians insist, then the next question is: where is God's True Church, the Bride of Christ, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, to recall Matthew 16. 13-19. Every church claims to lead people to heaven. No church claims that it is a false church which leads people to perdition! But it defies common sense to think every church is God's True Church. If you were to ask Christians from around the world to make lists which explain how people locate God's True Church, then the most popular choice for God's True Church would be the Roman Catholic Church, followed by the Russian Orthodox Church, followed by the Anglican church, followed by...

So, there is enormous disagreement. If you asked Christians from round the world – and a Christian is a person who says Jesus is God, the 3rd Person in a Divine Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - if a person doesn't accept Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, John 1. 1-14, Matthew 1. 23, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 then he is not a Christian – if you asked Christians from round the world if Jesus is God then you would get universal agreement that Jesus is God. But when you ask the same people to explain to you how one finds God's True Church, the Bride of Christ, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then everything descends into chaos and confusion. The Christian world is factionalized into thousands of different sects.

§ 6. The Dogma of Papal Infalibility

The Dogma of Papal Infallibility say you are anathema – cursed, damned – if you reject that Dogma. Well, if the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then it makes sense that you are damned if you rebel against God's True Church, such as by rejecting one of her Dogmas. On the other hand, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome is a false church, if Rome leads people to perdition, then Rome does indeed lead people to perdition.

We've seen how the cross either symbolizes no evil, because it is sacred to God, or else the cross symbolizes some evil. The Nazis perpetrated evil for a few decades and as a result we say the Nazi swastika symbolizes the evil perpetrated by the Nazis. Now the people under the sign of the cross perpetrated evil for century after century. And so this means what for the cross? The sin of sacrilege is seen, for example, when people declare that things which God says are sacred are evil. Or if people declare that things which God says are evil are sacred then these people also commit sacrilege. So, if God says the cross is sacred, then you commit sacrilege if you say the cross reflects evil. But then, on the other hand, if God says the cross symbolizes evil, then you commit sacrilege if you say the cross is sacred.

As we've seen, you don't want to commit sacrilege with the cross. That's a sin which leads to perdition. And you don't want to commit sacrilege with the crucifix, or with anything else for that matter. I summarize the crucifix in this way: first, I make a distinction between the Roman Catholic crucifix, the Eastern Orthodox crucifix, the Russian Orthodox crucifix, the Anglican crucifix etc. Let's take the Roman Catholic crucifix an example. I see it as an image of a Roman Catholic version of Jesus on the cross. By this I mean it is an image of a version of Jesus who says the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven because the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, because Rome upholds the True Faith etc. You'll notice that a version of Jesus who says Rome is a false church, and false churches leads people to eternal perdition, is a different version of Jesus than a version of Jesus who says Rome is the True Church. Obviously Roman Catholics insist that a version of Jesus who says the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven is the True Version of Jesus. In any event, I don't think it makes any sense to say that the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a Lutheran version of Jesus, or that it is an image of a Mormon version of Jesus, a version of Jesus who says the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is God's True Church. Anyway, suppose the True Version of Jesus says that the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven, because Rome upholds the True Faith, because Rome has not descended into heresy and sacrilege etc., because the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, then, if all this is true, you would have to conclude that Rome is correct in teaching that the Roman Catholic crucifix is a sacred image, and one descends into sacrilege if one says otherwise. But if the True Jesus says that the Roman Catholic Church is false church which leads people to perdition, if the True Version of Jesus says Rome is a false church not the True Church which He founded on a rock,and false churches lead people to perdition, then an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven is a false image, it's the image of a lie. So, if in fact the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven, but if the True Jesus says Rome leads people to perdition, then the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of a lie, and it is a sacrilege to say the Roman Catholic crucifix is sacred to God.

So it is very important to not make a botch of things when you are dealing with the Roman Catholic Church. Obviously you don't want to make a botch of things with any church, but you really can't get anywhere in Christianity if you can't make a sound judgment on the Roman Catholic Church.

We have two basic options:

1) The Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. Rome leads people to heaven.

2) The Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church. Rome leads people to perdition.

If 1 is true, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads people to heaven and leads no one to perdition – the essential attribute of the True Church, of the Bride of Christ - and so we use the feminine `she' in referring to the True Church – is that the True Church can make mistakes but she always leads people to heaven and she never makes the mistake of leading anyone to perdition, so, if Rome is God's True Church then you put your soul in peril of eternal perdition whenever you rebel against the Roman Catholic Church. Basically, if Rome is God's True Church, then it is always going to be stupid to risk eternal perdition by rebelling against Rome. This has far-reaching consequences. Why would we need an Executive branch, or a Legislative branch, or a Judicial branch, or all these State governments, and why would you need any sort of Parliament, if the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church? If it is always an act of idiocy to risk eternal perdition by rebelling against God's True Church, and if Rome is God's True Church, then the Roman Catholic Church is the only government we want or need. If some government leads you away from the beautiful heaven and leads you instead to eternal perdition, because it leads you into rebellion against God's True Church, then you don't want that government!

Of course, on the other hand, if the Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church, if the Roman Catholic Church is a false church which leads people away from heaven and to eternal perdition, then we will just have to look elsewhere than Rome when we search for the Church which Christ founded on a rock. And you don't want to forget the consequences which pertain to the Roman Catholic crucifix if Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition. You don't want to commit sacrilege. If the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of a lie – if the True Jesus says Rome leads people to perdition – then an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven, which is what the Roman Catholic crucix is, is an image of a lie. So, if the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of a lie, then you commit sacrilege if you say it is sacred to God. But then, on the other hand, suppose you commit sacrilege if you say the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of a lie. This means that God says the Roman Catholic crucifix is sacred to Him. And this very strongly imples that the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. And this very strongly implies that if there is ever a conflict in what Rome wants and what some government wants, then we should always obey what Rome wants. If Rome always leads people to heaven and never leads anyone to perdition, how could it ever be sensible to ever rebel against the Roman Catholic Church. And this leaves you wondering: why do we need these Parliaments, Senates, Houses of Representatives, and Executive branches etc? If Rome is the only government we need, because Rome is God's True Church, because Rome leads people to heaven, and therefore it is brainless idiocy to risk hellfire by rebelling against God's True Church...Yes, we know that if Rome is a false church, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome leads people to eternal perdition, then we know that we don't want Rome as our government...But I'm saying, suppose Rome is God's True Churcu, you know, suppose Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, suppose you will go to hell if you rebel against God's True Church, the Roman Catholic Church...then you don't want to follow after any governments which contradict Rome. Now, of course, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome is a false church which leads people to eternal perdition...

Anyway, as I say, you can't get anywhere in your study of Christianity if you are incapable of making an accurate judgment of the Roman Catholic Church. Does Rome lead people to heaven because Rome is God's True Church? Does Rome lead people to perdition because Rome is a false Church?

Suppose Rome is not God's True Church. Why might this be? What is Rome doing that is wrong and Anti-Christian? As I said earlier, so much depends on not celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner. From the 4th century onwards the Roman Catholic Church gave the bread and the wine to evil kings, evil nobles etc., etc.

So, of course, things get sort of jumbled up. While one is trying to determine if Rome is God's True Church you might also be trying to determine if some Protestant church is God's True Church or not. But if you start from the premise that Christianity took a very bad turn in the 4th century, when it refused to excommunicate vicious kings, vicious nobles, vicious priests...You see, in the first 3 centuries of Christianity, Christians were generally benevolent. There were always bad apples, there were always bad Christians like Judas, but you didn't have Christians torturing people to death, and you didn't have Christians celebrating holy communion with Christians who tortured people to death, not in the first 3 centuries of Christianity. But then, from the 4th century onwards...

One might argue that Rome no longer tortures people to death, and argue that Protestant churches no longer torture people to death, like they did in the old days. And that's true but there are still no end of bloody practices perpetrated by people under the sign of the cross. How many legal abortions have been performed in the USA since 1973 and _Roe v. Wade_? 70 million? 80 million? 100 million? Every now and then you hear about a Catholic politician who is denied the bread and the wine because he supports legal abortion, but that's about the only time you hear of it. Legalized abortion exists in the USA because tens of millions of people under the sign of the cross want it legalized, and these people are given the bread and the wine by churches under the sign of the cross. Recall that part in 1 Corinthians 11. 27 the part about it being a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner.

Now, of course, if a person insists Christianity is a big fraud and a sham, then you can see why that person would push an Anti-Christian agenda. But if a person starts with the premise that Christianity is the True Faith, if he insists Jesus is God, and then if he says to you that you can trust what Jesus / God said in Matthew 16. 13-19, the part about Jesus founding His True Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, and if a person says to you that you can trust Christ's words in John 6. 53-55, the words which tell us, in so many words, that you must take communion to attain heaven and escape perdition... then this person is saying, more or less, that you want to find God's True Church, and you want to celebrate holy communion in God's True Church. Go's True Church leads people to heaven. False churches lead people to perdition...So, if a church is giving communion to some guy who just got done performing an abortion, and you just celebrated holy communion with that guy who just got done performing an abortion, then you have to ask yourself: what are the chances that you just celebrated holy communion in an unworthy manner? What are the chances that you belong to a false church not God's True Church? what are the chances that you are now on the road to eternal perdition? Obviously, if you celebrated holy communion in God's True Church then you did nothing wrong. But if it is insane to think that God's True Church gives the bread and the wine to guys who perform abortions, then it is insane to think that you have found God's True Church.

The most complicated parts about Christianity deals with excommunicating people. Suppose you say only pro-life people may receive holy communion in your church. But the pro-life position is very vague and ambiguous. All pro-lifers want the State to make it illegal to perform abortions. But then things get very complicated. If a law is passed which says abortionists are to be given slaps on the wrist after their 1st offense, and slightly harder slaps on the wrist after their second offense, then these are called _de fact_ pro-choice laws albeit they are also _de jure_ pro-life laws...basically Christians don't want to support any law which is Anti-Christian. Pro-life laws can become Anti-Christian by being either too harsh or too lenient. But things are getting complicated because it is not so easy to know what sort of pro-life laws which carry what sort of penalties it is that God wants. And it is not so easy to be confident that you know God's will in terms of how long various people are to remain excommunicated. Suppose a guy is aborting babies on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday he repents and stops aborting babies, how long should a church refuse to give him the bread and the wine? Or suppose a guy kidnaps little kids and rapes them in some underground dungeon etc. Then suppose he repents on Tuesday, and then suppose some church gives him the bread and the wine on Sunday, and suppose God says it is a terrible thing to give the bread and the wine to such people...You see, the pro-life side wants to convert pro-choicers to the pro-life side. And the most effective way to do this is to not lay big guilt trips on pro-choicers. You don't want to convince pro-choicers that they are like ax murderers in the eyes of God. You don't want to crush their self-esteem. But then, on the other hand, the abortion business is a really bloody nasty business, and you have to be careful to not celebrate communion with people involved in a bloody nasty business. Look at those Manson family members who became born-again Christians in prison...merely because some guy with a collar around his neck says God says such and such on the question of giving the bread and the wine to ex-murderers, this doesn't mean he is actually giving you God's true opinions on the matter. But then, on the other hand, perhaps he knows a few things about God's opinions on the issue. It's all so vague and uncertain. Who knows how long God wants some ex-child rapist excommunicated? Some might say you keep them excommunicated forever: you never celebrate holy communion with such people. Obviously, if you could locate God's True Church, then God's True Church will not lead you astray on matters concerning holy communion, you know, committing a terrible sin which will drag you down to eternal perdition because you are celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner. But how are you going to find God's True Church if you are lost in a false church which you are insisting is God's True Church?

Suppose, just suppose, it is insane to think that a church which gives the bread and the wine to pro-choicers is God's True Church. Then, if you are lost enough to belong to an insane church that gives the bread and the wine to pro-choicers, then you will probably be lost enough to claim you are in God's True Church, when in fact you are in a false church which leads people to eternal perdition.

The most complicated parts of Christianity pertain to finding the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and they pertain to excommunicating people, and the question of how long a church must keep people guilty of very evil sins excommunicated.

We also have to review the simplest and most basic aspects of Christianity.

Revelation 20. 12-15 tells us you must have your name written in the Book of Life or else you get tossed into a lake of fire at the Last Judgment.

Perhaps some or most of the damned get pulled out of this lake of fire, at some time, and are then consigned to some place in eternal perdition where it is more comfortable than a lake of fire. But the Christian scriptures are quite clear in telling us that once you're damned, once you are tossed into the lake of fire at the Last Judgment, then you are never admitted into the beautiful and marvelously wonderful heaven, to recall 1 Corinthians 2. 9. And how do you get your name written in the Book of Life? Don't do Anti-Christian things. Don't support Anti-Christian laws. Don't celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner. Don't belong to a false church. Find God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Be a good Christian.

Jesus gave two commandments, love God and love your neighbor the way you love yourself. And how are you supposed to love a Deity that you can't see? 1 John 5. 3 tells us that to love God one must obey the commandments: so one must learn what the 10 commandments are and not break them. Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox and Anglican tradition says the crucifix is not a violation of the 2nd Commandment, but what do you think? Certainly you'll want to keep the Sabbath Day holy, and you certainly don't want to belong to some church which gives the bread and the wine to Sabbath violators! That would be an obvious transgression of 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29. Don't take holy communion with people who claim to be Christian but they do Anti-Christian things right out in the open, who take God's name in vain, who are adulterers etc.

There's quite a bit to keep in mind. For example, Christ tells us in John 14. 23-26 that those who love Him keep His words and those who don't love Him don't keep His words. So you have to read the New Testament to learn what Jesus said. It sounds odd but Christians have to be very wary of Christians! Christians are usually wedded to evil traditions, not to the words of Christ. For instance, Jesus said oaths are from the devil, but Christians take oaths anyway. What are wedding vows but oaths?

A problem with wedding vows is that people will do whatever they want despite some vows to the Creator of the Universe to love, honor and cherish, in sickness and in health etc., etc. It's better to make no promise to God rather than make a promise which you can't or won't keep. Suppose a woman gets sick of her husband, and for good reasons, suppose he started off OK but then he became an evil pig, are you going to hold her to her wedding vows? Will the True Church insist she must remain with the evil pig, or else she puts herself on the road to perdition if she gets remarried after a divorce?

Anyway, we're getting off on a slight tangent here. Jesus said oaths are from the devil. Jesus said those who love Him keep His words...watch out for Christians who claim their evil traditions are supported by Christ's words, when anyone can see they are evil traditions which are not supported by Christ's words.

The Old Testament scripture of Malachi 4. 1 has the LORD saying that the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all of the proud and wicked people will be set on fire. Those people who accept Malachi 4. 1 but who also reject Christianity - for example the Jews, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarians etc. - insist it is a blasphemy to worship Jesus as God, which is what we Christians do. Some scriptures which say Jesus is God include John 1. 1-14, Matthew 1. 23, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 and Romans 9. 5. Psalm 2 implies the Son is God. Isaiah 9. 6 explicitly declares it. We Christians are Trinitarians, seeing God as a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's true that you can find scriptures in the New Testament where Jesus is self-deprecating. He doesn't tell people straight out that He is the Creator of the Universe. But then we have scriptures which are unambiguous in saying Jesus is God.

Anyway, we have a Case 1 and a Case 2. Case 1 says Jesus is God. Case 2 says Jesus is not God.

Now if Case 2 is true, if Jesus is not God, and, furthermore, if the True God says it is a blasphemy to worship Jesus as God, then Malachi 4. 1 suggests that we Christians will be set on fire for being evil blasphemers.

But then, on the other hand, if Case 1 is true, if Jesus is God, then it is blasphemy to say that Jesus is a false god, a phony deity, which is what the non-Christians assert. So, if Jesus is in fact God then Malachi 4. 1 suggests that non-Christians will be set on fire! And of course that verdict is consistent with John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8, Revelation 20.12-15, Matthew 25. 31-46 etc.

Naturally things get contentious very quickly. People who say Jesus is a bogus diety, a fraudulent god don't like being threatened with hellfire. Well, no one likes being threatened with hellfire. The Atheists don't like being told they will be cast into a lake of fire if they don't mend their ways. Lots of religions besides Christianity preach the existence of hellfire. The Koran is filled with hellfire verses.

Even among Christians, even among people who insist Jesus is God, the Divine Son in a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there is no end of disagreement in defining what Christianity is. Christians can't agree on what the True Faith is. Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34 tell us the True Faith / New Covenant can be written on the hearts of even the least of God's people. So this gets you thinking the True Faith / New Covenant must be fairly simple. And yet there is no end of disagreement among Christians over what Christianity is.

Some people say Christianity is whatever the Roman Catholic Church says it is. Others say Christianity is whatever the Russian Orthodox Church says it is. This sort of logic results from Matthew 16. 13-19, where Jesus tells us He has founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against this True Church. If the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, then, since you will always go to heaven if you always obey Rome, God's True Church, since Rome leads people to heaven and leads no one to perdition, then you would be wise to always obey Rome. If you rebel against God's True Church, Rome, then you risk hellfire. Why risk hellfire by rebelling against Rome? Of course all of this logic falls apart if the Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church. If Rome is a false church not the True Church, if Rome leads people to perdition not to heaven, then this certainly changes things.

Christ told us in Matthew 16. 13-19,

`When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the son of Man, am? So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'

And how exactly are you supposed to know if a church is God's True Church and it leads people to heaven or if it is a worthless false church which leads people to perdition? You just have to review the relevant evidence as honestly as you can! Roughly 2,000 years ago God established His True Church. But then, over the centuries, disagreements between Christians over what is heresy (heresy = satanic errors / corruptions of the True Faith / false doctrines which lead to perdition) caused Christians to become separated into thousands of sects. And today there is no end of confusion and disagreement over questions like: What is the True Faith which leads people to heaven? And where is God's True Church?

As mentioned earlier, every Christian believes his church leads people to heaven. No Christian claims his church is a false church which drags souls down to eternal perdition!

But what are the odds that every church that you encounter is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Bride of Christ?

Or, what are the odds that some random church that you encounter is God's True Church and not a false church?

Let's review the issue with the cross.

The cross either symbolizes no evil or else it symbolizes some evil. Case 1 says the cross symbolizes no evil. Case 2 says the cross symbolizes some evil. I'm particularly interested in the scenario where the cross of Christ mentioned in scripture is sacred – see Philippians 3. 18 and Galatians 6. 14 – but material crosses are evil. I mean, suppose a kid draws a picture of God with a crayon, and suppose the kid declares that his picture of God is sacred. Well, we know that God is sacred, but merely because some kid orders you to bow down to his `sacred' picture of God, this doesn't actually prove that you are a satanic if you refuse to bow down to his picture of God. You might argue that God is sacred but graven images of God are evil. You might quote the Second Commandment to the kid.

Of course Non-Christians will say that the cross is the symbol of a false religion. But I'm a Christian so that option doesn't interest me. I'm saying the cross of Christ mentioned in scripture is sacred, but this cross of Christ is something spiritual not anything material. The logic is the same as the logic which says God is sacred but graven images of God are evil. I'm saying that Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred but also saying that all of the evil perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses is reflected in the material cross, rather as the evil of the Nazis is reflected in the Nazi swastika. Most Christians would say that I descend into sacrilege and mortal sin by saying the cross reflects evil. Suppose I am wrong and they are right. Suppose God says the cross is sacred and holy, then what are the logical conclusions to be drawn from this? Well, if the cross symbolizes no evil, if the cross is sacred to God, then you would tend to think the cross might be the seal of God mentioned Revelation 9. Revelation 9 mentions people being tortured, being tortured for months and months, if they do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. But then, on the other hand, if you say the cross is sacred but God says the cross is evil, then you are guilty of sacrilege, a mortal sin which leads to perdition. And if God says the cross is evil then you have to wonder if the cross is the mark of the beast, recall Revelation 14. 11.

I'm saying the cross of Christ mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 is something which is sacred and spiritual, but material crosses and the sign of the cross are not sacred. This spiritual and sacred cross of Christ is simply Christ's heroic sacrifice on the pagan instrument of torture and execution. It is Christ's heroic sacrifice which is sacred, not the pagan instrument of torture and execution, and not its representation, the sign of the cross and material crosses. And indeed I go so far as to insist that all of the evils from Christendom are reflected in the sign of the cross and in material crosses. The Nazi's perpetrated evil for a few years and as a result we say the Nazi swastika is a symbol of evil. The people under the sign of the cross perpetrated evil for century after century. The fans of the sign of the cross and material crosses thinks it is madness, and it is sacrilege, to draw this distinction which I do, supporting Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 in their assertions that the spiritual cross of Christ is sacred, while insisting the sign of the cross and material crosses are like the Nazi swastika, they are evil.

Really, the only reason to put a mark on your forehead during the Great Tribulation is because you are very strongly convinced it is the seal of God which will protect you from the torments described in Revelation 9. If you have no mark whatsoever on your forehead or right hand, then you will never be shipped off to burn in eternal hellfire for having an evil mark on your forehead or right hand. But, if you are convinced that some mark is sacred to God, if you are strongly convinced it is the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, the seal of God which saves one from months of torment, then you will be strongly inclined to put that mark on your forehead.

Obviously, if you have no mark whatsoever on your forehead or right hand then you will never be shipped off to burn in eternal hell for having the mark of the beast on your forehead or right hand. So, during the Great Tribulation, that logic gives one a very powerful inducement to never put any sort of mark on your forehead or right hand, during the Great Tribulation, when the Antichrist is on the earth, when these 3 angels from heaven, Revelation 14. 6-11, have arrived. There's famine and economic collapse in the Great Tribulation, recall Revelation 18.

We know the cross either symbolizes no evil or else it symbolizes some evil. If it symbolizes no evil, then perhaps it's the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9. But if it symbolizes some evil, then perhaps it is the mark of the beast.

If at least one church under the sign of the cross, if at least one church out of all these thousands of churches under the cross leads people to heaven, perhaps more than one, but if at least one church under the sign of the cross leads people to heaven, because it is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then you can trust that Church when it says the cross is sacred to God. Even if every church under the cross leads people to perdition, if not a single church under the cross is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if they are all false churches lost in corruption and heresy, if they all lead people away from heaven and to perdition, then this wouldn't actually prove the cross symbolizes some evil.

Obviously, if the cross is the mark of the beast then every church under the cross is a false church, a false church which leads people away from heaven and straight to perdition. If a church tells you that the cross is sacred to God, and so you have nothing to fear if put the mark of a cross on your forehead, during the Great Tribulation, thinking the cross is the seal of God which saves one from the torments described in Revelation 9, but then you end up burning in hell forever and ever, because the cross is the mark of the beast not the seal of God, then it was obviously a false church that led you to burn in hell forever. It was obviously not God's True Church which led you to burn in hell forever.

Apropos of evil perpetrated by people carrying crosses, Guido Kisch writes in his `The Jews in Medieval Germany' (The University of Chicago Press, 1949):

`It is well known in the history of criminal law that, beginning in the late Middle Ages and up to the seventeenth century, punishments were imposed on the Jews which differed considerably from those fixed by law and applied to Christian delinquents. They intensified the medieval system of penalties, cruel enough as it was. The motives of ridicule and degradation received especial emphasis, when hanged on the gallows, for instance, a Jew was suspended by the feet, instead of the neck. It became customary to string up two vicious dogs by their hind legs beside him, to make the punishment more ignominious and painful...In some provinces a Jewish thief hanged by the neck would have a Jews' hat filled with boiling pitch placed on his head...transgressions of similar prohibitions such as that against appearance in public on Good Friday, reviling the Christian religion, or engaging in conversionist activities, besides subjecting them to the appropriate penalties, deprived them of protection under the penal law which was otherwise guaranteed.

As every Christian was bound to sacrifice his life for his faith if it were dishonorably attacked, so would he be acquitted in case he slew a Jew, heretic, or heathen in active defense of his faith. The general principle is thus pointed out in the Regulae juris, J155: "No Jew shall defame our Law. If he did so and were found guilty, he should be burnt." Regulae juris, J164: No Jew shall convert a Christian if he values his life." Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) renewed for medieval Christendom the old prohibition of the Christian Roman Empire against forced baptism of Jews. Once a Jew was baptised, however, even if by force, he had to remain faithful to Christianity, according to canon law...Be it even that they have been compelled to receive baptism, yet they shall remain steadfast in their Christian faith. This is so because no one can be deprived of baptism once received...It was Pope Innocent III who, in his letter to the archbishop of Arles in 1201, clearly stated that even those who under direct or indirect compulsion had accepted baptism had become members of the church and thus were to be compelled to the observance of the Christian faith...In 1267, relapse into Judaism was, in fact, explicitly equated with heresy by Pope Clement IV...This was done only after the foundation of the Papal Inquisition which brought all violations of the faith before its tribunals.'

Benzion Netanyahu – he's the late father of the current Prime Minister of Israel, and also the father of the lone Israeli soldier killed in the raid on Entebbe to free the Jewish hostages – Professor Netanyahu tells us in _The Origins of the Inquisition_ (Random House, 1995) that a plot was hatched by the Spanish authorities to slanderously accuse Jews and Marranos (Jewish Christians) of using black magic in a scheme to murder Christians and to destroy the `Holy Office,' the Inquisition, which Pope Sixtus IV. had sanctioned in Spain in 1480. The Spanish plot depicted the Jews uttering satanic incantations over the heart of a kidnapped Christian child, and above a stolen, consecrated host. The Jews, so the slander ran, crucified the child in a Black Mass. Jews were to be arrested and tortured by the Spanish authorities until they confessed to a crime they never committed.

These confessions would then be published throughout Spain, and, with the image of Jews torturing a Christian child to enrage all of Spain, mobs could be counted on to be driven into a murderous frenzy against the Jews. Thus the Spanish authorities would be given a pretext to protect the Jews by driving them from Spain, as the Spanish Crown wanted to be seen as the protector of innocent Jews. Such was the plot behind the Holy Child of La Guardia, which indeed was put into action. Jews were arrested and tortured. When the confessions were not forthcoming, more excruciating torturers were applied until the confessions were forthcoming. In Avila (11.14.1491) five Jews and six Jewish Christians were condemned for desecrating the Host and torturing a Christian child to death in an effort to secure the aid of Satan to murder Christians and to put an end to the Inquisition. The Spanish authorities executed these innocent people by tearing the flesh off their bodies with red-hot pincers.

Christians are under tons of pressure to insist that we have the Divine Law written on our hearts, because, we are on the road to perdition and we are not on the road to heaven if this Divine Law is not written on our hearts, if this new covenant mentioned by Christ at the Last Supper, Matthew 26. 28, and mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, is not written on our hearts, and so we are under lots of pressure to say that we have the Divine Law written on our hearts – regardless if in fact it is written there or not.

That last sentence was rather long, and perhaps some might find it a little confusing. But this is really at the heart of Christianity. Christians are supposed to know God. Recall 2 Thess 1. 8 – hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So, to know God you have to know what God thinks of the cross, the crucifix, the Roman Catholic Church etc., etc. Dos the True God say Rome is the True Church which leads people to heaven? Or does the True God say Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition? Does the True God say that the cross reflects evil? Does the True God say that you commit sacrilege if you say the cross is sacred to God? Or does the True God say the cross is sacred, and therefore you commit sacrilege if you say the cross reflects evil? What about the crucifix? Or, more specifically, what about the Roman Catholic crucifix? Does the True God like it, or does the True God dislike it? Does the True God say it is evil? Does the True God say you are guilty of sacrilege if you say it is sacred? Or does the True God say it is sacred and say that you are on the road to perdition if you say it is evil?

So, if in fact you had the Divine Law prophesied in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on your heart, if you were not delusional, but if you truly had the Divine Law written on your heart, then you could correctly answer the above the questions.

Again, I threw together a You Tube playlist called the NBA on NBC to Catching Fire - Poison Fog. Some of the clips chart the boundaries between music and film which are not anti-Christian and music and film which are anti-Christian. For example, there's a clip of CCR's 'Sweet Hitchhiker,' which is perhaps not quite pornographic but you'd still have to call it anti-Christian. So many modern movies are filled with dialogue which take God's name in vain, a mortal sin. What do you think? Can God tolerate a good deal of realism in films and TV? But don't you think it is wrong to have actors take God's name in vain? Anyway, suppose you pay money to watch an anti-Christian movie on Saturday night. Then, if you celebrate holy communion on Sunday morning, right after you supported some anti-Christian film the previous night, you have to think you're celebrating communion in an unworthy manner. You have to think you just put yourself on the road to eternal perdition.

There is pressure on Christians to always obey the church which one claim is God's True Church, because it sounds insane to say that you attain heaven and escape perdition by rebelling against God's True Church. But there's also pressure on you to rebel against some church if you think it is pushing evil doctrines. For instance, the Dogma of Papal Infallibility specifically anathematizes - damns to perdition - all those who reject that Dogma. Every church on earth except the Roman Catholic Church rejects the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. It's crazy to reject that Dogma if Rome is God's True Church. If you will always go to heaven if you always obey God's True Church, Rome, but if you very well might go to eternal perdition if rebel against Rome, if you rebel against God's True Church, then it is hellish insanity to ever rebel against the Roman Catholic Church.

Of course, of course, if Rome is a false church which leads people to eternal perdition, if Rome is not God's True Church, then this changes things. But if Rome is God's True Church then it is always insane to rebel against Rome.

Rome says it is a big heresy to say Mary was not ever Virgin. The Bible says Jesus had brothers and sisters. Rome says Mary is perfect and forever sinless. The Bible says only God is perfect. For centuries Rome called the Inquisition the 'Holy Office.' And of course it is a sacrilege to say that evil things are holy. There would be no reason to have these parliaments and prime ministers, these executive, legislative and judicial branches, there would be no reason to have any government other than the Roman Catholic Church if Rome is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. If Rome leads people to heaven, if Rome is God's True Church then it is crazy to rebel against Rome. You don't attain heaven and escape perdition by rebelling against God's True Church.

But the New Testament is all about the things one must do, and the things one must not do, to attain heaven and to escape perdition, recall John 1. 1-14, John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, 1 John 5. 3, 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10, 2 Thess 1. 8, John 6. 53-55, 1 Corinthians 11. 27 etc., etc.

You have to admit the universe can be a cold and inhospitable place! Recall that first Christmas Eve, 20 centuries ago. Mary and Joseph were told to look elsewhere, told to keep moving along, because there was no room for them at the inn. But some kindly person let them stay in his barn. If not for that kindly farmer God would have been born out in the street, or born out in some open field. Or recall that Moses was once floating down the river Nile, floating toward his death in a baby basket. But then some kindly woman came along and rescued him.

So, to review, Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34 tell us the True Faith / Divine Law / new covenant/ Gospel of Jesus Christ is concise enough to be inscribed on human hearts. And it must be rather simple as even the least of God's people, see Jeremiah 31. 31-34, can understand this Divine Law. There's alot of info in the New Testament, but, evidently, not so much info that it can't be inscribed on human hearts. Here's a sampling of the New Testament: 'You know the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, but it shall not be that way among you. The one who seeks to be great among you must be your slave...At the end of the age the angels will be sent forth to separate the wicked from the righteous...there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth...for many are called but few are chosen...wide is the road to destruction and narrow is the path to eternal life...Unless you become like little children you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven...Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the age to come...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God...All things were made through Him...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory...If anyone loves Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words...Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God...Do you not know your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!...Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?...Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord...And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire...'

The above is just a small sampling of everything that Christianity teaches. There's quite alot to remember, quite alot that you have to keep straight in your head.

Aside from Christ's words in Matthew 16. 13-19 on the exsistence of God'sTrue Church, we also have the words of St. Paul in Ephesians 4. 4-6,

`There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'

In St. Paul's terminology this phrase - `there is one body' - means there is only one True Church. Note Ephesians 5. 30, where St. Paul says of the True Church and of Christ,

`For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.'

Is St. Paul trustworthy? Christians say he is. Non-Christians say he isn't. Acts 26. 13-18 has St. Paul / Saul saying,

`At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me. "And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' "And I said, 'Who are You, Lord?' And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 'But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; rescuing you from the _Jewish_ people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.'

Those of us who are Christians say that Christianity is the new covenant which God writes on the hearts of His people, recall Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34. The first mention of a new covenant, of a New Law to amend the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Jeremiah 31. 31-34 tells us that even the least of God's people can understand this new covenant. Ephesians 5. 5, King James version, is quite simple.

`For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.'

§ 7. Zionism

Should the USA support Israel or not support Israel? Zionism is the doctrine saying the Jews have a right to their own nation in the Holy Land. To Bible-based Christians Ezekiel 36. 24-28 can not refer to antiquity, cannot refer to the return of the Jews following the Babylonian Captivity, 25 centuries ago, because the Jews have been in rebellion against God for as long as they have rejected Jesus, roughly 2,000 years, and Ezekiel 36. 24-36 tells us, in so many words, that God will bring the Jews back to the Holy Land, then He will put His Spirit into the Jews, and then the Jews will not rebel against God anymore. The context also says the Jews will not suffer any more from famine. There was of course a huge famine in Jerusalem during and before the Roman Conquest in 70 AD. Salo W. Baron stated in his `Social History of the Jews' that no Jew was known to have died from famine during the Middle Ages. Of course quite a few might have come very close to starving to death. Christians were forever dying of hunger in the Middle Ages. The princes and dukes liked to hoard the surplus food, and were not overly generous to their serfs at any time. In any event one might argue that Ezekiel 36. 24-28 means that God supports Zionism to both ancient times and in modern times

Christianity says the Jews have been in rebellion against God for many centuries now, so Bible-based Christians say that Ezekiel 36. 24-28 refers to a time when the Jews are gathered in the Holy Land, and then the Spirit of God is put inside the Jews, and then the Jews never again rebel against God. So, if Christianity is true, as we Christians insist it is, and if Ezekiel 36. 24-28 refers to our era, then we can expect the imminent conversion of the Jews to Christianity. Furthermore, if Christianity is true, and if Ezekiel 36. 24-28 refers to our time, then if you are an enemy of Israel and Zionism you're on the Devil's side not God's side.

All of my religious books focus on the great tribulation which precedes the Second Coming of Christ, see Revelation 18. Revelation 14. 6-11 mentions 3 angels from heaven showing up. 2 Thess 2 deals with the Antichrist. And 2 Thess 2 specifically says the man of sin / son of perdition, aka the Antichrist, will be revealed prior to the Second Coming. There is really no way to distinguish an angel from hell from an angel from heaven unless one can tell the difference between heresy and the True Faith. Recall 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15 says Satan masquerades as an angel of light.

We Christians are supposed to have the new covenant / Divine Law written on our hearts. Recall Christ said at the Last Supper, Matthew 26. 28, `This cup is My blood of the new covenant...' Turning to Jeremiah 31. 31-34 we read that God will write the new covenant / Divine Law on the hearts of His people. The new covenant must be fairly simple because Jeremiah 31. 31-34 says even the least of God's people will be able to understand this new covenant, also known as the New Law / the Divine Law / the True Faith / the Gospel of Jesus Christ etc. Suppose you're trying to teach Christianity to a kid. If you have the Divine Law / True Faith written on your heart then you will not teach sacrilege or heresy to that kid. You're not going to lead that kid to eternal perdition if you have the new covenant written on your heart. But society puts so much pressure on us that we have to watch out that we don't succumb to the pressure. If you succumb to the pressure you might lead the kid to perdition.

Suppose you are a Protestant minister and suppose a Catholic kid comes to your office and asks you if he must renounce the Roman Catholic Church in order to escape perdition and attain salvation. If you tell the Catholic kid that he must renounce the Roman Catholic Church, because Rome is not God's True Church, not the Church which Christ which Christ founded on a rock, and therefore Rome is a false church, a false church lost in heresy, a false church which leads people away from heaven and straight to perdition, if you say all that to the Catholic kid, then the Catholic parents of the Catholic kid might show up at your office, and they might direct some angry words at you, like - `keep away from our kid you evil satanic Protestant bastard!'

But then, on the other hand, if the Protestant minister tells the Catholic kid that he will attain heaven and will escape perdition if he remains in the Roman Catholic Church, then the Catholic kid will take this to mean that Rome is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. And if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome always leads people to heaven and never leads anyone to perdition, then it would be stupid for anyone to risk hellfire by rebelling against God's True Church, Rome; therefore, one would be wise to always obey God's True Church, the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants rebel against Rome, such as by rejecting the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, which damns all those who reject that Dogma. But Rome is either God's True Church or else it isn't. If Rome is God's True Church then you might go to hell if you rebel against Rome, such as by rejecting the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. On the other hand, if Rome is a false church which leads people to eternal perdition, then a Protestant minister is doing the right thing when he tries to warn Catholic kids that Rome is an evil false church which drags souls down to perdition.

So, on the one hand, if a Protestant minister tells Catholics to renounce Rome, because Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition, then he will get bitched at by various people. But then, on the other hand, if the Protestant minister tells people that the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, and therefore your best strategy to attain heaven and to escape perdition is to always obey God's True Church, the Roman Catholic Church, then other people will bitch at him.

In giving a paraphrase of Christianity you're always in danger of getting lost on long tangents. For instance, Malachi 4. 1 has the LORD saying,

`The day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the proud and wicked people will be set on fire...'

Of course many say that scripture is voodoo. I'm pushing the doctrine that Christianity is true and the Bible is trustworthy. Of course parts of the Old Testament might be parables – fictions which teach spiritual truths. Whether the account of the fall of Adam and Eve, or the account of Noah, is literal truth in every detail, or a parable, is of little importance. As long as we are taught spiritual truth then that is all that matters. We're already getting lost on a tangent. If Malachi 4. 1 is true then why would you say Malachi 3. 5 is false? Malachi 3. 5 has the LORD saying,

"Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me," says the LORD of hosts."

And of course everything gets rather complicated from this info, assuming Malachi 4. 1 and Malachi 3. 5 are perfectly true. Must Israel admit aliens who are pledged to destroy Israel? Does that make any sense? In the USA it would be easy enough to say every alien who is not a rapist or murderer or some such vicious criminal ought to be given asylum in the USA – still assuming Malachi 3. 5 and Malachi 4. 1 are true – but our laws and tax structure are so oppressive. The rich know how to evade crushing taxation. The poor have no money to be taxed. But the middle class can be crushed by taxation. If you own a restaurant that is struggling to survive, and if you are hit with more and more taxes to pay for the welfare payments of millions of new immigrants, then how is justice being served to you? How is making you destitute in accord with Christianity?

It takes a great deal of effort just to explain Christianity. There are so many tangents. Some Christians say you're a fool if you reject the Roman Catholic Church. They say you're a fool if you say Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Well, if they are right, if one is a fool to say Rome is not God's True Church, then it is stupid to have all these Senates and Parliaments. If Rome is God's True Church, then Rome is the only government we need. But if Rome is a false church not the True Church, then Rome will drag you down to perdition if you don't get out of the false church that is the Roman Catholic Church. Some people say John 3. 16 is all you need to know to understand Christianity. That's crazy. John 3. 16 doesn't tell us anything about whether or not Jesus is God. John 1. 1-14, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 tell us Jesus is God. If it is a lie to say Jesus is God, and if Malachi 4. 1 is true – again Malachi 4. 1 has the LORD saying the day is coming, burning like an oven, when the proud and wicked and proud people will be set on fire – then Christianity leads one to the flames. But if Christianity is true, if Jesus is God, then you can trust what Christianity teaches in the famous Christian hellfire scriptures: Matthew 25. 31-46, John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8, Revelation 20. 12-15 etc.

Matthew 25. 31-46 has Jesus saying you will burn in hell if you are not generous to poor people. This gets you thinking that if you are always giving your money away to poor people then you will soon be a poor person yourself, and you will soon be dependent upon charity to be delivered from starvation. Acts 2. 44-47 and Acts 4. 32-35 are scriptures which tell us that during the apostolic age there was equal sharing of the wealth among Christians. Socialism and Communism are modern systems which use policemen and prisons to force people to hand over money in taxes to pay for socialistic governments and programs. In the early Church there was a voluntary system. The Church collected money from Christians who willingly gave it. Of course everything changed over the centuries, and we're still looking into the question of whether the people under the sign of the cross fell away from the True Faith taught by Christ and the apostles. Again John 6. 53-55 tells us one must celebrate communion in order to attain heaven and to escape perdition. But you mustn't celebrate communion in an unworthy manner, recall 1 Corinthians 11. 27.

What immediately strikes you when considering Judaism, Christianity and Islam is how violent they are! The Koran is crammed full with verses saying you will burn in hell if you reject Allah and Islam. The New Testament has various verses which say you will burn in hell if you do various things, and if you refuse to do various things. Matthew 25. 31-46, John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8, 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10, Revelation 14. 11 and Revelation 20. 12-15 are some famous Christian scriptures dealing with perdition or hellfire. The first verse of the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi 4. 1, begins with the LORD saying that the Day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the proud and wicked people will be set on fire. The remaining verses in that chapter become more upbeat and less painful. Another thing that is immediately obvious is that the Koran is a very simple document. It might not be the most readable work of literature in the world, but anyone who can read, and anyone who has a copy of the Koran translated into a language he can read, can read and understand the Koran fairly quickly – 10 to 20 hours of study. A sharp lawyer, or anyone accustomed to reading large documents quickly, can see the main points of the Koran in an hour or two of reading. But the Christian Bible is very different. It is not until Ezekiel 20. 25, hundreds of pages into the Old Testament, that we find that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their rebelliousness. It is not until Jeremiah 31. 31-34, hundreds of pages into the Old Testament, that we learn that God will give the Jews a new covenant to replace the Old Covenant, the old Mosaic Law. And then the New Testament is a little confusing because it holds out hope to those who are imperfect in their understanding of the Faith, in the scriptures saying love covers a multitude of sins, nevertheless, other scriptures are so terribly clear and stern.

Galatians 1. 8-12 says St. Paul learned his doctrine directly from Christ and even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters this doctrine. 2 Thess 1. 8 is stern. John 15. 6 is stern, as are all the other hellfire scriptures. Another thing that strikes you about Christianity is that it is supposed to be simple to understand, but in a lot of ways Christianity seems rather complex. I mean, Christ told us at the Last Supper: `This cup is My blood of the new covenant...' And then turning to Jeremiah 31. 31-34 we read that God will write His new covenant on the hearts of His people. We're also told that even the least of God's people will understand this new covenant. So this gets you thinking that the new covenant must be pretty simple. And yet, on the other hand, Christianity can seem rather complex – there are many different churches claiming to be the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Suppose you are in the Church which Christ founded on a rock, Matthew 16. 13-19, suppose you are a member of God's True Church, then it makes no sense to rebel against that Church you are in. If you will always go to heaven if you always obey God's True Church, but if you risk hellfire if you rebel against God's True Church, such as rejecting one or more official doctrines from the True Church, then it is insane to ever rebel against God's True Church. St. Paul says it is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner, 1 Corinthians 11. 27. And Christ tells us in John 6. 53-55 that we must take communion to attain heaven and escape perdition.

Acts 26. 13-18 has St. Paul / Saul saying,

`At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me. "And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' "And I said, 'Who are You, Lord?' And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 'But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; rescuing you from the _Jewish_ people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.'

So, you might be an Atheist, or a Hindu, or a Muslim, but if you encounter a Christian then you can argue in a way which we Christians will find persuasive, argue in this way: Let's accept the premise that St. Paul's authority is from God. Therefore we can trust what St. Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10,

`Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor _the_ covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.'

Getting back to the question of whether the evils perpetrated by people carrying crosses are reflected in the cross, or if the cross is sacred and holy, Paul Johnson writes in `A History of Christianity', p. 273,

`In the West, the clergy had begun to assert an exclusive interpretive, indeed custodial, right to the Bible as early as the ninth century; and from about 1080 there had been frequent instances of the Pope, councils and bishops forbidding not only vernacular translations but any reading at all, by laymen, of the Bible taken as a whole...attempts to scrutinize the Bible became proof presumptive of heresy - a man or woman might burn [at the stake] for it alone.'

Just as you can choose to either stick a needle and have some heroin, or choose to not stick a needle in your arm, so many things leave us with 2 options. It is either satanic to burn people for reading Bibles or else it is not satanic to burn people for reading Bibles.

Charles Dickens once tarried in Avignon and wrote of what he saw in his 'Sketches of Italy.' He described to us one of the torture chambers in the Palace of the Popes. There was a painting of the Good Samaritan on the wall hard by the iron spikes, once heated red-hot, and upon which the victims of the Inquisition were formerly impaled.

Major Griffiths wrote the following in his In Old French Prisons (Dorset Press, 1992):

`We are familiar enough with the "rack," the "wheel," the thumb screw" and the "boot." Other less known forms of torture were the "veglia" introduced into France by the popes when the Holy See came to Avignon. The "veglia" consisted of a small wooden stool so constructed that when the accused sat upon it his whole weight rested on the extremity of his spine. His sufferings soon became acute. He groaned, he shrieked and then fainted, whereupon the punishment ceased until he came to and was again placed on the stool. It was usual to hold a looking glass before his eyes that his distorted features might frighten him into confession.'

Again, with the crucifix, which is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome has always been God's True Church: who says that even when Rome used cruel tortures for century after century, Rome was God's True Church. But if the True God / True Jesus says Rome is a false church which leads people straight to perdition, then the Roman Catholic crucifix – an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven – is a deceitful image, a satanic image. It is the image of a satanic lie. Recall the image of the beast – Revelation 14. 11. You burn in hell forever and ever if you worship the image of the beast / worship the satanic image of a false version of Jesus.

So, again, we have a Case 1 and a Case 2 with the material cross. Case 1 says the cross is sacred to God and symbolizes no evil. Case 2 says the cross symbolizes some evil.

If Case 1 is true then you have to suspect the cross might be this seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, this seal of God which saves one from the torments described in Revelation 9 if one has the seal of God one ones forehead. If Case 2 is true, if the cross symbolizes some evil, then you have to worry that the cross is the mark of the beast – Revelation 14. 11 – and that scripture says one burns in hell forever if he has the mark of the beast on his forehead or right hand.

We'll review all this later. For now it's enough to be mindful the scriptures saying the Antichrist will show up, 2 Thess 2, and these 3 angels from heaven will show up, Revelation 14. 6-11. 2 Corinthians 11. 13-19 says Satan masquerades as an angel of light. But if Satan is good at his masquerade, if he convinces you he's an angel from heaven, when in fact he is Satan, then that mistake will lead you to eternal perdition. There is simply no way to distinguish an angel from hell from an angel from heaven unless you know the difference between heresy and the True Faith. Recall Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34. If you have the Divine Law written on your heart then you understand the True Faith. 2 Thess 2 deals with strong delusion and the Antichrist. If you are deluded, if you insist you have the Divine Law written on your heart but do not, then you are set up to follow after the Antichrist.

§ 8. Don't worship any false gods, please

Revelation 13. 1-8,

`And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?" There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.'

This is often interpreted to mean that people will worship the Antichrist, the Antichrist being the beast with the 7 heads. But things are ambiguous. Revelation 19. 19 mentions a beast sitting on a horse getting ready to battle Christ at the Second Coming. That sounds like the Antichrist. But a beast with 10 horns and 7 heads gets you thinking that people will not worship a literal beast with 7 literal heads and 10 literal horns. It gets one thinking that we are dealing with figurative, metaphorical language in Revelation 13. 1-8. Suppose everyone on earth who worships a false god, worships, in a figurative sense, this beast with 7 heads and 10 horns. Of course the Muslims claim to worship the True God, the Creator of the Universe, but if in fact the Muslims worship a false god, if Allah is not the Creator of the universe, then in a figurative sense you could say the Muslims worship this beast with 7 heads mentioned in Revelation 14. 1-8. And suppose the Hindus worship false gods, and suppose the Buddhists worship false gods.

The Roman Catholics worship a god who says the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Church which leads people to heaven, recall Matthew 16. 13-19. But if the True God says Rome is a false church which leads people away from heaven and to perdition, then the Roman Catholics don't worship the True God. They worship a god who says Rome leads people to heaven. That's a false god, a false version of the Trinity, if the True Version of the Trinity says Rome is a false church which leads people away from heaven and to perdition.

So, if the Roman Catholics worship a false god – if they worship a false version of the Trinity, then the theory says the Romans Catholics worship this beast with 7 heads and 10 horns.

You can articulate the same 2 Cases for any church. A church, any church, is either the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Bride of Christ, the True Church which leads people to heaven, or else it is a false church which leads people to perdition. As we have seen, drinking damnation into your soul by celebrating holy communion in an unworthy manner is a big slip-up made by false churches. These churches give the bread and the wine to Sabbath violators, murderers, henchmen, pro-choicers, inquisitors, slave-traders, revilers etc.

Revelation 2. 9 - Jesus says He knows the blasphemy of those who are Jews but are actually a synagogue of Satan's. We have a Case 1 and we have a Case 2. In Case 1, where Jesus is the Messiah and the Divine Son of Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6, the case where the New Testament scriptures which tell us that Jesus is God are accurate and trustworthy – John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 etc. – then, if one blasphemes Jesus as a fraud and a bogus deity, then it is obvious one is in a synagogue of Satan, even though one insists one is not in a synagogue of Satan! And then there is Case 2, where Jesus is not the Messiah, where Jesus is not God, where Jesus is not the Second Person in a Divine Trinity, where scriptures such as John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, Romans 9. 5 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 are simply falsehoods. If Case 2 is true then the Jews are perfectly right to reject Jesus. If Jesus is a false god then it is wicked of those of us who are Christians to insist He is God. Again, Malachi 4. 1 mentions God will set the wicked on fire. So it is very important that we Christians not be wrong when we insist Jesus is God.

Daniel 12. 1 tells us that there will be an unprecedented time of trouble on earth when the archangel Michael shows up to deliver the Jews. Those of us who insist Christianity is true will naturally suspect that Michael will deliver the Jews by converting them to Christianity, and to the right version of Christianity. Perhaps the Antichrist will convert the Jews to an evil version of Christianity, and then years or decades might elapse before Michael shows up to convert the Jews to the right version of Christianity. Or perhaps not. So much depends on being able to locate the right version of Christianity, i.e., the True Faith and the True Church.

What do you think: is the Roman Catholic crucifix sacred? Is it evil? Is the cross sacred? Is the cross evil? If you have the Divine Law written on your heart, if you are in the True Church and not some false church, then you certainly wouldn't commit sacrilege with the cross and the crucifix.

Does the True God say the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church?

Consider Pope John XII of the 10th century. Gibbon writes,

`The most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign may have suggested to darker ages the fable of a female pope. The...son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen that the second of these became the head of the Latin Church. His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otto the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read, with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.'

It is only in the French language that Christ's pun on Peter's name is exact. In L'évangile selon Saint Matthieu xvi. 18 - Le Neuveau Testament (Montreal, 3rd edition, 1966) we're informed,

« Et moi, je te declare: Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre, je bâtirai mon Eglise, et les portes de l'enfer ne prévaudront pas contre elle. »

`And me, I declared to you: You are Rock, and on this rock, I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.'
In his commentary on the text of Matthew 16: 18, S. E. Mgr Charles-Omer Garant, Auxiliary Bishop of Quebec, tells us that whenever one wishes to find the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, one need only look to the Bishop of Rome, to the Pope, for wherever the Pope is, there also is God's True Church. Bishop Garant writes that Satan and his evil angels can never overthrow the Church of Rome. These assertions might be considered the most fundamental teachings of the Church of Rome. It is official Roman Catholic doctrine that all the true Christians must venerate St. Pius V. Christopher Hare (pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Andrews) wrote in her `Men and Women of the Italian Reformation' (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York):

"On January 7, 1566, Michele Ghislieri, the fanatical Inquisitor, was elected Pope, under the title of Pius V, and from that moment every distinguished Italian who held reformed views was in peril of his life...Carnesecchi was taken a captive to Rome and lodged in the prison of the Holy Office...the rack was freely employed...Through fifteen long months of imprisonment and frequent torture, these awful examinations continued, until at length, on August 16, 1567, sentence was delivered by the tribunal of the Inquisition...Carnesecchi was borne to the Ponte St. Angelo, amidst the execrations and curses of the fanatical rabble which crowded round him, but he continued his courage and composure to the last. They clothed him in a "sanbenito," the garment of heresy, painted over with flames and devils...He was first beheaded, then burnt in the flames of the Inquisition...by means of spies and the seizing of all private letters and papers, the Inquisition had already the most intimate knowledge of all that Carnesecchi and his friends had ever said or written...It is true that the case of Giulia Gonzaga was already pre-doomed, for on the accession of Pius V (Michele Ghislieri) in 1566 he had come into possession of a chest containing a great number of letters to Carnesecchi and others. On reading these papers, the Pope had declared that "if he had seen these before her death, he would have taken good care to burn her alive."'

The Catholic Church is not interested in any debates pertaining to St. Pius V. As with all canonized persons, the Catholic Church considers these matters to be closed. The Catholic Church teaches, a) St. Pius V. practiced heroic virtue, b) the faithful are to venerate him and pray to him, c) it is blasphemy to speak against him or any other canonized person, n.b., Paragraph 2148, Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition, 2000, Imprimi Potest, Libreria Editrice Vaticana).

If Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, then obey Rome. But if Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to perdition, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then get out of the Church of Rome. Rome does not make the explicit claim that the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is the true ruler of the World, but - examine the logic for yourself - if Rome is the True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven, if Rome does not lead anyone to hell, then, it is would be idiotic and evil to ever rebel against Rome. If it is idiotic and evil to ever rebel against the Church of Rome, then the Pope is the true ruler of the world. But if Rome is a false church, a satanic church which leads people away from heaven and drags them down to eternal perdition...

The cross of Christ mentioned in scripture, e.g., Galatians 6. 14 and Phillippians 3. 18 is sacred – Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred – but this sacrifice is spiritual, it is not a material thing. I'm saying the sign of the cross and material crosses are not sacred, on more or less the same reasoning that God is sacred but material representation of God are sacrilegious and unholy. Recall the 2nd Commandment.

The cross, that is a material cross, either symbolizes no evil or else it symbolizes some evil. I hope we can agree on this much. We certainly don't want to stray into sacrilege. Sacrilege is the sin of saying that things which God says are sacred are evil. And it is the sin of saying that things which God says are evil are sacred. Again, I'm saying that God says the spiritual cross of Chirst is sacred but material crosses are evil. We have a Case 1 and a Case 2. Case 1 says the cross symbolizes no evil. Case 2 says the cross symbolizes some evil. Case 1 says you commit sacrilege if you say the cross is evil. Case 2 says you commit sacrilege if you say the cross is sacred, because, again, in Case 2, God says the cross reflects some evil. So, if Case 1 is true, if God says the cross is sacred, then in an apocalyptic scenario – recall that info earlier about the Antichrist and the 3 angels from heaven showing up – recall that info about angels from hell and angels from heaven - recall 2 Thess 2, 1 John 2. 18, Revelation 19. 19, Revelation 14. 6-11 etc, - so, if Case 1 is true, if the cross reflects no evil then in an apocalyptic scenario you want the mark of a cross on your forehead. Recall that Revelation 9 deals with a seal of God which protects one from torment. Long story short, you are saved from months of excruciating torment if you have the seal of god on your forehead. So, if Case 1 is true, if the cross is sacred to God, then perhaps the cross is this seal of God which saves one from torment, as described in Revelation 9. But if Case 2 is true, if God says the cross reflects evil, then you don't want the mark of a cross on your forehead. Recall Revelation 14. 11 mentions eternal torment in hellfire for those with an evil mark on their foreheads.

I'm saying the evil perpetrated by people carrying crosses over the centuries is reflected in the cross, rather as the evil perpetrated by the Nazis is reflected in the Nazi swastika. I'm saying Christianity took a very bad turn in the 4th century. Gibbon writes of the 4th century Catholic Emperor Valentinian and his judges,

`They easily discovered, that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of executions that were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained by perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity, but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, was seldom permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures...The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, `Strike off his head;' `Burn him alive;' `Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;'....He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage.'

We're trying to figure out if the evils perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses are reflected in the sign of the cross, rather as the evils perpetrated by the Nazis are reflected in the symbol of the Nazis, the Nazi swastika, or if the sign of the cross reflects no evil, because God says it is pure and holy and sacred. If Case 1 is true, if the cross reflects no evil, if God says it is a sacrilege to say the cross symbolizes evil, or some evil, then, for me to drop these hints saying the cross is the mark of the beast, dropping these insinuations saying one will burn in hell forever if one puts the mark of a cross on one's forehead, is really quite diabolical and very satanic indeed. But then, on the other hand, if Case 2 is true, if the spiritual cross of Christ is sacred, if Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred, but if material crosses reflect the evil perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses, and if in fact one will burn in hell forever if one puts the mark of a cross on one's forhead, then it is really quite diabolical and very satanic indeed to insist that the cross is sacred to God. So this is a mystery we have to resolve. I mean, just look at a small fraction of all of the evil perpetrated by people carrying cross over the centuries. Even this small fraction is rather mind-boggling. Again, Lord Acton told us in his essay `Human Sacrifice,'

`And yet, long after the last victim had fallen in honour of the sun-god of the Aztecs, the civilised nations of Christian Europe continued to wage wholesale destruction...Protestants and Catholics, clergy and laity, vied with each other for two hundred years to provide victims, and every refinement of legal ingenuity and torture was used in order to increase their number. In 1591, at Nördligen, a girl was tortured twenty-three times before she confessed...Three years later, in the same town, a woman suffered torture fifty-six times without confessing she was a witch...In the north of Italy, the great jurist Alciatus saw 100 witches burnt on one day...In England alone, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, the victims of this superstition amounted to 30,000. Yet, from the appearance of Spee's Cautio in 1631 to the burning of the last witch in 1783, all sensible men were persuaded that the victims were innocent of the crime for which they suffered intolerable torments and an agonizing death. But those who hunted them out with cunning perseverance, and the inflexible judges who never spared their lives, firmly believed that their execution was pleasing in the sight of God, and that their sin could not be forgiven by men.'

If you start with the premise which says the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, recall Matthew 16. 13-19, if Rome leads people to heaven and leads no one to perdition, then it follows from this premise that the cross is sacred to God, because God's True Church, Rome, is trustworthy, and so you can trust God's True Church, the Bride of Christ, when she says says the cross is sacred to God. But if your premise is all wrong then the conclusions you draw from that false premise might be all wrong. If Rome is not God's True Church, if the gates of hell have prevailed against Rome, if Rome leads people to perdition not to heaven then Rome is untrustworthy when she says the cross is sacred to God. Case 1 says Rome is God's True Church. Case 1 says the gates of hell have not prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church. Case 1 says Rome leads people to heaven. Case 2 says Rome is not God's True Church. Case 2 says the gates of hell have prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church. Case 2 says Rome leads people away from heaven and to perdition.

Again, the Jewish Encyclopedia,

`CAPISTRANO, JOHN OF: Franciscan monk; born at Capistrano, Italy, 1386; died 1456. Owing to his remarkable power as a popular preacher, he was sent by Pope Nicholas V. (1447-55) as legate to Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, with the special mission to preach against the Hussites...Knowing how easy it is to excite the masses by appealing to their prejudices, Capistrano, in his discourses, accused the Jews of killing Christian children and of desecrating the host...His admirers called him the "scourge of the Judeans"...In Silesia the Franciscan was most zealous in his work. When Capistrano arrived at Breslau, a report was circulated that one Meyer, a wealthy Jew, had bought a host from a peasant and desecrated it. Thereupon the local authorities arrested the representatives of the Breslau Jewish community and confiscated their houses and property for the benefit of the city. The investigation of the so-called blasphemy was conducted by Capistrano himself. By means of tortures he managed to wring from a few of the victims false confessions of the crimes ascribed to them. As a result, more than forty Jews were burned at the stake in Breslau June 2, 1453. Others, fearing torture, committed suicide, a rabbi, Pinheas, hanged himself. The remainder of the Jews were driven out of the city, while their children of tender age were taken from them and baptized by force. In Poland Capistrano found an ally in the archbishop Zbigniev Olesniczki, who urged Casimir IV. Jagellon to abolish the privileges which had been granted to the Jews in 1447...This led to persecutions of the Jews in many Polish towns. Capistrano was canonized in 1690.'

So, if Case 1 is true, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads people to heaven and leads no one to perdition, then everyone on earth should obey Rome, God's True Church, everyone on earth should obey even her most controversial doctrines, such as the doctrine commanding people to venerate all those who have been canonized by Rome. The Dogma of Papal Infallibility specifically states that all those who reject that Dogma are damned, they are anathema. But you should embrace the Dogma of Papal Infallibility if Rome leads people to heaven and leads no one to perdition, if in fact Rome is God's True Church, if Case 1 is true.

Now if Case 1 is false and if Case 2 is true, if the Roman Catholic Church is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the gates of hell have prevailed against Rome, if Rome leads people to perdition not to heaven, then of course no one on earth should be a Roman Catholic.

Of course if Rome has fallen into heresy, but if at least one of the many thousands of other churches under the cross is God's True Church, then you can trust that church when it says the material cross is sacred to God. But if every church under the sign of the cross has fallen into heresy, if the gates of hell have prevailed against every one of them, if none of them is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if they are all sunk in heresy and corruption, if they all lead souls away from heaven and drag them down to perdition, then this wouldn't actually prove that the cross is evil in the eyes of God, nevertheless, if every church under the cross drags souls down to perdition...

So, you'll notice things are getting rather complex. It was all so easy in the beginning. The beginning begins with John 1. 1-14, which again says Jesus created the universe. From that premise you move on to various more or less obvious conclusions, such as the conclusion which says: you can trust what the Creator of the Universe is saying in John 15. 6: those who do not abide in Christ are like sticks given to the flames – and you can trust what the Creator of the Universe is saying in John 14. 23-26, which says that those who love Christ keep His words and those who don't love Christ don't keep His words. So, Christians will want to keep the words which Christ spoke in Matthew 16. 13-19, which again pertains to the True Church, and keep Christ's words in Matthew 25. 31-46, which again is a famous hellfire scriptures. So, everything is quite simple and easy so far. Of course Non-Christians will insist that we Christians make a very fundamental blunder by accepting John 1. 1-14, by accepting the doctrine that Jesus created the Universe, but then we Christians will insist that the Non-Christians make a fundamental error, one which will lead to their eternal destruction in eternal perdition, lest they wise up and repent and learn to embrace John 1. 1-14. But things were simple enough in the beginning for those of us who are Christians. Sound conclusions flow so effortlessly from the sound premise of John 1. 1-14. But then we come to Christ's words in Matthew 16. 13-19, and now we have to determine if Rome is God's True Church or if Rome is not God's True Church. Basically, we have to review all of these thousands of churches under the sign of the cross and we have to determine which, if any of them, qualifies as God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Church which the gates of hell will not prevail against. Things are not so simple anymore, as that task looks like a very daunting and laborious and perilous undertaking, one fraught with no end of chances for devastating slips-ups leading one into heresy and straight to perdition.

If you start with the premise that John 1. 1-14, is true, if the statement `Jesus created the Universe' is a true statement, and so this leads you to conclude that you can trust what the Creator of the Universe is saying in John 15. 6 – again John 15. 6 says those who do not abide in Christ are like stick which are tossed into the flames – and John 15. 6 supports 2 Thess 1. 8 – hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ – we Christians insist God, the Creator of the Universe, is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so you will want to know that in order to know God, anyway, if John 1. 1-14, John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8 are all true, then these Non-Christian religions which reject Christ – Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Islam, Atheism, Liberalism etc., etc., all lead people straight to eternal perdition. So there is a similarity between these religions which drag souls down to perdition with airlines which crash and burn on every flight. Air Hinduism crashes and burns on every flight. Air Islam crashes and burns on every flight. Islam is a heresy which leads people away from heaven and drags them down to eternal perdition, so Islam like an airline that crashes and burns on every flight. This is the obvious and inescapable conclusion if you start with the premise that says John 1. 1-14 is true. The Non-Christians become quite indignant at this assertion and they respond by saying Air Christianity crashes and burns on every flight. They say that as soon as a person embraces the blasphemy that Jesus is the Creator of the Universe then he has embraced a heresy which will lead him straight to eternal perdition. But we Christians say: No, No, No! There is nothing wrong with John 1. 1-14! And there is nothing wrong with John 15. 6, and there is nothing wrong with 2 Thess 1. 8! There is nothing wrong with John 14. 23-26, with Matthew 16. 13-19, with Matthew 25. 31-46...

Rome claims that the Roman Catholic Church has always been guided by the Holy Spirit. I have a problem here which requires a little explaining. It's very easy for me to make the case saying Rome blasphemes the Holy Spirit when Rome claims that Rome has always been guided by the Holy Spirit. It's very easy to present proof saying the Roman Catholic Church has perpetrated evil for century after century, and so it is very easy to present proof saying the Rome Catholic Church blasphemes the Holy Spirit when it claims that it has always been guided by the Holy Spirit. If you commit evil, and then if you insist the Holy Spirit guides you, then you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you see. But I don't want to tell Roman Catholics that they have committed an unforgiveable sin. I don't want to tell Roman Catholics that no matter what they do in the future, no matter if they repent and become perfect Christians, no matter how wonderful they become, they will never attain heaven and will always be banished to the darkness of eternal perdition. I don't want to tell them that. You see, I want to give them some hope that they can still attain heaven. But what am I supposed to do? The facts of history say that the Roman Catholic Church perpetrated evil for century after century. You basically have to be completely clueless to not understand something this obvious! And so when Rome says that the Holy Spirit has always guided the Roman Catholic Church, well, I'm really struggling to why find some sort of technicality which says the Catholics have not committed an unforgiveable sin in blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

The Christian Church started out perfectly fine in the 1st century, but then everything went to hell in the 4th century, when the Catholics priests celebrated communion in an unworthy manner by giving the bread and the wine to patently evil people. John 6. 53-55 tells us you must celebrate communion to attain heaven. 1 Corinthians 11. 27 tells us it is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. To be perfectly blunt, you really have to be clueless if you can't understand something as simple as this: the people under the sign of the cross fell into a nasty sewer in 4th century, and they have remained in that sewer ever since. Gibbon writes of the 4th century Catholic Emperor Valentinian and his judges,

`They easily discovered, that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of executions that were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained by perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity, but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, was seldom permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures...The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, `Strike off his head;' `Burn him alive;' `Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;'....He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage.'

Will Durant told us in `The Age of Faith' that the Frankish chieftains intermarried with the remnants of the Gallo-Roman senatorial class and produced the aristocracy of France. The same nobles showed amazing contempt for justice: their baptism into Catholicism had no regenerative or redeeming effects upon them. Gibbon wrote of the triumph of barbarism and religion in Catholic, Dark Age France. Barbarism reigned for centuries. Assassination, torture, slaughter, treachery, adultery, fornication and incest were the expedients by which nobles and peasants relieved the ennui of medieval life. By 600 there were Jewish colonies in all the major cities of the Franks. The Merovingian Catholics persecuted the Jews with pious ferocity. King Chilperic decreed that Jews were to embrace the Catholic Church or have their eyes torn out. The Council of Toledo of 633 ruled that those Jews who had submitted to baptism, and then fell back into Judaism, were to be bereaved of their children and sold into slavery. Durant also told us in `The Age of Louis XIV' of the suffering of the Jews in Poland, Lithuania and Russia from 1648-58, such as in Pereyaslav, Piryatin, Lubny, and hundreds of other towns, was brutal beyond belief. Many thousands of Jews were slaughtered by Cossacks and Lithuanians, Tatars and Poles, by people brandishing crosses. We read of the cruelest tortures: Jews flayed alive, split asunder, clubbed to death, roasted over red-hot coals, scalded with boiling water, thousands of Jewish infants thrown into wells or buried alive.

Recall that logic which says True Christians have the Divine Law written on their hearts, I mean recall again Christ's words at the Last Supper, Matthew 26. 28 - `This cup is My blood of the new covenant...' and recall Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Protestants under the cross are always insisting that they have a Divine Law written on their hearts. These people violate the Sabbath, they celebrate communion with people who violate the Sabbath, they are either pro-choice or they celebrate communion with pro-choicers. If you try to tell that they are on the road to perdition because they celebrate communion in an unworthy manner they say this can't be because they have the Divine Law written on their hearts. They insist they are good Christians and you are the one who is going to hell. Talk about delusional! 2 Thess 2 deals with the issues of deluded people and the Antichrist.

Yes, Jeremiah 31. 31-34 tells us that God will write His New Law on the hearts of His people. On the one hand we are told that even the least of God's people can understand this new covenant / Divine Law, so this implies it must be easy to understand, something like: Never Contradict the Roman Catholic Church, or Never Contradict the Russian Orthodox Church, or Never Contradict the New Testament. There are other contenders for the New Law such as: Always Obey the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, so you get the idea. So, the New Law is simple, simple, simple, yet somewhat difficult to locate.

To review the status quo, as matters exist in 2019, the Jews are still waiting for their Messiah to show up. When we Christians tell the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah and inform them that He arrived on earth roughly 2,000 years ago, well, this news is not received with joy and celebration. To review some remedial info, John 1. 1-14 tells us Jesus created the universe. It is obvious that John 1. 1-14 is either true or else it is false. If it is true then it would be sort of crazy to say that though Jesus is God you can't trust what God is saying in John 15. 6, which says that those who do not abide in Him are like sticks which are given to the flames. And it is not as if John 1. 1-14 is the only scripture which tells us Jesus is God. There's Matthew 1. 23, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 etc. In the Old Testament Psalm 2 implies the Son is God and Isaiah 9. 6 specifically says the Son is Almighty God. Anyway, if Jesus is God, if John 1. 1-14 is trustworthy, then it stands to reason that John 15. 6 is also trustworthy. Now if a Christian tells a non-Christian that he is going to get tossed into the flames unless he repents and worships Jesus as God, then you can expect this to generate some hate. Of course if Jesus is not God, and if the True God says it is a wicked blasphemy to worship Jesus as God, then recall that Malachi 4. 1 has God saying the day is coming, burning like an oven, and God will set afire the wicked and the proud. So, if Malachi 4. 1 is true, but if Jesus is not God, and it is wicked to worship Jesus as God, then we Christians will burn, but then so will everyone else who worships false gods, not that that's any great comfort to....Anyway, if a Jewish person tells Christians that we are Poor Dumb Satanic Heretics Who Will Soon Be Burning in Hell because we are wicked blasphemers to worship Jesus as God, and because Malachi 4. 1 is true and it says the wicked will burn, then lots of Christians will respond by saying: No, No! - John 1. 1-14 and John 15. 6 and 2 Thess 1. 8 and Revelation 20. 12-15 are true - so you Jews, and other non-Christians, for that matter, are the damned: you non-Christians are heading for eternal perdition hellfire unless they repent and worship Jesus as God.

Despite all these threats of hellfire there is little hatred between Jews and Christians in the USA. If a Jewish person was to persuade a Christian to renounce Christianity and take up Judaism, to renounce the doctrine that Jesus is God, then we Christians would say the Jewish person has good intentions: he is a nice guy, but a misguided sort of nice guy; the Jewish fellow is converting the Christian into an ex-Christian because the Jewish person doesn't want the Christian to burn in fire – recall Malachi 4. 1 – even though, from our Christian perspective, you throw yourself into the flames when you renounce Christ – recall John 15. 6, Luke 13. 3, 2 Thess 1. 8, Revelation 20. 12-15. The Left says Donald Trump is a big hater but I don't recall him getting nasty and vicious toward the Jews when his eldest daughter renounced Christianity and converted to Judaism. Did I miss something? In the Middle Ages a Jew who persuaded a Christian to renounce Christ was treated sort of the way modern people treat a captured serial killer, only far, far more torture was inflicted on the Jewish person during the Middle Ages than what the law in the 21st century inflicts on serial killers. Anyway, over the centuries, Christians have come to understand that the Jewish fellow has good intentions when he seeks to convert Christians to Judaism: he means well: he is trying to save that Christian from the fire mentioned in Malachi 4. 1, though, of course, Christians will insist his good intentions are actually wretched incompetency which brings the people he persuades to renounce Christianity to fire, the fire mentioned in John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8, Revelation 20. 12-15 etc.

So, the Jews are waiting for their Messiah to show up. We Christians are waiting for these 3 angels mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11 to show up. We're also waiting for the Antichrist to arrive. These events precede the Second Coming of Christ. The Second Coming is sort of anti-climactic. It is really just a big slaughter and there's no suspense as to which side wins the big battle. Christ returns with the saints and they slaughter the Antichrist and his followers and then their evil ghosts are shipped off to hell to be tortured for eternity in fire.

All of my religious books push the idea that Christianity is true, Jesus is God etc., but they also push the idea that the sign of the cross is an evil symbol. I break things down by saying the cross either symbolizes no evil or else it symbolizes some evil, and I say it symbolizes some evil. So most Christians would say I'm wrong about this, and many Christians would say I'm a Poor Dumb Satanic Heretic Who Will Soon Be Burning in Hell, just a deluded moron of a Christian who is committing sacrilege with the cross. So, let's assume I'm wrong about the cross, and let's assume God says the cross symbolizes no evil. Let's assume God says the cross is sacred. Let's assume it is a sacrilege to say the cross symbolizes evil, as I do. The 1st thing we want to do is paraphrase Christianity, summarize the True Faith. Recall Matthew 26. 28 and Christ's words at the Last Supper - `For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many' - recall that the Last Supper is the last time Jesus will spend some time with His disciples prior to His arrest, scourging and crucifixion. This new covenant is just another name for the True Faith / the Divine Law / the new law / the Gospel of Jesus Christ etc. The first mention in the Bible of a new covenant, of a New Law to amend the Old Law, the old Mosaic Law, is found in the Old Testament scripture of Jeremiah 31. 31-34, which runs as follows:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

The Conservative Protestants are people who say that the new covenant, the new law which God writes on the hearts of His people, the concise law that even the least of God's people can understand is this: Obey the New Testament and don't reject any of the teachings of the New Testament. What the Cafeteria Protestants do is they then proceed to reject one or more of the teachings of the new testament. For instance, 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 says it is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. Lots of Protestant churches give the bread and the wine to anyone who want it. The pro-choice philosophy is an evil philosophy. When you celebrate communion with people who make no secret that they embrace an evil philosophy, then you celebrate communion in an unworthy. You drink damnation into your soul.

We have to determine if the evils perpetrated over the centuries by Christians are reflected in the cross, rather as the evil of the Nazis is reflected in the Nazi swastika, or if the cross reflects no evil, because it is sacred to God.

Guido Kisch writes in his `The Jews in Medieval Germany' (The University of Chicago Press, 1949):

`It is well known in the history of criminal law that, beginning in the late Middle Ages and up to the seventeenth century, punishments were imposed on the Jews which differed considerably from those fixed by law and applied to Christian delinquents. They intensified the medieval system of penalties, cruel enough as it was. The motives of ridicule and degradation received especial emphasis, when hanged on the gallows, for instance, a Jew was suspended by the feet, instead of the neck. It became customary to string up two vicious dogs by their hind legs beside him, to make the punishment more ignominious and painful...In some provinces a Jewish thief hanged by the neck would have a Jews' hat filled with boiling pitch placed on his head...transgressions of similar prohibitions such as that against appearance in public on Good Friday, reviling the Christian religion, or engaging in conversionist activities, besides subjecting them to the appropriate penalties, deprived them of protection under the penal law which was otherwise guaranteed. As every Christian was bound to sacrifice his life for his faith if it were dishonorably attacked, so would he be acquitted in case he slew a Jew, heretic, or heathen in active defense of his faith. The general principle is thus pointed out in the Regulae juris, J155: "No Jew shall defame our Law. If he did so and were found guilty, he should be burnt." Regulae juris, J164: No Jew shall convert a Christian if he values his life." Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) renewed for medieval Christendom the old prohibition of the Christian Roman Empire against forced baptism of Jews. Once a Jew was baptised, however, even if by force, he had to remain faithful to Christianity, according to canon law...Be it even that they have been compelled to receive baptism, yet they shall remain steadfast in their Christian faith. This is so because no one can be deprived of baptism once received...It was Pope Innocent III who, in his letter to the archbishop of Arles in 1201, clearly stated that even those who under direct or indirect compulsion had accepted baptism had become members of the church and thus were to be compelled to the observance of the Christian faith...In 1267, relapse into Judaism was, in fact, explicitly equated with heresy by Pope Clement IV...This was done only after the foundation of the Papal Inquisition which brought all violations of the faith before its tribunals.'

Again, Case 1 says the cross symbolizes no evil. Case 2 says the cross symbolizes some evil. Now if Case 2 is true, if the cross symbolizes some evil, then these 3 angels from heaven, Revelation 14. 6-11, will be saying that the cross reflects some evil, and the Antichrist, in Case 2, will be saying that the cross is sacred to God. In Case 2 God says the cross is evil, therefore it is a sacrilege to say the cross is sacred, and the Antichrist leads people to hell by leading them to commit sacrilege. If the cross is evil, then the Antichrist will probably be saying the cross is the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9 - you at least have to be prepared for that possibility - prepared for the possibility that the Antichrist will be pushing people to put the evil cross on their foreheads by saying it is the seal of God which protects one from the torments described in Revelation 9. But then if the cross is the mark of the beast, and if one has the mark of the cross on ones forehead, one will burn in hell forever, Revelation 14. 11.

Charles Mackay wrote in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (London, 1841),

`John Baptist Cibo, elected to the papacy in 1485, under the designation Innocent VIII., was sincerely alarmed at the number of witches, and launched forth his terrible manifesto against them. In his celebrated bull of 1488, he called the nations of Europe to the rescue of the Church of Christ upon earth, imperilled by the arts of Satan, and set forth the horrors that had reached his ears; how that numbers of both sexes had intercourse with the infernal fiends; how by their sorceries they afflicted both man and beast; how they blighted the marriage-bed, destroyed the births of women and the increase of cattle: and how they blasted the corn on the ground, the grapes of the vineyard, the fruits of the trees, and the herbs of the field. In order that criminals so atrocious might no longer pollute the earth, he appointed inquisitors in every country, armed with apostolic power to convict and punish. It was now that the Witch Mania properly so called, may be said to have commenced. Immediately a class of men sprang up in Europe, who made it the sole business of their lives to discover and burn witches. Sprenger, in Germany, was the most celebrated of these national scourges. In his notorious work, the Malleus Maleficarum, he laid down a regular form of trial, and appointed a course of examination by which the inquisitors in other countries might best discover the guilty. The questions, which were always enforced by torture, were of the most absurd and disgusting nature...Cumanus, in Italy, burned forty-one poor women in one province alone; and Sprenger, in Germany, burned a number which can never be ascertained correctly, but which, it is agreed on all hands, amounted to more than five hundred in a year...For fear the zeal of the enemies of Satan should cool, successive popes appointed new commissions. One was appointed by Alexander VI. in 1494, another by Leo X. in 1521, and a third by Adrian VI. in 1522. They were all armed with the same powers to hunt out and destroy, and executed their fearful functions but too rigidly. In Geneva alone five hundred persons were burned in the years 1515 and 1516, under the title of Protestant witches...in the year 1524 no less than a thousand persons suffered death for witchcraft in the district of Como...Henri Boguet, a witch-finder, who styled himself "The Grand Judge of Witches for the Territory of St. Claude," drew up a code for the guidance of all persons engaged in the witch-trials, consisting of seventy articles, quite as cruel as the code of Bodinus. In this document he affirms, that a mere suspicion of witchcraft justifies the immediate arrest and torture of the suspected person...Who, when he hears that this diabolical doctrine was the universally received opinion of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities can wonder that thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons should be brought to the stake? that Cologne should for many years burn its three hundred witches annually? district of Bamberg its four hundred? Nuremberg, Geneva, Paris, Toulouse, Lyons, and other cities, their two hundred?...In 1595, an old woman residing in a village near Constance, angry at not being invited to share the sports of the country people on a day of public rejoicing, was heard to mutter something to herself, and was afterwards seen to proceed through the fields toward a hill, where she was lost sight of. A violent thunder-storm arose about two hours afterwards, which wet the dancers to the skin, and did considerable damage to the plantations. This woman, suspected before of witchcraft, was seized and imprisoned, and accused of having raised the storm, by filling a hole with wine, and stirring it about with a stick. She was tortured till she confessed, and was burned alive the next evening...They never burned anybody till he confessed; and if one course of torture would not suffice, their patience was not exhausted, and they tried him again and again, even to the twentieth time.'

We read on pp. 118-123 of H. R. Trevor-Roper's The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and Other Essays (Harper, 1956) that with the crime of witchcraft being declared a crimen exceptum by Pope Innocent VIII. in 1468, the use of torture had papal sanction to be employed against those accused of witchcraft. Torture was deemed necessary to obtain convictions, and very feeble suspicion was enough to initiate the use of torture. As it was highly unlikely that an investigator would find a written pact with the devil, or a pot of human limbs, or a supply of toads, etc., less incriminating evidence, such as an inability to shed tears, or the inability to sink in water, or the presence of a wart, or a calloused part of skin which wouldn't bleed when pricked, became evidence sufficient to initiate torture, so as to secure confessions and testimony against `accomplices.' Trevor-Roper lists the various instruments of suffering: various devices which crushed the fingers and toes; the Spanish Boot which broke shin-bones; the self-explanatory `Bed of Nails.' There was also much driving of needles under finger-nails.

In order to distinguish an angel from heaven from an angel from hell you have to know the difference between sound doctrine and heresy. Suppose the Antichrist shows up and he's pushing 99% sound doctrine and 1% satanic heresy, and suppose this 1% satanic heresy is enough to lead people straight to hell if they accept that satanic heresy. You have to be able to recognize and accept the 99% which is sound, and recognize and reject the 1% which is satanic heresy.

Lets review the Roman Catholic crucifix. The Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus on the cross who says the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. It is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven. I don't see how it is sensible to say the Roman Catholic Church is an image of a version of Jesus who says the Baptist Church is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. It makes no sense to say the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

We have a Case 1 and a Case 2. In Case 1, the True God / True Creator of the Universe / True Version of Jesus says the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, and says Rome leads people to heaven.

In Case 2 the True God / True Creator of the Universe / True Version of Jesus says the Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church, says Rome leads people to perdition because Rome has fallen into heresy.

So, if Case 1 is true, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads people to heaven, then there is nothing wrong with the Roman Catholic crucifix. God's True Church says it is sacred, so it is indeed sacred.

But if Case 2 is true, if the True God / True Creator of the Universe / True Version of Jesus says Rome is a false church not the True Church therefore Rome leads people to perdition, then the Roman Catholic crucifix, which is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven, a version of Jesus who says Rome is the True Church, is an image of a false version of Jesus, it is the image of a lie, at least it is in Case 2, where the True God says Rome leads people to perdition.

So, if the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of a false version of Jesus, the image of a lie, the image of a false god, then the image of the beast from Revelation 13 and 14 comes to mind. False gods are beastly because they lead people away from heaven and to perdition. Of course it is a terrible blasphemy to say or imply the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 and 14 if in fact Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads people to heaven. But if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome has fallen into heresy and leads people to perdition, if the True God says Rome is a fallen false church which leads people to perdition, then an image of a false version of Jesus, an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven when in fact Rome drags people down to perdition, is an image of a false god, and again false gods are beastly because they lead people to perdition, so it is perfectly natural in Case 2 to speculate that the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 and 14.

Revelation 22. 18-19 warns people that curses will befall those who add to or subtract from the Book of Revelation. But you are permitted to speculate upon its meaning. Rome says a saint goes immediately into the presence of God upon death. The Book of Revelation says the dead sleep until the Last Judgment, which is far in the future, after the Second Coming, after the Millennium. The Bible says only God is perfect. Rome says Mary is also perfect. On the one hand Rome claims that Rome does not worship Mary, but if the Bible is correct in saying only God is perfect, and since Rome says the Bible is trustworthy, and since Rome says Mary is perfect, Rome says Mary never committed a single sin, Rome implicitly teaches that Mary is God. Rome explicitly teaches that Mary is not God, but implicitly Rome teaches that Mary is God. The Bible says Jesus had brothers and sister. Rome says it is a heresy, a mortal sin that leads offending souls straight to perdition to teach the `heresy' that Mary was not ever-Virgin. Rome called the Inquisition the `Holy Office' for centuries. If the Inquisition was evil in the eyes of God then it is a sacrilege to call the Inquisition a `Holy Office.' The Dogma of Papal Infallibility damns those who reject that Dogma. Well, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads people to heaven, then the Dogma of Papal Infallibility makes sense. But if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome leads people to perdition...

Anyway, it is easy to imagine Roman Catholics insisting that a person would have to be rather satanic if he was to say that the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of the beast from Revelation 13 and 14. And, suppose these Catholics are right. Suppose that it is a satanic heresy to say or imply the Catholic crucifix is the image of the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 and 14. Suppose Rome is God's True Church. Suppose Rome leads people to heaven and leads no one to perdition. Suppose the Roman Catholic crucifix is sacred to the Creator of the Universe, because God says so, and because God says the Roman Catholic Church is His True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Church which leads people to heaven and which leads no one to perdition. If this is true then it is stupid and satanic to rebel against God's True Church, Rome. We are delusional for having these Senates and Parliaments and Houses of Representatives, we are brainless fools whenever we accept a Supreme Court decision which contradicts the will of God's True Church, the Church of Rome, if in fact the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. Rome is the only government we need if Rome is God's True Church. To elevate some human organization which leads people to perdition, some organization which rebels against God's True Church, Rome, is just brainless idiocy. It make no sense to ever rebel against God and God's True Church! How can you expect to attain heaven and escape perdition if you rebel against God and God's True Church? Of course of course if the Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church, if Rome has fallen into heresy and therefore Rome leads people away from heaven and to perdition, then an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven when in fact Rome leads people to perdition, is the image of a lie. And if the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of a lie, the image of a beastly false version of Jesus, then the image of the beast from Revelation 13 and 14 comes to mind when we consider the Roman Catholic crucifix.

As with the crucifix we have a Case 1 and a Case 2 with the cross. Case 1 says the cross is sacred to God. Case 1 says the cross symbolizes no evil. Case 2 says the cross symbolizes some evil. Case 2 says the evils perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses is reflected in the cross.

So if Case 1 is true then the cross might be the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9. This seal of god saves one from months of torment if it is on one's forehead. But if Case 2 is true, if the cross symbolizes some evil, then you don't want the mark of a cross on your forehead. Recall Revelation 14. 11 mentions eternal fire for those who have an evil mark on their foreheads.

Jules Michelet writes in his `La Sorcière' (tran. by A.R. Allinson, Lyle Stuart Inc.),

`It was the very same year that Urbain Grandier was burned, and all France was talking of nothing else but the devils of Loudun...A certain Anne of the Nativity was introduced into the convent...Anne declared she saw the Devil standing stark naked by Madeleine's side. Madeleine swore she had seen Anne at the Witches' Sabbath, along with the Lady Superior, the Mother Delegate, and the Mother of the Novices...Madeleine, condemned without a hearing, is to be degraded, and examined to discover on her body the satanic sign-manual. Her veil and robe are torn off her wretched body...ready to pry into her very vitals to find excuse to send her to the stake. The Sisters would entrust to no hands but their own this cruel search, in itself a terrible punishment. These virgin nuns, in the guise of matrons, verified her condition, whether pregnant or no, then shaved her in every part of her person, and pricking her with needles, driving them deep in the quivering flesh, sought if there was any spot insensible to pain, as the devil's mark is bound to be. But every stab hurt; failing the crowning triumph of proving her a Witch, at any rate they had the satisfaction of gloating over her tears and cries of agony...Beneath a subterranean gallery was a cellar at a lower level still, beneath the cellar a dungeon where the prisoner lay rotting in damp and darkness...She suffered both from pain and from her filthy condition, lying as she did in her own excrements. The perpetual darkness was disturbed by the dreadful scampering of hungry rats, the object of much terror in prisons, as they will sometimes gnaw off the helpless prisoners' noses and ears...She was seized with a heartfelt, wild desire for death. She swallowed spiders, - she merely vomited, without further bad effects...Putting her hand on an old blunt knife, she tried hard to cut her throat, - but could not succeed. Next, choosing a softer place, her belly, she forced the iron into her... For four whole hours she worked, and writhed and bled...She became a woman once more, and alas! desirable still, a temptation for her gaolers, brutal fellows of the Bishop's household, who, in spite of the horrors of the place, the unhealthy and unclean condition of the wretched creature, would come to take their pleasure of her, deeming any outrage permissible on a Witch. An angel came to her succour, so she declared. She defended herself both from men and rats...Witch-burnings are still common everywhere in the eighteenth century. Spain, in a single reign, that of Philip V., burns 1600 persons, even burning a witch as late as 1782...Rome burns still, on the sly, it is true, in the furnaces and cellars of the Inquisition. "But doubtless France at any rate is more humane?" - France is inconsistent. In 1718 a wizard was burned at Bordeaux. I am not here speaking of executions the people carried out on their own account.

A hundred years ago, in a village of Provence, an old woman, to whom a landowner refused an alms, flew into a passion and said, "You will be dead to-morrow!" He had a stroke and died. The whole village, - not the poor peasants only, but the most respectable inhabitants, - gathered in a crowd, seized the old woman and put her on a pile of vine-cuttings, where she was burned alive. The Parlement made a pretence of inquiry, but no one was punished. To the present day the people of the village in question are called woman-burners (brulo-fenno) by their neighbors...Lorraine was swept by a dreadful contagion, as it were, of Sorcerers and Visionaries. The populace, driven to despair by the everlasting depredations of marching armies and marauding bands, had long ceased to pray to any deity but the Devil. Many villages, in their terror, distracted between two horrors, the sorcerers on the one side and the judges on the other, longed, if Remy, Judge of Nancy, speaks truth, to quit their lands and all they possessed and fly to another country....A beggar-girl of seventeen, Little Murgin, as she was called (Margarita), who had found in Sorcery a profitable speculation...had been in the habit of bringing children and offering them to the Devil...She both terrified and diverted the judges, twisting them round her little finger and leading them whither she pleased like a pair of dummies. They actually entrusted this vicious, irresponsible, passionate girl with the grim task of searching the bodies of young women and boys for the signs of the spot where Satan had put his mark. The place was recognized by the fact of its being insensible to pain, so that needles could be driven into it without extracting a cry from the victim. A surgeon tortured the old women, Margarita the younger ones, who were called as witnesses...An odious consummation truly, - that this brazen-bowed creature, thus made absolute mistress of the fate and fortune of these unhappy beings, should go pricking them with needles at her pleasure, and might adjudge, if such were her caprice, any one of their bleeding bodies to a cruel death!...Denunciations came pouring down like hail. All the women of the countryside came filing in unceasingly to lay accusations one against the other. Eventually the very children were brought and made to give incriminating evidence against their own mothers.'

Of course if the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, then you can trust Rome when she says the cross is sacred. But if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome is lost in heresy, if Rome leads people to perdition, then perhaps you can't trust Rome when she says the cross is sacred, and if Rome leads people to perdition then Rome certainly isn't the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

If no church under the sign of the cross is God's True Church, if every church under the sign of the cross is lost in heresy and leads people to perdition, this wouldn't prove the cross is no good; the cross might be sacred to God in this scenario, but if every church under the cross leads people to perdition then every church under the cross is seriously corrupted in one way or another.

If just one church under the cross, perhaps more than one but if at least one church under the cross leads people to heaven, because it has not fallen away from the True Faith, and is God's True Church, then you can trust that Church when it says the cross is sacred to God.

But, if every church under the cross leads people to perdition, if no church under the cross is God's True Church, well, again, this doesn't prove the cross is evil in the eyes of God.

Galatians 1. 8-12 says St. Paul learned his doctrine directly from Christ and even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters these doctrines. Acts 26. 13-18 describes the conversion of St. Paul. He is given a mission from God to turn the people away from the power of satan and to the power of God. So, if you believe that Jesus is God, if you are a Christian, if you believe what is written in Galatians 1. 8 and Acts 26. 13-18, then it would make no sense to reject what St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10,

`Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor _the_ covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.'

So, you see, if a Christians was to say that God is OK with homosexuality, then this Christian would be saying that 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 is untrustworthy. And if 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 is untrustworthy then Acts 26. 13-18 is probably also untrustworthy. And if you can't trust Acts 26. 13-18 why would you be able to trust the scriptures which say Jesus is God? And all of Christianity is invalid if John 1. 1-14, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 etc., are falsehoods. So, homosexual activists will say that Christians don't need to support homosexuality but they must tolerate gay marriage. To tolerate an action, in the legal sense, means to not pass legislation forbidding that action. A Christian reason for opposing gay marriage is due to the fact that if gay marriage became legal then Protestant and Catholic public servants would be required to marry gays, and this would violate their religious belief. If you believe gay marriage is an evil which leads people to perdition, and if the State orders you to perform gay marriage ceremonies, orders you to either perform them of else you will lose your job, well you can see how Hate is created. The gays are angry that people will not support them, and Christians are angry that the State is firing Christians and injecting hardship into their lives for upholding the Christian religion. Even if public servants are not fired for refusing to perform gay marriages, Christian lawmakers refuses to pass legislation enacting gay marriage, on the grounds that gay marriage is a sacrilege, and they don't care to pass legislation enshrining a sacrilege. The Christian reasoning that gay marriage is a sacrilege runs as follows. Ordinary marriage is a sacrament, it is something which confers grace, it is something which leads people to heaven. Illegal sex, so to speak, fornication, leads offenders to perdition. We just got done reading that in 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10. The sacrament of marriage transforms illegal sex into legal sex. But gay marriage doesn't transform sodomy into something legal in the eyes of God. Sodomy is a sin which leads offenders to perdition regardless if the offenders have or don't have a gay marriage license from a church or from the State. So, if a lawmaker was to make a law legalizing gay marriage, he would, from the Christian perspective, be committing a sacrilege, he would be taking something sacred in the eyes of God, marriage, and twist it into something unholy in the eyes of God, thus putting himself on the road to perdition.

Christianity says Christ will return in a Second Coming. But before this happens the Antichrist will be revealed - 2 Thess 2. And these 3 angels from heaven - Revelation 14. 6-11 - also precede the Second Coming of Christ, so they will be revealed. Revelation 18 is a prophesy involving famine and economic collapse, and that prophesy will come to pass prior to the Second Coming. So, we Christians are sort of waiting around, waiting for some interesting things to happen, trying to use our time wisely as we wait around of course, trying, you know, to not just exist, to not just live a listless sort of life, waiting aimlessly, drifting with no sense of purpose, making no progress in a spiritual sense, wandering in vain daydreams and idle reveries...

Or take the issue of putting price tags on Bibles and price tags on books which teach Christianity. Christians are convinced they are on the road to heaven even though they celebrate communion with people who are openly guilty of simony - simony is the sin of selling Christianity to make yourself some money - recall that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John didn't sell their gospels to make money.

So, if one is on the road to heaven, then there is no reason for him to change anything. But if one is on the road to perdition and not on the road to heaven, if a person is lost in heresy, then he must change some things, and he must change some things before it is too late to change some things, you know, he must change some things before he dies, or else he'll end up where people on the road to perdition end up.

Recall Revelation 20. 12-15 deals with the Last Judgment. One's name is either written in the Book of Life or else it's not written in the Book of Life, and if it's not then one has to find a way to get it written there, or else...

Anyway, people confusing the evil traditions of men with the commandments of God is one of the biggest problem in religion.

In my books I try to avoid pushing personal opinions like that above opinion. I try to focus instead on articulating clear options. There's quite a bit of repetition of info in my books. You get a lot of: A person either has the Divine Law written on his heart or else he doesn't. You either put yourself on the road to perdition when you celebrate communion with pro-choicers, or else you don't. John 1. 1-14 is either true or else it is untrue. Again, John 1. 1-14 says Jesus created the universe. John 15. 6 is either true or else it is untrue. Again, John 15. 6 says those who do not abide in Christ are like sticks which are tossed into the flames. The Roman Catholic Church is either the Church which Christ founded on a rock, God's True Church, or else it is not God's True Church. Rome either leads people to heaven or else Rome does not lead people to heaven. You get a lot of this sort of stuff: The sign of the cross either reflects no evil or else it reflects some evil. If the cross symbolizes no evil, if God says the cross is sacred, then it is a sacrilege to say the cross symbolizes some evil. On the other hand, if God says the cross symbolizes some evil, then it is a sacrilege to say the cross is sacred. So, the cross either reflects no evil or else it reflects some evil. 2 Thess 2 is either true or else it is not true. Again, 2 Thess 2 deals with the Antichrist and delusion. So, again, I'm trying to push the idea that you can't distinguish an angel from hell from an angel from heaven unless you are a great expert on religion. And to be a great expert you need the new covenant, the Divine Law, written on your heart. You have to be a legit expert, and not be deluded, and not have any heresies written on your heart, while insisting you have the Divine Law written on your heart.

About 2 Thess 2, about strong delusion and a man of sin / son of perdition who sits in the holy place. Christianity says a Christian is the temple of God - 1 Corinthians 3. 16, Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34. So, if the Antichrist was to write satanic heresy on the hearts of Christians, even if he was to write 99% truth and 1% satanic heresy on Christian hearts, then he would be sitting in the holy place, so to speak, and the temple in Jerusalem would not need to be rebuilt in order for the prophesy of 2 Thess 2 to be fulfilled.

If one is convinced one is in a church which leads people to heaven then one will be convinced that one has no reason to change, no reason to look for a different church. If you ask a Christian if he has the Divine Law written on his heart, the Divine Law / new covenant mentioned by Christ at the Last Supper, and mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then he will say YES! If he was to say NO! then he would be saying he is a false Christian, he would be saying he is a lost soul on the road to perdition. Why would a Christian want to say that? If a person is convinced he has the Divine Law inscribed on his heart, if he is convinced that he is on the road to heaven, convinced that his church upholds the True Faith, then he will be convinced that he has no reason to change. If you're on the road to heaven then it is perilous to change, because by changing something you risk putting yourself on the road to perdition, if in fact you're already on the road to heaven. So, if a person is convinced he has the Divine Law written on his heart, convinced he is on the road to heaven, but if he is deluded, if in fact he is on a road leading him straight to eternal perdition, because he is lost in heresy, because he is deluded and does not have the Divine Law written on his heart, though he insists he does, then how does this problem get fixed? Like I say there are these 3 angels from heaven, recall Revelation 14. 6-11...

The newly elected Muslim Congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, got herself in trouble with other Democrats recently for various comments concerning Jews and Israel. These other Democrats don't want to criticize her Muslim beliefs, because Democrats have determined that they will lose votes with their core constituency and they will harm the image of the Democratic Party if they are Politically Incorrect, and it is Politically Incorrect to criticize Islam. If you criticize Islam then, according to Political Correctness, aka Liberalism, you're a bigot, an Islamophobe, a hater! Democrats have it in their heads that when you criticize Islam then you become like some inbred banjo-strumming redneck Republican moron / hater. But what Ilhan Omar said about the Jews is not only perfectly sincere and honest but it is all perfectly defensible provided Islam is the True Religion, you know, provided Allah created the Universe, provided the Koran is trustworthy. But if Islam is a big falsehood, a big worthless false religion, then what she said becomes very problematical. If in fact Islam is a big falsehood, a big worthless cult, then why would it be in the best long-term interests of the Democratic Party to forbid Democrats to speak the truth about Islam? Your non-Muslims, we `Infidels,' so to speak, can live with the fact that the Koran says, over and over, that all who reject Allah and Islam will burn in hell. Christians can get along with Jews who say Jesus is a phony Messiah, and Jews can get along with Christians who say Revelation 2. 9 is true – I mean, no matter who you are friends with you usually have to learn to stay off of certain subjects with various friends, or else the friendship won't last, but the friendship will last provided you can just stay away from those touchy subjects. So, non-Muslims, the Infidels, can be friends with Muslims even though the Koran casts all non-Muslims into hell. But we Infidels cannot tolerate Sharia Law, especially the more painful parts of Sharia Law, such as those part which demand death for those who renounce Islam to take up, for instance, Christianity, and we can't tolerate Sharia law when it executes people who insult Islam, such as by saying Islam is a false religion, a worthless cult etc., etc., and we can't tolerate Sharia law when it calls for the flogging of fornicators, the crucifixion of thieves, the whipping people for drinking alcohol, whipping women for not wearing head scarves, cutting the clitoris off a young girl, forcing young girls to be child brides even if Mohammed did have a 9-year-old wife etc., etc. The whole criminal justice system in the West goes to hell, so to speak, if it becomes legal to murder someone if he renounces Islam. I mean, if one guy is rotting in jail because he got drunk and killed some guy in a fight at a bar, while a Muslim guy is running free after openly murdering a wife who was cheating on him, or after openly murdering a guy who renounced Islam to become a Christian, or an Atheist, or whatever, or is allowed to run free after he executes someone for insulting Islam by calling it a false religion, then the whole judicial system in the West becomes a huge farce, at least from the Non-Islamic perspective it does. And since we Infidels cannot tolerate Sharia Law, at least not the more painful and violent parts of Sharia Law, then you wonder why devout Muslims would be happy Ilhan Omar was elected to Congress. She cannot possibly be an effective Congresswoman if she remains a devout Muslim, a Pro-Sharia Law Muslim, can she? And if she becomes a Westernized Muslim, a Muslim who rejects Sharia Law, then the devout Muslims will say she sold her soul to the Western Devils and she will therefore burn in the Islamic hell, told of in the Koran. So, if we start with the premise which says the Koran is trustworthy, then we get one set of conclusions. But if we start with the premise that says the Koran is untrustworthy, then we will get a different set of conclusions, you see? A Muslim Democrat in Congress will have to become a Westernized Anti-Sharia Law sort of Muslim, don't you think? If Ilhan Omar says she wants the heads of people who convert from Islam to some other religion, chopped off, chopped off all according to Sharia Law, then will she be effective or ineffective as a Congresswoman from Minnesota? But if Ilhan Omar alters her religion so that she doesn't want Muslims who renounce Islam to be beheaded, doesn't want child brides forced into marriages, doesn't want anyone whipped for drinking alcohol or for eating pork, doesn't want Muslim wives who cheat on their husbands executed, doesn't advocate female genital mutilation, then Islamic scholars and ordinary Muslims will come forth and denounce her for corrupting Islam, they will denounce her type of Islam as a worthless Westernized travesty of Islam, thus insisting she is deserving of execution or flogging, under Sharia Law.

We know that Islam is either true or else it is false. What about Moderate, Westernized Islam, Islam devoid of Sharia Law? If Islam is true, if Allah created the universe, then perhaps Allah will throw you into hell if you try to get rid of Sharia Law. But if Islam is a false religion, then get rid of both Islam and Sharia law. Let's investigate some of the more painful and controversial assertions in the Koran.

Surah 4. 14: Those who disobey Allah and His Apostle will abide in fire.

Surah 5. 33: Crucify or murder or cut of the hands of those who war against Allah and His Apostle

Surah 5. 36-9: Fire for unbelievers. Chop off the hands of thieves.

Surah 5. 51: Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends.

Surah 5.86 Disbelievers are the companions of fire.

Surah 7. 40-1: Those who reject the Koran will suffer in a bed of hell-fire.

Surah 9. 68: The hypocrites and the unbelievers will burn in hell.

Surah 17. 8: There is a hell for unbelievers.

Surah 22. 19-21: Boiling water, garments of fire and whips of iron will torment the unbelievers.

Surah 24, 2: Whip the fornicatress and the fornicator, give them each a hundred stripes.

Surah 32. 20: Fire for transgressors. Chastisement of fire for those who doubt the Islamic fire.

Surah 33. 64-6: Allah has cursed the unbelievers and has prepared flaming fire for them.

Surah 37. 55-74: The bottom of hell and serpents await unbelievers who were warned.

Surah 40. 70-2: Boiling water and fire for those who reject the Book and the Apostle.

Surah 41. 26-28: Those who reject the Koran will burn.

Surah 45. 20: These are clear proofs and a guide and a mercy for the people who are sure.

Surah 56. 92-5: Scoffers are given an ordeal of boiling water and will burn in hell.

Surah 76. 4: Chains and fetters and cruel fire await unbelievers.

Surah 88. 2-5: Unbelievers are thrust into burning fire and forced to drink boiling water.

If the above verses from the Koran are trustworthy, if people will burn in hell if they reject Islam, then it makes no sense to reject Islam! Brilliant, yes! Furthermore, if you will burn in hell if you reject Islam, then you are being stupid when you argue against Jihad – you know, when you argue against Islamic Holy War – because it makes perfect sense to use violence and deceit and subterfuge to force people to live under Islamic law, provided the Koran is trustworthy. If the above verses are trustworthy, if you will burn in hell if you reject Islam, then we want the Muslims to conquer the world, because we want everyone to convert to Islam, because we want everyone to escape the torments of hell. If those surahs which we saw above are trustworthy, if people will burn in hell in the afterlife if they reject Islam, then we want Sharia law to be the law enforced over all of the world, because Sharia law would seem to be the most effective way to convert the most non-Muslims to Islam in the most expedited conversionary process. But then, of course, of course, on the other hand, if the above surahs from the Koran are untrue, if Islam is a fiction, a cult, a falsehood which leads souls away from heaven and to perdition, then Muslims will be led to perdition if they refuse to renounce Islam.

Do you get how the above surahs are either true or else they are false? So, if the above surahs are true, then it is crazy to resist Islam and Islamic law: you'll burn in hell if you don't convert to Islam! You'll burn in hell if you rebel against Islamic law! So you better convert to Islam, provided those surahs which we saw above are trustworthy! But, of course, on the other hand, if the above surahs are falsehoods, if Islam is a cult which leads millions or billions of people to perdition, then every Muslim would be wise to renounce Islam before his cult drags him down to perdition. Nothing difficult to understand here. If the Koran is true, then a person with any sense wants the Muslims to wage jihad, he wants the Muslims to conquer the entire world. This is consistent with the Koran – certainly Muhammad conquered via the sword – and if jihad saves people from hell and leads them to heaven then there is nothing wrong with jihad, indeed, one would have to be a huge idiot to think there is anything wrong with using violence to spread Islam, provided the Koran is trustworthy, of course, of course.

But, then, on the other hand, if the Koran is a falsehood, if the Koran is a piece of fiction, then, obviously, Islam is just another worthless cult that drags souls down to perdition.

Presently we have thousands of churches which aspire to be God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, to recall Matthew 16. 13-19. There are thousands of churches to choose from, so choose carefully, because the True Church leads people to heaven but false churches lead people astray, lead people away from heaven and to eternal perdition.

Is every church in the World Council of Churches God's True Church? Is any church in the World Council of Churches God's True Church?

Consider the Roman Catholic Church, which isn't a member of the World Council of Churches. Rome says Catholics and Muslims worship the same God. 2 Thess 1. 8, which much resembles John 15. 6, says you must know God and must obey the Gospel to escape hellfire.

Rome doesn't know that the Islamic god is a false god. Again, 2 Thess 1. 8 mentions hellfire for those who don't know God and who don't obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 2 Thess 1. 8 is very much like John 15. 6, which is like Matthew 25. 31-46, which is like Revelation 20. 12-15, all of which are famous Christian hellfire scriptures. Non-Christians, Atheists especially, say the Christian God is detestable because He tortures in hell ordinary people who happen to be non-Christians. I tend to think the average or typical soul who is damned, and cast into the lake of fire, is moved out of the fire and put into a more comfortable place in eternal perdition at some time, but all this is mere speculation, nothing dogmatic. If you say all good people go to heaven, regardless of their religion, then this is tantamount to saying, either, 1) Christianity is a lie: Jesus is a false god and not the True God, or else it is saying that, 2) Jesus / God / the Divine Son came to earth and died on a cross for no good reason. If all good people go to heaven, regardless if they say Jesus is the True God or whether they say Jesus is a false god, then this is just another way of saying Christianity is a worthless religion, and those of us who are Christians disagree with you if you say Christianity is a worthless religion.

Here's the proof that the Roman Catholics say the Christian God and Allah, the false god of the Muslims, are the same God.

'Vatican Council and Papal Statements on Islam

Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium 16, November 21, 1964

"But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place among whom are the Muslims: these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."

Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate 3, October 28, 1965

"The Catholic Church...has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth (Cf. St. Gregory VII, Letter III, 21 to Anazir [Al-Nasir], King of Mauretania PL, 148.451A.), who has spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself...

Paul VI, Ecclesiam Suam 107, August 6, 1964

"Then [we refer] to the adorers of God according to the conception of monotheism, the Muslim religion especially, deserving of our admiration for all that is true and good in their worship of God...

Paul VI, address to the Islamic communities of Uganda, August 1, 1969

"In our prayers, we always remember the peoples of Africa. The common belief in the Almighty professed by millions calls down upon this continent the graces of his Providence and love, most of all, peace and unity among all its sons. We feel sure that as representatives of Islam, you join in our prayers to the Almighty, that he may grant all African believers the desire for pardon and reconciliation so often commended in the Gospels and in the Qur'an...

John Paul II, address to a symposium on "Holiness in Christianity and in Islam," Rome, May 9, 1985

"All true holiness comes from God, who is called 'The Holy One' in the sacred books of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Your holy Qur'an calls God 'Al-Quddus,' as in the verse: 'He is God, besides whom there is no other, the Sovereign, the Holy, the (source of) Peace' (Qur'an 59, 23).

Rome teaches the doctrine that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. But the Muslims worship a god who tortures in hell all who fail to convert to Islam. The Muslims worship a god who says Jesus is merely a man and is certainly not God. So, Rome is hopelessly confused.

The way in which the child abuse scandal which recently hit the Roman Catholic Church is evidence which says the Church of Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, and is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, is not perfectly obvious. Rome certainly does not teach the doctrine that child abuse is good thing. Various Bishops connived at evil. They didn't call the police on perpetrators because the publicity would be embaressing to the Church of Rome, so they failed to protect children from perpetrators. But does this prove the entire Roman Catholic Church has fallen away from the True Faith? Even among the apostles there was a Judas. If one out of every 12 Roman Catholic bishops is a Judas, and if 11 out of every 12 is a True Christian who teaches the True Faith, then it would not be sane to renounce Rome.

The Roman Catholic Church asserts the confessions made in the confessional during the sacrament of penance must remain secret. The priest who hears the confession is said to commit sacrilege if he divulges these secrets to a third party, such as the police. A confessional system whereby the priest is allowed to notify certain people, but not the police, that a person is dangerous and needs to be watched might be a valuable system. I mean, under the current system, a priest might hear a man confess that he can't stop himself from raping little boys, or little girls, or women, or hear some sort of other confession to evil, and, under the current system, the priest is not allowed to tell anyone what he heard. If a violent criminal knows the priest will go straight to the police after he makes his confession, then the violent criminal won't make his confession. But if the violent criminal knows the priest will only tell a few people that the criminal needs to be watched, then, in moments of remorse, or in moments of fear of hellfire, the criminal will be motivated to make his confession. He won't make his confession if he knows the priest will go straight to the police, or if the people who are watching him go to the police. Most people quite naturally want vicious criminals captured and punished. But it's more important to first stop the criminal from hurting more people and creating more victims. There is some logic which says it would be a sacrilege to violate a confessional system which did a great deal of good. If the system helped to keep violent criminals in check, then one might say it would be a sacrilege to ruin this system. The system would be ruined if the people sworn to only observe the criminal became aggressive and reported the criminal to the police. The system relies on the logic that even the worst criminals might fear hell once in awhile, or they might suffer from a guilty conscience and moments of remorse, and therefore, in these moments, though the criminal won't be motivated enough to make a full confession to the police, he might be motivated enough to make a confession to a priest, and then his confession will result in his being put under surveillance. In fleeting moments of remorse or fear of hell, he will accept the surveillance as long as he knows he won't go to prison. The upshot is that the criminal won't make any more victims in the future, because people are now watching him. Since he's being watched closely he won't be hurting any more little boys or little girls by the evil urges. If such a system was effective in protecting people from evil, then one might say it would be a sacrilege to do something which destroyed the system.

In any event, that's not the system Rome uses. Rome says it is a sacrilege for a priest to ever tell a third person what he heard a person confess in the confessional. This means that if a priest hears a man confess that he rapes little boys or little girls, then the priest must keep the man's confession absolutely secret. He can't tell anyone. Can't tell the parents, can't tell the police, can't tell anyone. Rome says he commits a sacrilege, a mortal sin which leads the offender to hell, if he tells anyone. Rome says the True God supports their system. Does the True God say that the secrets of men who confess in the confessional to raping children must be kept very secret? Don't you think a person would have to be an instrument of Satan if he truly believes that the True God says that?

So, to review. The Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven because Rome is God's True Church. The Roman Catholic crucifix is also an image of a version of Jesus who says that the secrets told in the confessional must remain secret: it is a sacrilege to betray these secrets. If a man rapes little kids and confesses this to the priest in the confessional, then Rome says, that Jesus says, that the priest must never betray the criminal's secret to anyone. That's the Jesus that Roman Catholics worship. The Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of this version of Jesus. Now if the True God / True Jesus say Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition, then the Roman Catholic crucifix, an image of a version of Jesus who says Rome is God's True Church, who says Rome leads people to perdition, is the image of a lie, and so the image of the beast, Revelation 14. 11, comes to mind.

And, to review further, recall at the beginning of this book I said I'm pushing a theory which says the great tribulation, see Revelation 18, is all about issues with the cross and the crucifix. On one side you have God's side. On the other side is the Devil's side. One side says the crucifix is the image of the beast. The other side says the crucifix is an image of the True Jesus / True God. One side says the cross is the mark of the beast, says you will burn in hell forever and ever if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead or right hand. The other side says the cross is the sacred seal of God which saves one from the torments described in Revelation 9, provided the cross is on your forehead.

§ 9. The Spirit of God

Ezekiel 36. 24-28 has the LORD saying,

"For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.

We saw Ezekiel 36. 24-28 earlier. What do you think? Are you on the Devil's side if you are anti-Zionist? Some say Ezekiel 36. 24-28 refers to the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity 25 centuries ago. But that interpretation makes no sense to Christians because the context of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 refers to a time when the Spirit of God is put into the Jews, after which they never again rebel against God. No more Jewish rebellion. All rebellion is over and ended. Even if the Spirit of God was put into the Jews for a little while after the Babylonian Captivity, Christians insist the Jews have been in rebellion against God ever since they first rejected Jesus all those many centuries ago. So, Bible-based Christians say that Ezekiel 36. 24-28 can not refer to the return of the Jews to the Holy Land following the Babylonian Captivity, so it refers to the Zionism of our time, Zionism being the doctrine that the Jews have a right to their own nation in the Holy Land. Of course we Christians are still waiting for God to put His Christian Spirit into the Jews, but if the 1st part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 has been fulfilled then you would have to expect the 2nd part to soon be fulfilled. Bible Based Christians say you become filled with the Spirit of God when you read, believe and obey the New Testament. Roman Catholics say you become filled with the Spirit of God when you accept and obey the Roman Catholic Church as God's True Church. Anyway, Bible-based Christians say that God supports Zionism in our era: God supports the first part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28, so God is pro-Israel, God is pro-Zionist. So...you're on the Devil's side if you oppose Zionism. So we are waiting for the 2nd part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 to be fulfilled. We're waiting for other Christian prophecies to be fulfilled. 2 Thess 2, 1 John 2. 18 and Revelation 19. 19 pertain to the Antichrist / man of sin / son of perdition / beast from hell. We're waiting for the Antichrist / beast from hell to show up. And we're also waiting for these 3 angels from heaven mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11 to show up. And we're waiting for the prophecies of Revelation 18 to come to pass – economic collapse, famine etc. When Revelation 18 comes to pass, and when the Antichrist shows up, and when these 3 angels from heaven show up, then the fulfillment of these Christian prophecies will inspired Non-Christians to convert to Christianity. You certainly want to be able to tell the difference between an angel from heaven from an angel from hell! You might exercise you theological skills, by trying to make a sound decision on the Roman Catholic Church. If Rome is God's True Church, then don't you think everyone on earth would be wise to obey the Holy Father, the Pope? But if Rome is not God's True Church, if the gates of hell have prevailed against Rome, if Rome which leads people to perdition not to heaven, then the pope isn't much of a Holy Father! He is just a lost, deluded soul ensnared by a worthless church, just a guy on the road to eternal perdition deluded enough to believe he is the Holy Father.

One scenario says the Antichrist will convert the Jews to a hellish satanic version of Christianity, and then months or years will elapse before Michael shows up, recall Daniel 12. 1, which says the Jews will be delivered when Michael shows up. Christians say the Jews will be delivered when they convert to the true and heavenly version of Christianity. Another scenario says the Jews will not make any mistakes in confusing Michael with the Antichrist and they will be converted to Christianity by Michael and they will never be converted to any hellish version of Christianity being pushed by the Antichrist.

The Ezekiel 20. 25 says God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their rebelliousness. The Temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans and ever since the Jews have had no sanctified altar upon which to offer the sacrifices of bulls and lambs and birds. There are other objectionable parts of the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, besides the blood sacrifice of animals for the atonement of sin. It demanded the execution of Sabbath violators, the execution of enchantresses, the execution of homosexuals, of blasphemers, of children who curse their parents etc. The Old Law demanded the daughter of a priest who became a harlot be burned alive. If the Old Covenant was flawless there would be no need for a New Covenant. Jesus states at the Last Supper, Matthew 26. 28, `This cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for the forgiveness of sins of many.' Turning to the Old Testament, and to the first mention in the Bible of a new covenant, we read in Jeremiah 31. 31-34,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Again, I threw together a Playlist of video clips on You Tube, just search on `The NBA on NBC to Catching Fire – Poison Fog'. The clips explore the boundaries between what is anti-Christian and what is not anti-Christian. Two clips on the film noir classic _Kiss Me Deadly_ pertain to Divine Law. The deadly box being opened at the end of the film is a symbol of the Ark of the Covenant. Jeremiah 3. 16 tells us the Jews in the latter days will no longer remember or mention the Ark of the Covenant, though of course it plays a big role in Steven Spielberg's _Raiders of the Lost Ark_. Wikipedia has an interesting article on this Ark of the Covenant. 70 men once died when they looked upon it out of curiosity. Curses involving tumors and plagues of mice befell Gentiles who had once seized the Ark from the Hebrews. We read about a medieval French rabbi, Rashi, who says the people of God in the latter days will be filled with sanctity and they will be like the Ark of the Covenant. This is basically just a rephrasing of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 (God will write His new law on the hearts of His people), Ezekiel 36. 24-28 (God will bring the Jews back to the Holy Land and then God will put His Spirit into the Jews, and then the Jews will never again rebel against God), Isaiah 11. 9 (the world will be filled with knowledge of the LORD like water covering the sea), Isaiah 59. 20-21 ("A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," declares the LORD. "As for Me, this is My covenant with them," says the LORD: "My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring," says the LORD, "from now and forever."' Let me also add a New Testament scripture to this list of Old Testament scriptures, 1 Corinthians 3. 16-17 – `"Do you not know that you are a temple of God and _that_ the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are."' Of course St. Paul was addressing True Christians not deluded heretics. If you have God's new law written on your heart then you will certainly know if the material cross reflects no evil, or if it reflects some evil. You will certainly know where to locate the Church which Christ founded on a rock. If you have God's new law inscribed on your heart you will certainly know what to think about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Russian Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Mormonism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Atheism etc., etc.

We'll get back to my A material, the cross and the crucifix, in more detail later, but moving on now to my B material, my 2nd best material, this material says God favors Zionism, and so one is on the Devil's side if one opposes Zionism. Yes, yes, we know that the Jews reject Jesus, and we know that Revelation 2. 9 has Jesus calling the Jews a synagogue of Satan, but this doesn't give Christians all of the info that we need to have in order to correctly assess Zionism. Ezekiel 36. 24-28 has two parts to it. The 1st part says God will gather the Jews from the nations where they have been scattered and will bring them back into the Holy Land. The 2nd part says God will put His Spirit into the Jews and then the Jews will never again rebel against God. To say that all of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 was fulfilled centuries ago, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity, makes no sense to Christians. Christians believe that the Jews have been in rebellion against God for millennia. As long as Jews continue to insist Jesus is an imposter, as long as the Jews insist Jesus is not the Divine Son of Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6, Christians will insist God has not put His Spirit into the Jews, and Christians will insist the Jews are in rebellion against God, and therefore Christians will insist it is nonsensical to say that both the 1st and the 2nd parts of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 were fulfilled in the past. Now suppose God puts His Spirit into the Jews in the year 2031, or 2027, or some such year in the near future, then all of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 will be fulfilled, and those people who now oppose Zionism will be shown to be on the Devil's side not on God's side, because Ezekiel 36. 24-28 is quite clear and unambiguous - 1st God will bring the Jews back into the Holy Land, and then later God will put His Spirit into the Jews and they will never again rebel against God. So, if all of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 is fulfilled in 2031, or some such year, and if you are now opposing Zionism today, then you are opposing the 1st part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 today, therefore you are opposing God today, therefore you are on Satan's side today on this Zionism issue. I once got into an argument with my brother over the _USS Liberty_ incident. He was in the US navy and so he was all indignant that Israel destroyed an American ship, with fairly large loss of American life. No doubt he thinks my religious thinking is crazy. He's an Agnostic, or an Atheist. Anyway Malachi 4. 1 says God is going to set on fire those who oppose Him. There is nothing difficult to understand about Malachi 4. 1! And we know God is pro-Israel. I mean, we've just been over Ezekiel 36. 24-28, so we know God is pro-Israel, pro-Zionism! And we've been over Malachi 4. 1. God is going to set you on fire if you oppose God. And God is pro-Israel. God is pro-Zionism. Israel apologized to the USA for accidentally killing those sailors aboard the _USS Liberty,_ but even if Israel purposely destroyed that ship, God is still going to be pro-Israel, and God is still going to ship you off to hell and set you on fire if you oppose Him. So where's the sense in making a big issue of the _USS Liberty_?

The Liberals in the USA (unlike Australia where the Liberals are the Conservatives) are seen as Anti-Christian, by Conservative Christians, because it is the Liberals who drove, and who continue to drive, Jesus and Christianity ought of the public schools. It is against the law in the USA for the public schools to teach kids about Jesus and Christianity. Now, you will notice that, if Christianity is a falsehood, a superstition, then of course it is sensible to kick Jesus and Christianity out of the public schools in the USA, and everywhere else. But if Jesus is Lord and Saviour, if Christianity leads people to heaven, then it is evil and quite Satanic to kick Jesus and Christianity out of the public schools. The 2nd Espistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians has lots of important info. For instance, 2 Thess 2 deals with the Antichrist, and 2 Thess 1. 8 tells of hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 2 Thess 1. 8 ties in with John 15.6, Revelation 20. 12-15, Matthew 25. 31-46 and Luke 16. 19-31, as all of these are famous hellfire scriptures.

Now, if Christianity is true, if John 1. 1-14 is true – John 1. 1-14 says Jesus created the universe, and if John 15. 6 is true – John 15. 6 says that those who do not abide in Christ are like sticks which are tossed into the flames, then, it is very evil and quite Satanic to drive Christ and Christianity out of the public schools. If Christianity is true, then, what you want to do is teach people, such as little kids in the public schools, about Jesus. You want people to abide in Christ, so that they go to heaven and not to perdition, you see. It is anti-Christian to force Christianity on people who don't want it. But there are such things as elective classes, courses which kids are not required to take in order to graduate. James 1. 26 says your religion is worthless if you do not bridle your tongue. I suppose this means your religion, Christianity, will not deliver you from perdition and your religion will not enable you to attain heaven if you do not bridle your tongue. And which of us hasn't had some issues learning to bridle his tongue? Christianity is quite clear in teaching that if you repent and obey the Gospel then you will go to heaven. Some Christians have issues with this because this sort of theology seems, in their eyes, as if it elevates works over faith, and St. Paul is very clear that we are saved by faith and not by works, but then faith without works is dead. It would be difficult to get much clearer than Matthew 25. 31-46, Revelation 20. 12-15, 2 Thess 1. 8, Luke 13. 3, Matthew 5, 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10, 1 Corinthians 11. 27 etc. I mean, the New Testament is really quite clear in saying you are not going to escape perdition, and you are deluding yourself if you claim to have True Faith when your actions prove otherwise. Christianity is liberal in the sense that you can be forgiven of lots and lots of nasty sinning and you can attain heaven if you truly and sincerely repent, but Christianity is harsh in that, without that true repentence, you're definitely on a road leading straight to eternal perdition. I mean, Revelation 20. 12-15 is really quite explicit: you're judged according to your works – if you have sincere faith then you will have good works. You can read Revelation 20. 12-15 as well as I can! It says that either your name is found written in the Book of Life, and so you are admitted into heaven, or else your name is not found written in the Book of Life, and so you get tossed into a lake of fire.

Recall 1 Corinthians 11. 27 where St. Paul says it is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. But which churches under the cross excommunicate pro-choice Christians? Every now and then you hear of a Catholic bishop refusing to give communion to a pro-choice Catholic politician. You don't even hear that much from the mainline Protestants. And what about the gay marriage issue? OK, marriage is a _de jure_ sacrament in Catholicism but it is a _de facto_ sacrament in nearly every other religion. A sacrament is something which confers grace. You see, in Christianity, fornication is a sin which drags souls down to perdition. St. Paul is very clear on this matter, recall again 1 Cor 6. 9-10, and again St. Paul derives his authority from God, recall again Acts 26. 12-18. Now, by the sacrament of marriage, fornication is transformed into lawful sex in the eyes of the Deity, the sort of sex which does not lead people to perdition. But, you see, according to Christianity, according to a sane reading of St. Paul, Gay Marriage does not transform Gay Sex – also known as sodomy – into lawful sex in the eyes of God. Sodomy always leads sodomites to perdition, you see, recall again 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10.

Sodomy always leads sodomites to perdition regardless if those who participate in sodomy have a marriage license or not. Now when a Christian says he supports Gay Marriage, while he might not be explicitly saying to gays that sodomy is not a sin, and while he might not be explicitly saying `go ahead and have all the sodomy you want because you will go to heaven even if you have tons and tons of sodomy,' nevertheless, he is guilty of sacrilege: he is taking something holy, a sacrament, marriage, and corrupting it, desecrating it, by saying or implying that gay marriage is also legit marriage, saying or implying gay marriage is a sacrament which confers grace. A Christian who supports Gay Marriage is saying either explicitly or implicitly that gay marriage transforms sinful sodomy into something which is not sinful in God's eyes. Bible-based Christians believe that is a satanic deception which leads souls to perdition, because gay marriage doesn't turn sodomy into something lawful in God's eyes, so the people who push for Gay-Marriage are guilty of sacrilege, and guilty of teaching heresy, guilty of teaching a doctrine which leads people to perdition. I realize non-Christians might find all this foolish. But I am mainly concerned with Christians, with people who accept scriptures such as John 1.1-14 (Jesus is God) and who accept John 15. 6 (those who do not abide in Jesus are like sticks which are tossed into the flames) and who accept Matthew 16. 13-19 (Jesus founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against it), because we want to know which churches lead people to hell; we want to know the names of the churches which the gates of hell have prevailed against. We want to know which churches drag souls down to hell.

As we've seen James 1. 26 tells us that ones religion is useless if one does not bridle ones tongue. Of course there are always Christians who forget James 1. 26, and they need correcting. Who hasn't forgotten James 1. 26 now and then? Anyway, Christians must not explain Christianity in language such as: You would have to be a big brainless F#@king idiot to think the Christian God is OK with two gay guys sodomizing each other whether they got a marriage licence or not. You don't want to talk like that because it violates James 1. 26. It's best to just heed James 1. 26. It's best to simply say that if a Christian tells people that sodomy among gay guys is OK in the eyes of God, provided they are married in a gay marriage ceremony, then this Christian is leading people to perdition, hence he is a heretic: he has no Divine Law written on his heart. He is a false Christian. He is on the road to perdition. If a church accepts gay marriage then that church has been led astray, as in led astray by satan. If a Christian is teaching doctrines which lead people to perdition, then, in some sense, you are being sort of nice to him if you merely call him a big brainless idiot. Other terms describing him are satanic idiot, evil heretic, accursed agent of Satan etc. What do you call a Christian who says God is a fan of the pro-choice philosophy? Is he brilliant? Is he an evil satanic heretic? How many babies have been aborted in the USA since _Roe v. Wade_? 60 million? 70 million? 100 million? When a Liberal Christian insists the Christian God wants Christianity driven out of the public schools, then how do we describe this Liberal Christian? Brilliant? Not so brilliant? Confused? Super Confused?

So much depends on getting the right perspective on the abortion issue, on _Roe v. Wade_. Is the pro-choice position Satanic in the eyes of God? Is the pro-choice position seen as not Satanic in the eyes of God? I suppose, at the heart of the Christian pro-life argument – and of course there are non-Christians who are pro-life – but still, at the heart of the Christian pro-life argument, is Romans 14. 12, which says that eventually, sooner or later, everyone will have to stand before God and given an account of himself. So, the Christian pro-lifers insist that you want to be ready and prepared for a question, a question from God, on the abortion issue: a question like: What did you do to save babies from the knives of abortionists? You want to be prepared for your big interview with the Creator of the Universe by studying up on lots of issues, but you certainly don't want to blow your big interview with God by giving a Satanic or Anti-Christian response to the first question the Creator of the Universe asks you, which just might be a question about abortion.

Now of course, if you are true Christian, if you have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on your heart, then you will do fine in your big interview with God. But if you are delusional, if you claim to have the Divine Law written on your heart when you do not have it written there, then you can expect big problems during your big interview with God.

Moving right along with the paraphrase of Christianity, still pursuing this idea that if one is a true Christian, if one has the Divine Law inscribed on his heart, and so one will not teach any heresies which drag souls down to perdition. Christianity is quite insistent that there is a Devil who tries very hard to lead you away from heaven and tries very hard to drag you down to eternal perdition. The Devil is coming after us. The Devil is hunting for souls to drag down to hell. He does this is by enticing you to do Anti-Christian actions and by enticing you to adopt and profess Anti-Christian doctrines, known as heresies. The Devil will say stuff like: it is not Anti-Christian to be pro-choice. Don't be silly. God doesn't mind when the unborn are killed via abortions. The Devil tries to convince you that God is not as uptight about stuff like abortion as you might have been led to believe. And the Devil will say stuff like: `Don't be so uptight in the bedroom! It's OK for you women to strap on sexual paraphernalia by which they can sodomise their husbands, if that's what turns them on. No problem, baby, relax, lighten up, have a little fun.' The Devil is always trying to drag you down to perdition, by getting you to seek new freedoms, and to expand your horizons, and to open up your mind to new stuff, which is usually Anti-Christian stuff, like sodomy, gay sex, Lesbian revelries, fornication, Ouija boards, tarot cards, adultery, abortion, drugs, violating the Sabbath, covetousness, taking the Lord's name in vain etc. Plus the Devil also uses Political Correctness to further his agenda. Recall the god of this world refers to Satan, 2 Cor 4.4, Ephesians 2. 2, and the god of this world sounds like he would be quite Politically Correct, as Political Correctness seems to rule the world. For instance, if you say that only true Christians go to heaven, then the Devil might say you are a worthless hater, a bigot who hates Muslims, Buddhists etc. The Devil might insist you hate women if you are pro-life on the abortion issue. The Devil might say you're an inbred moron if you got anything against Gay Marriage. The Devil might say you are a brainless bastard and a piece of sh#t if you want Christianity taught in the public school. I mean, truth be told, I don't recall ever meeting the Devil, I don't ever recall hearing what he has to say. It just stands to reason the Devil, the god of this world, would say that sort of stuff, since the world is sort of run by Political Correctness. Anyway, those of us who are Christians insist you can trust the New Testement, so, obviously, it stands to reason, the Devil will try to teach you stuff which the New Testament condems. Let's hear from St. Paul in Galatians 5. 16-26,

`I say then walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh...Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries and the like...those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control...those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, if we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.'

As we all know very well, John 1. 1-14 tells us Jesus created the Universe, and Matthew 16. 13-19 tells us that God / Jesus founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against this Church, also known as God's True Church and the Bride of Christ. Non-Christians will say John 1. 1-14 is blasphemous nonsense and will insist Matthew 16.13-19 is just more voodoo, superstition, falsehood etc. And if the non-Christians are wrong, if Jesus is God and if Jesus / God founded His True Church on a rock, what force holds non-Christians in the chains of delusion? Again the New Testament mentions the god of this world, Satan, leading people astray.

Suppose we Christians are right when we insist John 1. 1-14 and Matthew 16. 13-19 are both true. Now suppose, just suppose, the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Then it stands to reason that every nation, and every government, and every person, on earth, who rebels against God's True Church, who rebels against the Roman Catholic Church, is being led astray by Satan. So, the USA is led astray, and the UK is led astray; France is led astray and Russia is led astray; China and Germany and Indonesia etc., etc., are led astray by satan. If Rome leads people to heaven, if Rome is God's True Church, then it only stands to reason that Satan is leading one astray if one rebels against God's True Church, the Roman Catholic Church.

Now if the Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the gates of hell have prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church, if Rome is lost in heresy, if Rome drags souls down to perdition, unwittingly of course, but if the gates of hell have indeed prevailed against Rome regardless if Rome knows it or not, then this changes things, and one must take careful note of these new circumstances, where Rome is not God's True Church, but a false church which leads Roman Catholics, unwittingly, but nevertheless most definitely, to perdition. So, on the one hand, if the gates of hell have not prevailed against Rome, then the Pope is the Holy Father, and he leads souls to heaven. But then, on the other hand, if the gates of hell have prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church, if Rome drags souls down to perdition with its heresies, then `the Holy Father' is really an unholy heretic and a servant of the Devil, just another a guy who leads souls to perdition, certainly not any Holy Father. Or look at the Eastern Orthodox Church. If the patriarch, the Most Holy Father, leads souls to heaven then he deserves his title of the Most Holy Father. But on the other hand, if the Eastern Orthodox Church is lost in heresy and drags souls down to perdition, then you wouldn't say that the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church deserves to be called The Most Holy Father. Now mainstream Protestants – Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians etc. – are likely to say that lots of different churches lead souls to heaven. It's the Politically Correct thing to say. Suppose the gates of hell have prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church, suppose it is lost in heresy and drags souls down to perdition, then, if a Roman Catholic kid asks a Methodist minister if he will go to heaven, then the Methodist minister becomes like the Devil if he tells the kid that Rome will lead him to heaven, when in fact Rome is going to drag the little kid down to perdition.

Naturally, one would like to know if the gates of hell have prevailed against Rome, or if the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church of England, or if the gates of hell have prevailed against the Mormons, or if the gates of hell have prevailed against any other church. But so much depends on first making the right judgment on the Roman Catholic Church. If you start off on the wrong foot with Rome, if you make a big mistake in your decision on whether the gates of hell have prevailed or have not prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church, how do you recover from such a mistake? It's like making a mistake with John 1. 1-14. If you make a big mistake by saying Jesus is a bogus Deity, when in fact Jesus is the Creator of the Universe, or, on the other hand, if you make a big mistake by saying Jesus is God if in fact Jesus is not God, and then if the True God says you are a blasphemer for saying Jesus is God, then how do you recover from such a catastrophic mistake.

Continuing on with a paraphrase of Christianity, Revelation 2.9 gives us a scripture where Jesus calls the Jews a synagogue of satan. Now, of course, from the Christian perspective, from the perspective which insists that Jesus is God – we Christians insist God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – but it is just as accurate to says Jesus is God as it is to say the Father or the Holy Spirit is God – as I say, from the perspective that says Jesus is God, then any sect which says Jesus is a fraudulent god, a bogus deity, would have to be classified as a sect which has been led astray by satan. We Christians are supposed to be ready with an answer to give to non-Christians for the hope we have for salvation. To give an answer, let's turn to the issue of Zionism and to a reason why Evangelical Christians support Zionism, Zionism being the philosophy which says the Jews have a right to live in peace in their own nation in the Holy Land. Yes, on the one hand Jews don't like it when Christians say Revelation 2.9 is true – people don't like it when you say they are a synagogue of satan! - but then, on the other hand, Jews like it when Christians defend Israel and defend the philosophy which says the Jews right to live in peace in the nation of Israel. At the heart of Christianity are Christ's words at the Last Supper, where He established the Eucharist, Matthew 26. 28: `This cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for the forgiveness of sins of many.' Christ said in John 6. 53-55 that in order to escape perdition and attain heaven one must celebrate the Eucharist. Again, the first mention of a new covenant to amend the old covenant is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Christians believe the old covenant, the Mosaic Law, is an eternal law in the sense that all of it will be eternally remembered, but only some of it will be eternally enforced. The bad laws in the Mosaic Law will be remembered but not enforced. And as we saw earlier Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their rebelliousness. And the Mosaic Law has lots of bad laws which prevent Judaism, the first monotheistic religion, from spreading over the globe. Besides all of the slaughtering of bulls and birds, goats and lambs, the Mosaic Law has commands to execute the Sabbath violator, execute homosexuals, execute children who curse their parents, execute blasphemers – if it is blasphemy to say Jesus is God then, if we lived under the Mosaic Law, then Jews would have to execute Christians to abide by the Mosaic Law, or, on the other hand, if it is a blasphemy to say Jesus is not God, as those of us who are Christians insist, then we would have to execute those who say Jesus is not God. But, we Christians are under the New Law not the Old Law. Anyway, getting back to a reason Christians have for hope of salvation, recall Christ's words at the Last Supper: `This cup is My blood of the new covenant...' and recall that the first mention of a new covenant to amend the old covenant is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, where God says He will make a new covenant with the house Israel and the house of Judah. In this new covenant God will write His law on the hearts of His people. Jeremiah 31. 31-34 is a lot like Ezekiel 36.24-28 in that they both deal with God putting His Spirit and His Law insisde of the Jews. Ezekiel 36. 24-28 has God saying,

`For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.'

As we saw earlier, Ezekiel 36.24-28 has two parts. There's the part about God pulling the Jews out of the nations and bringing them back to their land, and there's the part about God putting His Spirit into the Jews and causing them to obey God and His statutes. Christians don't believe that it makes any sense to say that the first part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 was fulfilled when the Jews returned to the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, because, Christians don't believe the Spirit of God was put into the Jews after the Babylonian Captivity, and Christians don't believe God caused the Jews to obey His statutes, because, the Greeks conquered the Jews not too long after the Jews had been conquered by Babylon, and these sorts of conquests always signify Divine displeasure with the Jews under the Mosaic Law, and then in a few more centuries Jesus railed against Jews and their rebellious ways, and of course Jesus was crucified by the Romans with the approval of a great many Jews, and for nearly 2,000 thereafter the Jews have rejected Jesus, therefore, Christians don't believe that God put His Spirit inside the Jews after the Jews returned to the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity. Even Jews might look at Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and have a hard time seeing how it could have been fulfilled after the return from the Babylonian Captivity. And of course non-Christians can read Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and argue that even if it does support Zionism in the modern age, the Jews have certainly failed to convert to Christianity. Either Christianity is the new covenant which God writes on human hearts or else Christianity is a superstition. It's been over 100 years since modern Zionism took off in a big way with the Balfour Declaration. Israel has been a sovereign state for over 70 years. Still no conversion of the Jews to Christianity, at least not as of Nov 5, 2018. Well Evangelicals are expecting the conversion soon. Even if the conversion of the Jews happened in 2518 then we would say: IT HAPPENED! But in 2517 Jews and all Non-Christians would be saying: `It's been 600 years since the Balfour Declaration, and the Jews still have not converted to Christianity, so give up Christians! God might have put His Spirit into the Jews, but this Spirit is not a Christian Spirit, so give up! Christianity is a false religion!'

Ezekiel 36. 24-28 is quite clear in giving us God's words: `I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.' This scripture doesn't imply that God will put His Spirit inside the Jews, but will then take His Spirit away, and then the Jews will revert to sin and rebellion once again, and then a few centuries will elapse, and then the Jews along with the Romans will be responsible for crucifying Christ, and then the Jews will reject Christ for several millennia. No, Ezekiel 36. 24-28 does not imply that scenario. What Ezekiel 36. 24-28 implies is that God will bring the Jews back into the Holy Land and then God will put His Spirit into the Jews and then the Jews will never again rebel against God. And, it is true, Ezekiel 36. 24-28 does not imply that centuries will elapse between the time that God brings the Jews into the Holy Land and the time that God puts His Spirit into the Jews. So, on the one hand, Christians, Evangelical Christians at least, are expecting the imminent conversion of the Jews to Christianity, but then, as the years and decades drag along, with no conversion of the Jews to Christianity, then Non-Christians will be emboldened to say to Christians: `You see, you see, no conversion! Get it? God's Spirit is not a Christian Spirit! When are you stupid Christians going to wise up and see that your Jesus is a fraud? When are you going to wise up and see that Christianity is like voodoo?'

Again, John 1.1-14 says Jesus created the universe. If John 1.1-14 is true - and those of us who are Christians say it is true - then you can certainly trust what God / Jesus is saying in John 15.6 - Those who do not abide in Jesus are like sticks given to the flames. At the Last Judgment, Revelation 20.12-15, one is judged according to ones works, and then one is either admitted into heaven or else one is tossed into a lake of fire. Matthew 25. 31-46 is another famous scripture dealing with the Last Judgment, dealing with heaven and hell. You have to do certain things, because if you don't do these things, you get deported to eternal perdition, as described in Matthew 25.31-46. The above scriptures would have to be classified as Easy-To-Understand Scriptures. Things are a little complex because St. Paul is clear in Ephesians 2.8-9 that one is saved by faith not by works, whereas Revelation 20. 12-15 clearly says one is judged according to ones works. And scripture is clear in lots of instances that one must do good works to be saved: you must obey the commandments in order to love God; those who love Christ keep His words, those who don't love Christ don't keep His words - John 14.23-26. Ephesians 2. 8-9 does not contradict other scriptures, but we do have a paradox, an apparent contradiction. St. Paul simply used the word 'faith' in Ephesians 2.8-9 in the sense of profound faith, or legitimate faith. Faith which can only be seen with a microscope is still faith. Lukewarm faith is still faith. Or if you don't buy that, if you say only zealous faith accompanied by good works is faith which is not dead faith, OK, you might be 100% correct. Was St. Paul talking about minuscule faith which can only be seen with a microscope when he was writing about faith in Ephesians 2.8-9? The New Testament is very clear in stating you must act in certain ways to escape perdition. Matthew 25. 31-46 and Revelation 20.12-15 and Luke 16. 19-31 are very clear on this issue. 2 Thess 1.8 tells of hellfire for those who don't know God and who don't obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Obey. That word 'obey' sort of hints to one that one must actually do stuff in order to obey the Gospel. As for knowing God, St. Paul is very clear in Colossians 2.8-10 and 1 Timothy 3.16 that Jesus is God. Then there's Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9.6 and Matthew 1.23 etc. The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Unitarians insist Jesus is not God, and, so far, threats of hellfire from 2 Thess 1.8 and John 15.6 have not persuaded them to renounce their position.

1 Corinthians 11. 27 says it is a terrible sin to celebrate the Eucharist in an unworthy manner. If you are in a church which celebrates the Eucharist with people who make no secret that they are often Sabbath violators - with people who make no secret that they labor or who buy or sell on the Sabbath - then do you celebrate the Eucharist in an unworthy manner? Are you on the road to perdition when you celebrate the Eucharist with people who are covetous, or are fornicators, or adulterers?

Determining who to excommunicate, and for how long, is the most confusing part of Christianity. There's always some confusion over faith and works but if you read Ephesians 2. 1-10 as well as James 2.14-26, Matthew 25.31-46, Revelation 20.12-15, John 6. 53-55, John 14.23-26, 1 John 5. 3 James 1. 26-27, 2 Thess 1.8, 2 Thess 2, 1 Corinthians 6.9-10, Ephesians 5.5, Galatians 1.8-12, Luke 13.3 etc., you'll see that there's just nothing here which is super complicated. Christ's first commandment is to love God. So, if one rejects John 1.1-14, when John 1.1-14 is true, then one does not love God. And then John 14.23-26 - those who don't keep Christ's words don't love Christ - and 1 John 5. 3 - one must obey the commandments to love God - say what they say on this issue. There's nothing complex here though you wouldn't say John 14.23-26 and 1 John 5.3 are self-evident. The commands to keep Christ's words and to obey the commandments are commands to do works.

There are lots of baffling prophesies in the Bible which defy clear understanding, and a truly complex issue in Christianity deals with John 6. 53-55, 1 Corinthians 5.1-13 and 1 Corinthians 11. 27. These scriptures are clear enough in themselves but confusion arises over excommunicating people, and over how long to keep them excommunicated. Excommunicating someone means to not celebrate communion, the Eucharist, with him, and to not speak to him. This is the way the True Church disciplines members who have gone astray. Repent or Perish, as Christ said in Luke 13. 3. To non-Christians the discipline of excommunication looks like hypocrisy. When Christians, who presumably do some sinning in private, sit in judgment of a Christian caught sinning in public, well, that looks like hypocrisy. St. Paul didn't require the faithful to pin a big scarlet letter A on adulteresses, but he took a more extreme position, took a very strong stand against various sinful Christians. For those Christians who were incapable of repenting of sexual immorality, St. Paul wanted them turned over to Satan for the destruction of their bodies so that their souls would be saved, 1 Corinthians 5.5. Presumably this meant turning them over to the soldiers of pagan emperors looking to kill anyone who refused to renounce Christianity and who refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods. In theory at least if not always in practice, excommunicating someone is an act of love not an act of hypocrisy. It is simply an attempt to try to save a person falling towards eternal perdition, by disciplining that person so he learns to shape up and be a good Christian. Plus it is an attempt to have the faithful not celebrate communion in an unworthy manner, by celebrating communion with someone who must be excommunicated, thus saving the faithful from perdition, as celebrating communion in an unworthy manner is a terrible sin which leads offenders straight to perdition.

On the one hand, you could say, if you judge by the standards established by Christ and the apostles, that half of the Christians in the world, in the 21st century, need to be immediately excommunicated. But then the second half also need to be excommunicated, because they are celebrating communion in an unworthy manner whenever they celebrate communion with the first half, because the second half should have seen that the first half needed to be excommunicated immediately. Look at all these millions of abortions. The pro-choice position is anti-Christian: it's evil. I explain why it is in my books, such as _Rock Island_. I want to address pro-life Christians who already know that the pro-choice position is anti-Christian and yet these pro-life Christians think, for some reason, some delusional reason, that there could be no serious consequences for celebrating communion with pro-choicers. You can see how a person would get into big trouble in regards to eternal hell if a person takes the attitude that he is saved and is pre-destined to attain heaven regardless if he celebrates communion with pro-choicers or not, if in fact he is damned, damned to eternal perdition, should he refuse to repent, should he continue to celebrate the Eucharist in an unworthy manner by continuing to celebrate communion with pro-choicers...Moving along, look how the Sabbath day is routinely violated. Look at all these movies and TV shows that take God's name in vain. James 1.26 says, in so many words, that you're heading for perdition merely for using bad language, and who doesn't use bad language now and then? Jesus said oaths are from the devil. Christians put oaths in their marriage ceremonies, though we call them vows. A vow is the same thing as an oath. Let's not get lost in stuff which most Christians consider minutiae. The strongest argument saying that Born-Again Christians have fallen away from the True Faith, and therefore they lead people to perdition, is in regards to celebrating communion in an unworthy manner, by celebrating communion with people who make no secret that they are pro-choicers, and make no secret that they are often Sabbath violators, and with fornicators, adulterers etc. You have to make an issue out of merely the fact that lots of Born-Again women pray with their heads uncovered, and St. Paul taught otherwise, and certainly when a person claims to be a Bible-based Christian, but then he doesn't obey the Bible on something as important as celebrating the Eucharist in a worthy manner, then this is a clear and obvious example of the traditions of men trampling on the doctrines of God. I read a novel by John Buchan called _Witchwood_. It's about a young man in 17th century Scotland who travels to a small town where he is installed as the new Presbyterian minister. Soon enough he finds out that most of his flock is in the habit of spending Midsummer's Eve cavorting round a pagan idol in a wooded glade. Some of the guys he sees in church every Sunday are wearing goats' heads, and dogs' heads, and they are frolicking round the pagan idol with wanton girls who he also sees in church every Sunday. There are always lots of babies conceived out of wedlock during the pagan festivities. Well of course lots of excuses can be made. Life is so dreary and dull in the 17th century, no TV, no movies, no glamor. The people need a little excitement to give them a reprieve from the drudgery of 17th century Scotland. But the minister fights his flock and tries to get them to repent and stop their annual midsummer midnight satanic revelry in the dark spooky woods. He tries to get them to see they are on the road to perdition if they don't repent and stop with the idolatry and the blasphemous pagan rites and all the fornication and revelry under the summer moonlight. So, a 21st century analogy is found in some 21st minister, who tries to persuade other ministers to stop giving the Eucharistic bread and wine to people who are pro-choice, or who are Sabbath violators, or who are fornicators, or adulterers etc., insisting that they put themselves on the road to perdition when they celebrate the Eucharist in such unworthy manners.

§ 10. The Beast from the Sea

Revelation 13. 1-8 runs as follows:

`THEN I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns...Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion...And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war against him?..It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life...'

It's rather unlikely that people will worship a literal beast with seven heads and ten horns, so we are looking for a figurative interpretation of Revelation 13. 1-8. A Muslim certainly does not believe that he worships an evil beast, but suppose Allah is a false god who leads people away from heaven and straight to perdition. If Allah is a false god who leads people away from heaven and to perdition, which is an evil and beastly thing to do, then, it is reasonable to assume that, in some figurative way, the Muslims worship this seven headed beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 1-8, though they insist they worship the True God, the Creator of the Universe. If the Buddhists worship false evil beastly gods who lead them away from heaven and to perdition, though they claim to worship the Creator of the Universe, then, in some figurative way, the Buddhists can be said to worship this beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 1-8. If the True God, if the True Creator of the Universe, says the Church of Rome leads people to perdition, because it has fallen away from the True Faith, because it is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then the Roman Catholics, who worship a god who says the Church of Rome leads people to heaven, worship a false god, a false evil beastly god who leads them to perdition, in which case the Roman Catholics, in a figurative way, worship this seven-headed beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 1-8. Of course, if the True God says the Church of Rome leads people to heaven, then it is a foul blasphemy to say the Roman Catholics worship some beastly false god who will lead them to perdition. But if the True God says the Church of Rome leads people to perdition, then the Roman Catholics don't worship the True God, because they worship a false god who says Rome leads people to heaven.

If the True God says every church under the sign of the cross leads people to perdition, because not one of them is the True Church, because all of them have fallen away from the True Faith, then, when the Protestants in a sect under the sign of the cross worship a false Protestant god who says their Protestant sect under the sign of the cross leads people to heaven, then these Protestants do indeed worship a false evil god, a false version of the Trinity who leads them to perdition, assuming again, of course, that the True God, the True Father, Son and Holy Spirit insist their Protestant sect under the cross leads people to perdition. So you can see how these Protestants, though they claim to worship the True God, actually worship a false evil beastly god who will lead them to perdition, and therefore, in a figurative way, they worship this seven headed beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 1-8, though of course they are not literally kneeling down and worshipping some seven headed beast with ten horns.

Christianity is easy to paraphrase in many ways John 1. 1-14 – Jesus created the universe. That's easy to understand. Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 say as much. I've mentioned Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 5 which testify to the Divinity of the Son. The hellfire scriptures are easy to understand. Atheists will insist it is stupid to believe the Old Testament accounts about the fall of Adam and Eve, about all the animals crowded into Noah's Ark, about Jonah swallowed by a whale etc. When Jesus was teaching in parables he told his disciples He was teaching in parable, but He didn't tell all of His listeners he was teaching via fictions, parables. Christians think it is idiotic to insist Jesus is untrustworthy merely because he used fictions in His preaching. The 10 wise virgins and the 10 foolish virgins never existed. It would be brainless idiocy to think this fact proves Christianity is a big fraud. Perhaps some preachers will insist you are a heretic if you deny the literal truth of every event described in the Old Testament, but we're still dealing with the easy part of Christianity here. It is easy to see that the central concept in the account of the Garden of Eden: God is very strict against those who disobey. God is very tough on rebels. It's a big waste of time to get into an argument over whether the account of Noah is a parable or whether it is literal truth. If a person is going to argue that all of Christianity is invalidated if you can not trust the literal account of every single account in the Old Testament, then you might have to check to see if that person is a dangerous escapee from an insane asylum. Who cares if the world was created in 6 literal days or in 6 figurative days? Or who cares if the account of Noah's Ark is a parable and not literal truth? Some of the accounts don't make much sense unless they are literal: the sun standing still for Joshua, the fall of the walls of Jericho, the Passover angel killing all the firstborn of Egypt, the waters receding for the children of Israel but collapsing on pharoah's soldiers, Jonah in the belly of the whale, Joseph's rise to power over Egypt etc., but then, if some Old Testament account is just a parable, just a fiction which teaches a spiritual truth, then it would be crazy to reject the spiritual truth because it was relayed via fiction.

Christianity is also difficult to paraphrase. When, exactly, are you celebrating communion in an unworthy manner? How long do you wait before giving the bread and the wine to people who confess to a wide variety of crimes and sins? And just because some church claims it leads people to heaven, how do you really know if the gates of hell have prevailed against some church of if the gates of hell have not prevailed against that church? Well, in investigating some church, you first ask: does that church uphold the True Faith? The New Testament explains the True Faith. The New Testament is not super easy to paraphrase. Revelation 18. 23 likens merchants to sorcerers. Ephesians 5. 5 says fornicators and covetous people will be damned. It's rather easy for a person to determine if he's a fornicator or not, but one might be unsure if he is covetous or not. I imagine most merchants don't see themselves as sorcerers, but if you make an idol of $$$ then....Luke 16.19-31 is rather ferocious towards rich people who don't help the poor. If a person is always giving his money away to poor people he will soon be destitute himself. What exactly does Christianity teach about wealth and the sharing of the wealth? There are quite a few scriptures which pertain to this issue. Recall Acts 2. 44 says Christians share their wealth and possessions. Acts 4. 32 says the same.

Christianity is very clear in saying that prior to the Second Coming of Christ there will be a big showdown between some angels from heaven and some emissaries from hell. Revelation 14.6-11 mentions 3 angels from heaven who are on the schedule to show up, sooner or later. Scoffers will say it is far more likely that the 3 angels in 'Charlie's Angels' will show up rather than these 3 angels in Revelation 14.6-11. But Christians can't let themselves be intimidated by anti-Christian scoffers and their bitter sarcasm.

1 John 2.18 mentions the Antichrist, who is probably this man of sin / son of perdition mentioned in 2 Thess 2, and who is probably this beast mentioned in Revelation 19. 19. And then there's the false prophet, to go along with the Antichrist / beast from hell. Christianity indicates that lots of non-Christians \- lots of Jews, Atheists, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists etc. - will be converted to Christianity when the prophesies described in Revelation 18 come to pass. These prophecies include economic collapse and famine. No doubt if one is suffering from famine one would tend to emphasize the scriptures which encourage the sharing of wealth. One would tend to highlight Luke 16.19-31 rather than try to hide it or pretend it didn't exist. Same with Acts 4. 32-5 and Acts 2. 44-5. Salo W. Baron stated in his _Social History of the Jews_ that there is no record of any Jewish person starving to death during the Middle Ages. Christian peasants were forever starving to death during the Middle Ages. The nobles were always with each other, always destroying the crops of other nobles, causing the peasants of those nobles to starve. And there were always priests around to celebrate communion with warring nobles who caused Christian peasants to starve to death.

Some say the Temple in Jerusalem will have to be rebuilt in order for the prophesy of 2 Thess 2 to be fullfilled, the prophesy about the son of perdition / man of sin / Antichrist / beast from hell sitting in the holy place and seeing himself as God. St. Paul tells us the heart of a Christian is the temple of God. If the Antichrist tries to write the law of the Devil on Christian hearts - and of course, Matthew 26.28 and Jeremiah 31.31-34 tell us Christians are suppposed to have God's law written on our hearts certainly not the Devil's law - then the Antichrist would be sitting in the holy place if he was able to write the law of the Devil on Christian hearts, or at least on some Christian hearts. That's one theory saying the prophesies of 2 Thess 2 could be fulfilled without the Temple in Jerusalem being rebuilt. The Muslim Dome of the Rock would first have to be removed if a new Jewish Temple was to be built.

How do you distinguish angels from heaven from angels from hell? You only have to be infallible on every issue which pertains to heresy and the True Faith! You only have to be infallible on every issue which pertains to attaining heaven and escaping hell! Suppose the Antichrist teaches the truth in 99% of what he teaches, but if 1% of what he teaches is vile satanic evil heresy which drags souls down to hell, then one will get dragged down to perdition if one thinks the 1% that is vile satanic evil heresy is sound doctrine. Look at John 1.1-14 - Jesus created the universe. You step right into blasphemy and heresy and delusion if you say Jesus is not God if in fact Jesus is God, and vice versa of course. And then, moving on, look at Matthew 16.13-19, which says God / Jesus founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against this Church. So, you step right into heresy and delusion if you say the gates of hell have not prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church, if in fact the gates of hell have prevailed against the Roman Catholic Church, or, on the other hand, you step right into heresy and delusion if you say the gates of hell have prevailed against Rome, if in fact Rome is God's True Church....And then, moving on to the Eastern Orthodox Church, you step right into heresy and delusion if you say the gates of hell have not prevailed against...

Everything depends on knowing how to attain heaven and knowing how to escape perdition. Look at 1 Corinthians 11. 27. It's a terrible sin to celebrate the Eucharist in an unworthy manner. There are lots of questions surrounding 1 Corinthians 11. 27. Are you drinking damnation into your soul if you celebrate the Eucharist with people who make no secret that they sometimes or often violate one or more of the 10 Commandments? Do you put yourself on a road leading straight to perdition by celebrating communion in an unworthy manner by celebrating communion with pro-choicers?

There's no reason for you to change anything you are doing if you are on a road leading to heaven. But if you are on a road leading you to perdition, then you have a reason to change what you are doing.

_Constitutional History of the Western World_ is certainly my most thorough book at reviewing the new covenant / Divine Law of Jeremiah 31.31-34, Ezekiel 36.24-28, Isaiah 59.20-21, Matthew 26.28 etc. Obviously, those of us who are Christians believe the New Testament explains the new covenant. And the New Testament is not all that complicated. If a Roman Catholic tells a Protestant that Rome must be God's True Church because the Virgin Mary appeared at Lourdes and Fatima, then Protestants should be mindful of 1 Timothy 4. 1-13, especially the part about giving heed to deceiving spirits. If an Atheist tells a Christian that Christianity must be a falsehood because there was no end of evil perpetrated by people carrying crosses over the centuries, well, St. Paul tells us in Acts 20. 29-31 that he spent three years weeping, night and day, telling people fierce wolves would enter the flock, and in 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15 St. Paul says satan masquerades as an angel of light, and so one shouldn't be surprised that satan's ministers masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Jude 1. 26 says one's religion is useless if one doesn't bridle one's tongue. _Rock Island_ deals with this theme. No end of confusion would naturally result whenever deluded people insist that some worthless church which is lost in heresy and which leads people to perdition is none other than God's True Church, and, confusion must arise whenever deluded people insist that some church is an evil satanic church which is lost in heresy and leads people to perdition, when in fact it leads people to heaven, because it is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

§ 11. The Antichrist Sitting in the Holy Place - The Temple of God - The Falling Away which Precedes the Second Coming of Christ – The Law of God vs. the Law of the Devil

1 John 2. 18-22,

`Little children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us...But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things...Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.'

Revelation 19.19,

`And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army.'

St. Paul writes in 2 Thess 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

The Second Temple in Jerusalem, also known as Herod's Temple, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Many commentators insist that the Temple will have to be rebuilt, and presumably the Islamic Dome of the Rock will have to be removed, before 2 Thess 2 can be fulfilled. However, in Christianity, the hearts of human beings, specifically the hearts of Christians, have replaced Herod's Temple as the Temple of God. Recall 1 Corinthians 3. 16-7,

`Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.'

Jeremiah 31. 31-34 states that God will write His new covenant on the hearts of His people, not on tablets of stone – the old law you will recall was written on tablets of stone atop Mt. Sinai and was then given to Moses to give to the Israelites. So, this man of sin / son of perdition of 2 Thess 2, who _sits as God in the temple of God_ , who is presumably the Antichrist mentioned in 1 John 2. 18, and who is also presumably this beast mentioned in Revelation 19. 19, might not sit in a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, but he might occupy a place in the hearts of human beings, or at least in the hearts of some - again human hearts are now, according to Christianity, the temple of God. Evidently, instead of writing God's New Covenant on people's hearts the Antichrist will write the Law of the Devil on people's hearts, or at least some people's. Recall the scriptural foundations for the True Faith, also known as the Gospel of Jesus Christ, also known as the New Law and the New Covenant. Jesus stated at the Last Supper the following words found in Matthew 26. 28,

`For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many.'

Mark 14. 24,

`This cup is the new covenant in My blood which is shed for you."

Luke 22. 20,

`This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.'

The first mention in the Bible of a new covenant, a New Law to amend the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

It stands to reason that the Antichrist will attempt to drag souls down to hell by leading people away from the True Faith. One would have to know what the True Faith is in order to know if one was being led away from the True Faith.

1 Timothy 4. 1-3,

`Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.'

2 Corinthians 11. 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

St. Paul states in Acts 20: 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

Popes and Protestants gave their blessing to the African slave trade. The following is from `Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829,' Pocket University - Doubleday, written by Robert Walsh, an Irish clergyman active in the English Society for the Abolition of Slavery:

"She was a very broad-decked ship, with a mainmast, schooner-rigged, and behind her foremast was that large formidable gun, which turned on a broad circle of iron, on deck, and which enabled her to act as a pirate, if her slaving speculation had failed. She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males, and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty-five. The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways, between decks. The space was so low, that they sat between each other's legs, and stowed so close together, that there was no possibility of lying down, or at all changing their position, by night or day. As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded, like sheep, with their owners' marks of different forms...These were impressed under their breasts, or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference...`burnt with the red-hot iron.' Over the hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow, with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave- driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them, and seemed eager to exercise it...But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly, was, how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram...The heat of these horrid places was so great, and the odour so offensive, that it was quite impossible to enter them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water...the poor beings were all turned up together...517 fellow-creatures of all ages and sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste the luxury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up, like bees from the aperture of a hive, till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation, from stem to stern...On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying nearly in a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand. After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs toward it. No entreaties, or threats, or blows, could restrain them; they shrieked, and struggled, and fought with one another, for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it...On one occasion, a ship from Bahia neglected to change the contents of the casks, and on the mid-passage found, to their horror, that they were filled with nothing but salt water. All the slaves on board perished!...When the poor creatures were ordered down again, several of them came, and pressed their heads against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect of returning to the horrid place of suffering below. It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life, in their short passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May, and had been out but seventeen days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other complaints, in that space of time, though they left the coast in good health...It was dark when we separated, and the last parting sounds we heard from the unhallowed ship, were the cries and the shrieks of the slaves."

Charles Mackay wrote in `Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' (London, 1841),

`John Baptist Cibo, elected to the papacy in 1485, under the designation Innocent VIII., was sincerely alarmed at the number of witches, and launched forth his terrible manifesto against them. In his celebrated bull of 1488, he called the nations of Europe to the rescue of the Church of Christ upon earth, imperilled by the arts of Satan, and set forth the horrors that had reached his ears; how that numbers of both sexes had intercourse with the infernal fiends; how by their sorceries they afflicted both man and beast; how they blighted the marriage-bed, destroyed the births of women and the increase of cattle: and how they blasted the corn on the ground, the grapes of the vineyard, the fruits of the trees, and the herbs of the field. In order that criminals so atrocious might no longer pollute the earth, he appointed inquisitors in every country, armed with apostolic power to convict and punish. It was now that the Witch Mania properly so called, may be said to have commenced. Immediately a class of men sprang up in Europe, who made it the sole business of their lives to discover and burn witches. Sprenger, in Germany, was the most celebrated of these national scourges. In his notorious work, the Malleus Maleficarum, he laid down a regular form of trial, and appointed a course of examination by which the inquisitors in other countries might best discover the guilty. The questions, which were always enforced by torture, were of the most absurd and disgusting nature...Cumanus, in Italy, burned forty-one poor women in one province alone; and Sprenger, in Germany, burned a number which can never be ascertained correctly, but which, it is agreed on all hands, amounted to more than five hundred in a year...For fear the zeal of the enemies of Satan should cool, successive popes appointed new commissions. One was appointed by Alexander VI. in 1494, another by Leo X. in 1521, and a third by Adrian VI. in 1522. They were all armed with the same powers to hunt out and destroy, and executed their fearful functions but too rigidly. In Geneva alone five hundred persons were burned in the years 1515 and 1516, under the title of Protestant witches...in the year 1524 no less than a thousand persons suffered death for witchcraft in the district of Como...Henri Boguet, a witch-finder, who styled himself "The Grand Judge of Witches for the Territory of St. Claude," drew up a code for the guidance of all persons engaged in the witch-trials, consisting of seventy articles, quite as cruel as the code of Bodinus. In this document he affirms, that a mere suspicion of witchcraft justifies the immediate arrest and torture of the suspected person...Who, when he hears that this diabolical doctrine was the universally received opinion of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities can wonder that thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons should be brought to the stake? that Cologne should for many years burn its three hundred witches annually? district of Bamberg its four hundred? Nuremberg, Geneva, Paris, Toulouse, Lyons, and other cities, their two hundred?...In 1595, an old woman residing in a village near Constance, angry at not being invited to share the sports of the country people on a day of public rejoicing, was heard to mutter something to herself, and was afterwards seen to proceed through the fields toward a hill, where she was lost sight of. A violent thunder-storm arose about two hours afterwards, which wet the dancers to the skin, and did considerable damage to the plantations. This woman, suspected before of witchcraft, was seized and imprisoned, and accused of having raised the storm, by filling a hole with wine, and stirring it about with a stick. She was tortured till she confessed, and was burned alive the next evening...They never burned anybody till he confessed; and if one course of torture would not suffice, their patience was not exhausted, and they tried him again and again, even to the twentieth time.'

§ 12. Ezekiel 20. 25 - Zionism and Christianity - Ezekiel 36. 24-28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Christ's words at the Last Supper - Bad Laws Given by God to the Rebellious Jews – The Need for a New Law to Amend the Old Mosaic Law.

Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their rebelliousness. One can review the Mosaic Law and see if it contains some bad laws: execute the Sabbath violator, execute the adulteress, execute the homosexual etc. If the Old Law was perfect there would be no need for a New Law. Jesus said at the Last Supper: `This cup is My blood of the new covenant...' And of course it was the Jewish prophet Jeremiah who told us in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 that God would make a new covenant with the Jews. The Old Testament is quite clear in stating the Mosaic Law is an eternal law. How does one reconcile this with the fact that the Old Testament also says God will provide a New Law. If the New Law contains the good laws in the Old Law, in the Mosaic Law, and if all of the bad laws in the Mosaic Law are eternally remembered but also put into eternal abeyance under the New Law, then the Mosaic Law is still, in some sense, an eternal law. If one says the Mosaic Law is always going to be God's law for the Jews, and none of it will ever be amended, and all of it will be eternally enforced, then we will have to obey all of it or else we will suffer Divine wrath as rebels against God; we would have to obey even the most radical parts: execute Sabbath violators, exeuted homosexuals, execute children who curse their parents, execute enchantresses, burn alive the daughter of a priest who becomes a harlot etc. Christianity claims to be the New Law, the new covenant we read about in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, the new law which God writes on the hearts of His people: Recall Christ's words at the Last Supper: `This cup is My blood of the new covenant...'

Matthew 1. 23, John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 tell us that Jesus is God, the Divine Son. Of course we never read in the Old Testament that Jesus is God. But Isaiah 9. 6 is clear that the Son is God. And how authoritative is the Book of Isaiah? Isaiah 20. 3 tells us Isaiah walked around naked for three years. Some might doubt the spiritual authority of some some guy who walks around naked for three years, but Christians and Jews both insist Isaiah is a legit prophet and not a false prophet. Psalm 2 doesn't say the Son is God, but it tells us the Son was begotten, which implies He is of the same essence as the Father.

What is the official definition of a Christian? It depends who you ask. There are sects who claim to be Christian but they also say Jesus is not God though He is the Messiah. Most Christians see these people as heretics. Or, shall we just say, a Christian is a person who accepts as trustworthy what is written in Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, Matthew 1. 23., John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16. And of course Christians are then subdivided into Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants – some people lump the Anglicans in with the Protestants, others don't. Protestants are generally divided into two broad types, Liberal Protestants and Conservative Protestants. These terms don't have precise denotations, or at least it is probably impossible to find denotations which everyone agrees are accurate. But they have some connotations which are more or less useful. Liberals tend to reject as untrustworthy those scriptures which conflict with Liberalism. Conservatives tend to ignore those scriptures which they find unacceptable, even though the main connotation of a Conservative Protestant, that which makes him a Conservative, as opposed to a Liberal, is that he insists all of the New Testament is trustworthy and all of it is part of the new covenant which God writes on human hearts. But Conservatives do tend to ignore all of the New Testament scriptures which damn the rich, Luke 16. 19-31 etc. But Conservatives don't say these scriptures are falsehoods, myths, superstitions, errors etc. Conservatives simply ignore them. But Liberals dismiss as myths, as falsehoods, as errors, those scriptures which conflict with Liberalism, for instance: Liberals reject as errors: 2 Thess 1. 8, Galatians 1. 8-12 and 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10. A Church which supports gay marriage has to argue that these scriptures are false, untrustworthy, erroneous, otherwise these Liberals wouldn't support gay marriage.

Well, of course, this info leads to some questions pertaining to logic. If you can't trust the scriptures which tell us Jesus is God, if Jesus is not the Divine Son of Isaiah 9. 6, and isn't all of Christianity invalidated if you can not trust the scriptures which tell us Jesus is God? Of course those of us who are Christians insist you are wise to trust those scriptures which say Jesus is God, the Divine Son. And if you are wise to trust the scriptures which tell us Jesus is God, then why would you reject the scriptures in other instances? John 1. 1-14 tells us in so many words that Jesus created the universe. If Jesus is the Divine Son, if Jesus along with the Father and Holy Spirit created the universe, then how could it be wise or logical to reject as untrustworthy what Jesus says in John 14. 23-26? John 14. 23-26 tells us that those who love Him keep His words, and those who don't love Him don't keep his words. And if John 1. 1-14 and John 23-26 are trustworthy, then why would John 15. 6 be untrustworthy? John 15. 6 has Jesus saying that those who do not abide in Him are like sticks which are given to the flames. And if John 1. 1-14, John 14. 23-26 and John 15. 6 are trustworthy, then why would Christ's words in Matthew 25. 41-46 be untrustworthy? Matthew 25. 41-46 has Jesus saying,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

And if John 1. 1-14 , John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6 and Matthew 25. 31-46 are trustworthy, then why would Revelation 20. 12-15 be untrustworthy? Revelation 20. 12-15,

`And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the _Book of Life_. And the dead were judged according to their works the things written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. And Death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them...And they were judged, each one according to their works...And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.'

Protestants often seem terribly confused on the issue of faith vs. works. The issue is not complicated! Faith without works is not actually faith. It is a counterfeit version of faith. One might profess that one has faith or true faith or legit faith, but one must have something to validate ones claims. The word 'faith' has two main connotations. There is true faith and there is false faith. One is saved by true faith not by false faith. Matthew 25. 31-46 and Revelation 20. 12-15 are very clear. But St. Paul is also very clear that one is saved by faith not by works, but he means one is saved by true faith not by false faith. Look at 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10. St. Paul doesn't say in this scripture that one is free to sin because one will be saved as long as one claims to have faith. And in Galatians 1. 8-12, St. Paul doesn't tell us that Christians are free to alter his doctrines as long as they claim to have faith. It is obvious that what St. Paul means is that while one might claim to have legit faith, if one is sunk in sin and / or heresy one will not be saved And in 2 Thess 1. 8, St. Paul does not say that as long as one claims to have faith one does not need not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ to escape fire. Christ is more or less clear: ye shall know them by their fruits. If a Protestant minister piles up riches for himself, if he uses the gospel as a way to enrich himself....

How else could one determine if a Protestant's faith is legit faith or false faith except by looking at his works, and by investigating his doctrines to see if they are in conflict with the New Testament? Don't you think one would have to include Matthew 25. 31-46 and Revelation 20. 12-15 in the Top 10, in a list of the most important scriptures? Christianity has lots of scriptures which compete to be in the Top 10. How could John 14. 23-26 not be in the Top 10? Or look at Matthew 7. 13-16 – This seems like a terribly important scriptures. It includes Christ's words about – `ye shall know them by their fruits'. In Acts 26. 13-18 St. Paul describes the supernatural events surrounding his convertion to Christianity. If this scripture is trustworthy then why wouldn't 1 Corithinthians 6. 9-10 be trustworthy? One could argue that 1 Corithians 6. 9-10 belongs in the Top 10 most important scriptures. If Acts 26. 13-18 is trustworthy, then what about 1 Corthinthians 11. 27? And one might certainly argue that 1 Corinthians 11. 27 belongs in the Top 10 most important scriptures.

From roughly 400 AD and onwards for many centuries, Christian civilization was divided into three classes, into Three Estates. 1st Estate - the priests - those who prayed, 2nd Estate - the nobles - the warrior class, and the 3rd Estate - the peasants - those who toiled. In the first 1,000 years of Christianity the priests were generally quite hostile to the ideology behind the Inquisition: torture heretics to force them to stop being heretics; force them to stop leading the flock to hell with their heresies. But from the 12th century until the early part of the 19th century all of this changed. In the old days, so terrified were people of witches that Popes even declared that if woman had a wart on her face then this was sufficient evidence to justify putting her to the torture to determine if she was or wasn't a witch. And of course everyone recalls how Galileo was either tortured or threatened with torture by the Inquisition if he persisted in declaring the earth revolved round the sun. During the heyday of the Inquisition one can find some Catholics and some Protestants opposed to the use of torture in legal proceedings, but it is mostly due to Atheists and non-Christians that Europe and North America are free of torture in judicial proceedings in the 20th and 21st centuries. And of course all of this info is evidence, clear proof actually, that says the religion founded by Christ and the apostles became corrupted. To insist this corruption is proof that Christianity was false and corrupt right from the beginning is something over which Christians and Non-Christians will have to disagree. The New Testament certainly contains prophesies about the coming corruption, see Acts 20. 28-31, 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15, 1 Timothy 4. 1-3 etc.

The Dogma of Papal Infallibility specifically damns, anathematizes, those who reject that Dogma. Protestants reject that Dogma. Protestants don't believe they are damned for rejecting that Dogma. If Rome is not God's True Church Protestants are right to rebel against Rome. But Protestants certainly do rebel against Rome, which is a stupid thing to do, in risking hellfire, if Rome is God's True Church. If you say that Rome is not God's True Church, if you say that Rome does not uphold the True Faith, if you say that Rome therefore leads people away from heaven and straight to perdition, then, of course, you will not be a Roman Catholic. But if you say that Rome does lead people to heaven, if you say that Rome is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Church which the gates of hell will not prevail against, if you say Rome does uphold the True Faith, but, then, if you go on to say that it is sometimes wise to rebel against God's True Church, aren't you being rather obtuse? Aren't you being sort of...INSANE? If you will always go to heaven if you always obey God's True Church, but if you might very well go to hell if you rebel against God's True Church, then, how is it sane to rebel against God's True Church?

We can understand why a Protestant politician would hesitate to say that the Roman Catholic Church is a cult which leads people to perdition. He doesn't want to offend supporters. He doesn't want to lose elections. He doesn't want to sink like the Titanic when he runs for re-election. But then if he thinks it will win him more votes than it will cost him he might pull the trigger and say Rome drags souls down to perdition. There is something fishy, something not quite kosher, about judging the validity of a religious proposition by the number of votes it will win you and the number of votes it will lose you. But why would a Protestant, or a Catholic, resist the logic pertaining to obedience: can't lose if u always obey True Church, might go to hell if you rebel against True Church, so don't. Well, obedience is something we usually expect from dogs but not so much these days from human beings. The typical Protestant, or Catholic, has been well trained, very strictly trained to not always strictly obey churches. Yes, very strictly trained to not always strictly obey...Evidently the typical Protestant / Catholic has been thoroughly trained by long tradition to think it's only right and natural and logical to rebel against the church which he claims is God's True Church!

Let's review the logic which says one is anti-Christian if one rejects Zionism. This is the same thing as reviewing the logic which says one is on the road to perdition if one rejects Zionism. Zionism is the philosophy which says the Jews have a right to live in peace in the Holy Land. The argument that says you are Anti-Christian if you reject Zionism runs as follows: If one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper - `For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many' \- then one is obviously Anti-Christian, and Christianity says one is damned, that is, one is damned if one never repents, if one is Anti-Christian. Christianity would be a pretty strange religion if it taught the doctrine that you attain heaven and escape perdition by being Anti-Christian! Anyway, if you accept those words from Christ at the Last Supper – and recall that the Last Supper is the last time Jesus will spend some time with His disciples prior to His arrest, and after the arrest we're just hours away from the trial, the scourging and the crucifixion – so, if one accepts as trustworthy the words from Christ: `this cup is My blood of the new covenant...' then one will accept Jeremiah 31. 31-34. The Book of Hebrews in the New Testament gives its blessing to the Old Testament scripture of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 – and of course, no doubt, 2 Timothy 3. 16 gives its blessing as well - and the first mention in the Christian Bible of a new covenant, of a New Law to amend the Old Law, the old Mosaic Law, is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, which runs as follows:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

If one accepts Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then one will also accept Ezekiel 36. 24-28. This is because if you will accept one Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews then you will accepted a second Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews. Ezekiel 36. 24-28 has God saying,

`For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.'

Ezekiel 36.24-28 has two parts. There's the part about God pulling the Jews out of the nations and bringing them back to their land, and there's the part about God putting His Spirit into the Jews and causing them to obey God and His statutes. Christians don't believe that it makes any sense to say that the first part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 was fulfilled when the Jews returned to the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, because, Christians don't believe the Spirit of God was put into the Jews after the Babylonian Captivity, and don't believe God caused the Jews to obey His statutes, because, in a few centuries after the return from the Babylonian Captivity, Jesus railed against Jews and their rebellious ways, and of course Jesus was crucified by the Romans with the approval of a great many Jews, and for nearly 2,000 thereafter the Jews have rejected Jesus, therefore, Christians don't believe that God put His Spirit inside the Jews after the Jews returned to the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity. Ezekiel 36. 24-28 gives us God's words: `I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.' This scripture doesn't imply that God will put His Spirit inside the Jews, but will then take His Spirit away, and then the Jews will revert to sin and rebellion once again, and then a few centuries will elapse, and then the Jews along with the Romans will be responsible for crucifying Christ, and then the Jews will reject Christ for several millennia. No, Ezekiel 36. 24-28 does not imply that scenario. What Ezekiel 36. 24-28 implies is that God will bring the Jews back into the Holy Land and then God will put His Spirit into the Jews and then the Jews will never again rebel against God.

So, if we turn away from the return of the Jews to the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, and turn instead to the Zionist movement in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, we might get better answers when we look for answers to the questions surrounding Ezekiel 36. 24-28. Is it trustworthy? If so, what era does it refer to? It's true that, as of May 2018, Christians don't believe that God has put His Spirit inside the Jews. I mean, as long as the Jews continue to reject Jesus, those of us who are Christians will continue to insist that God has not put His Spirit inside the Jews. We read in Ezekiel 36. 24-28 that, first,God will bring the Jews back into the Holy Land, and, then, a little later, God will put His Spirit inside the Jews, and will cause the Jews to walk in God's Statutes, and cause them to keep them. Christians have no way to interpret Ezekiel 36. 24-28 other than by the doctrine which says that God will bring the Jews back to the Holy Land, and then, a little later, God will put His Spirit into the Jews, and this Spirit will be a Christian Spirit. If all the events described Ezekiel 36. 24-28 transpired in the past, if God has already put His Spirit into the Jews, into people who reject Jesus, then all of Christianity would be invalidated. Christians don't believe that all of Christianity has been invalidated! If God's Spirit is not a Christian Spirit, then Christianity would be a big fraud, a colossal false religion, and, as you recall, Christians don't believe that Christianity is a huge fraud and colossal false religion.

Ezekiel 36. 24-28 certainly seems to support Zionism. `For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...' Isn't it at least possible that these words refer to the Zionist movement of recent decades? If you won't concede this is even possible then you're really being quite an anti-Zionist! Anyway, the Christian logic which says you're on the Devil's side if you reject Zionism runs as follows: If you reject Zionism then you reject Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If you reject Ezekiel 36. 24-28 then you reject Jeremiah 31. 31-34. That is, if you reject one Old Testament scripture which says God will put His Spirit in the Jews, and will write His laws on their hearts, then you will reject another Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews. So, if one rejects Zionism one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28 one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34. If one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34 then one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper. If one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper – if you reject the words:`this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for the remission of sins,' - then, you are quite anti-Christian, and Christianity says you're damned if you are anti-Christian, that is, you're damned assuming you never repent, assuming you remain anti-Christian and never become pro-Christian. Therefore, Christian logic says: unless you repent, you are damned if you oppose Zionism.

One will obviously not be able to sell this pushy conclusion to non-Christians, to people who reject Christ's words at the Last Supper, but Christians ought to be able to grasp the logic at work here.

Pope Pius X, the most recent Pope to be canonized - John Paul II has not been officially canonized as of 2018 - was hostile to Zionism. He reasoned that Zionism was hostile to the will of God unless the Jews converted to Roman Catholicism. If the Church of Rome is God's True Church, if the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, then Pope Pius X certainly won't be damned for his anti-Zionism. But if the Church of Rome is not the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, if the Church of Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome leads souls to perdition...

Isaiah 59. 20-21 is another Old Testament scripture which is similar to Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Isaiah 59. 20-21 states,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

Osama bin Laden was quoted saying, _Minneapolis Star-Tribune_ , p. A10, 11.30.2007,

`The events of Manhattan [9.11.2001] were retaliation against the American-Israel alliance's aggression against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and I am the only one responsible for it.'

The reasons for this American-Israeli alliance fall into two categories: religious reasons and secular reasons. The US Supreme Court has decreed that it is verboten to teach the religious reasons for the American-Israeli alliance in the public schools. One would think that American kids in American public schools have a right to know all the reasons, both the religious and the secular reasons, for this alliance, because, American kids might be murdered in terrorist attacks because of this American-Israeli alliance. But the Supreme Court doesn't see it this way even though common sense says American school children have a right to know the full explanation, both the religious and secular reasons, explaining why America supports Israel, and explaining why America was indeed attacked on 9.11.2001. But the American courts are adamant in saying: No! No! No! No! No discussion of religion in the public schools. Public schools are forbidden to teach Christ's words at the Last Supper, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Ezekiel 36.24-28 etc.

_In Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism_ by Abe Foxman, head of the anti-Defamation League, we find an extract from a speech which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered at Harvard in 1968. Rev. King was ardently Zionist, saying the Jews had a fundamental right to live in peace in the Holy Land, and he even equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. In 1975, in United Nations Resolution 3379, the reader will recall that the UN declared that Zionism was Racism.

Ann Coulter told us in _Treason_ that Tom Paulin, an Irish poet and Oxford don, a BBC commentator and a visiting professor at Columbia, told an Egyptian newspaper that Brooklyn-born Jews living in the West Bank should be shot. He also confided that he felt nothing but hatred for these Jews, and indeed he said they were Nazis and racists. Let's hope he's a sweeter poet than polemicist.

A secular reason for this American-Israeli alliance is: the USA should help Israel in her fight for survival with enemies who have vowed to destroy her, for the same reason that the police should protect people from criminals, and for the same reason that big kids should protect little kids from bullies etc., etc. It's just the right thing to do. But in a world filled with atomic and biological and chemical weapons, one must be a little circumspect about who one chooses for allies. One must consider the future happiness or wretchedness of ones children and grandchildren, and one can't be too much of a gambler in ones actions.
The torrential flood of American support for Zionism and Israel flows in three broad streams. 1) Millions of American Jews are naturally Zionists, Zionism being defined as the doctrine that the Jews have a right to live in peace in a Jewish State in the Holy Land. 2) Millions of secularized Americans understand that the Jews have been a much persecuted people. These people sympathize with the Jews when they recall the continual persecution that the Jews have suffered for thousands of years. Millions of secular Americans are sympathetic to the Palestinians, but these same Americans also want to avoid aligning themselves with any faction or any nation which hates the Jews with the hatred of Haman and Hitler, Hamas and Hezbollah. 3) The third river of American support for Israel is comprised of Christians who cherish the Judeo-Christian Tradition. Jesus and the apostles were of course Jews. Many Christians in the USA see the creation of the modern State of Israel as the fulfillment of various Old Testament prophecies, especially the first part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28.

The religious reasons explaining why Christians should support Zionism and Israel are vastly more powerful than the secular reasons for Zionism. Assume, at least for a moment or two, at least for the sake of argument, that God either doesn't exist or God doesn't care 2 cents about Zionism or Israel. Then then why should Americans care? Why should Americans risk more terrorist attacks in the future, and perhaps risk being attacked with weapons of mass destruction, from those who hate the American-Israeli alliance? There are many people in the world who hate America because she supports Israel, and it only stands to reason that, as technology advances, very sophisticated and lethal weaponry – Nukes, Nerve gas, Anthrax etc., etc., - will trickle down into the hands of very dangerous people who hate both Israel and America.

An Atheist or an Agnostic, might feel some solidarity with the Jewish people. He might be well-versed in the history of the Jews. He might have a great deal of admiration for their heroic resolve to persevere as a distinct people despite incessant hatred and persecution over the centuries. Thus, an Atheist or an Agnostic might be a Zionist. But if one doesn't believe in God, or if one doesn't believe God favors Zionism, then, one will probably believe that Zionism is not doing anyone any good, especially if one believes that Zionism will lead to more suffering for the Jews, and perhaps to nuclear fireballs over Chicago or Jerusalem from terrorists who hate Zionists and the allies of Zionists. The principle secular reason for the American-Israeli alliance seems to be: the Jews have been hated and oppressed for centuries. Therefore, it's about time decent people defended the Jews. Another secular reason for Zionism was: the Jews need their own homeland, because, they will always be the victims of persecution from wicked Gentiles until they get their own homeland. But this reason seems to be falling to pieces due to intractable Islamic hatred for Israel.

With the greater awareness in the world of how beastly the Jews had been treated in recent times, to say nothing of the horrors of the Middle Ages, cruelly persecuted by the Russian Orthodox, by the Catholics in Poland and France, by Protestants and Catholics and Pagans in Nazi Germany etc., Zionism became popular among educated Gentiles in the 20th century. The Muslims, generally speaking, over the centuries, have treated the Jews much more hospitably than have the Christians. The last few decades are something of an anomaly in this regard. On p. 8 of Yossi Klein Halevi's _At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search For God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land_ (HarperCollins, 2001), he says that when Yasser Arafat spoke in English he talked about how one must be brave to seek peace, but when he spoke in Arabic he preached jihad. He praised as holy martyrs those who practice the craft of mass murder via suicide bombing. Mr. Halevi says his children return home from kindergarten waving peace flags and Stars of David with doves on them. But on official Palestinian TV, he watches 6-year-olds say they dream of becoming suicide bombers. Their teachers stand by and applaud.

What a nightmare! No matter where the Jews go, cruel enemies pursue them. For a 6-year-old fanatic, carefully trained by adults to hate Jews and hate the American-Israeli alliance, the thrill of being the first suicide-bomber to detonate a thermonuclear devise in an American city would have to be second only to the thrill of destroying a city full of Jews. How confusing it must seem to the Jews, to always be surrounded by enemies and persecutors, for millennia after millennia. The Jews are supposed to be a light to the Gentiles, but everywhere they look they seem to be hated by Gentiles. Acts 13. 47 / Isaiah 49. 6 has God saying,

`I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.'

If Judaism had a supreme anthem it would be Deuteronomy 7. 6-9,

`For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.'

Christianity claims to be the New Covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, the New Law to amend the Old Law, the Mosaic Law. If there was never a New Law then we would still be governed by the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, the Law which Moses carried down on stone tablets from atop Mt. Sinai. Though there is no Temple and no sanctified altar in Jerusalem upon which to offer the blood sacrifice of bulls, goats, birds, lambs etc. - these were destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. - still if you accept the premise that the Mosaic Law is God's eternal law for humankind, then we would have to try to obey what we can of that Law or else we would get to suffer Divine wrath as rebels against God. The more controversial parts of the Mosaic Law would include the parts which call for the execution of homosexuals, the execution of Sabbath violators, the execution of children who curse their parents, the execution of witches - these might be twisted and ugly spellcasters or beautiful enchantresses - but witches, either male or female, are people who engage in conjurings, seances, divination, necromancy etc. Under the Old Mosaic Law if a priest in the Aaronic priesthood had a daughter who became a harlot she was to be burned alive. Under the New Law, well, of course, there's a lot of debate about what exactly the New Law says. The Roman Catholic Church more or less says the New Law is whatever the Roman Catholic Church says it is. For instance, the Dogma of Papal Infallibility specifically anathematizes – curses, damns, consigns to perdition etc., - those who reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. Rome insists the Dogma of Papal Infallibility is part of the New Law. There's the Roman Catholic version of the New Law, the Eastern Orthodox version of the New Law, the Anglican version, the Mormon version etc., etc.

Of course the Atheists will insist that one is like some gullible little kid who believes in Santa Claus or Humpty Dumpty if one believes in the veracity of scriptures such as Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34, if one believes in Christianity, in God, in heaven, in hell. You mustn't confound the corruption of Christianity in the centuries after Jesus with the pristine nature of the Early Christian Church. And of course the New Testaments contains prophesies which tell us Christians will become corrupt. St. Paul prophecizes in Acts 20: 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

St. Paul states in 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

Matthew 7. 21-23 states many who profess to follow Jesus will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but will be given over to the flames because they are practitioners of lawlessness.

I Timothy 4. 1-3 reads:

`Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.'

Continuing with the defense of Christianity, consider the contention that the Bible makes women subject to men. Peter and Paul tell women to obey their husbands, but those same apostles also tell men to love their wives. And if a man loves his wife he will do what she asks, assuming she's making reasonable requests, and perhaps even if she makes somewhat unreasonable requests. St. Paul said he did not permit women to have authority over men. I know St. Paul gave some reasons for his position, but I was thinking it might be enlightening to try to find some additional reasons. Women are the main defenders of little children, that is, little children are not able to think for themselves on religious matters, therefore they need competent people to think for them, so their main defenders, women, will have to be competent, and since St. Paul knows that there will be lots of corrupt Christians - recall Acts 20. 27-31, 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15 etc., and no doubt St. Paul wouldn't want the main defenders of young children to be holders of high offices in corrupt churches. I mean, obviously, it's just easier to be a competent religious teacher if you are not a clergyman in a fallen church, if you are not someone with a vested interest in defending some worthless church which drags people down to perdition.

If you don't think much of that logic what do you think about the following logic? If the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome upholds the True Faith, then it makes no sense for women to be angry with Rome: it makes no sense for women to harm themselves or their children by risking hellfire by rebelling against Rome, because they don't like it that Rome doesn't let women become priestesses: if Rome is god's True Church, just obey Rome and be glad that Rome leads people to heaven. Of course, on the other hand, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome leads people to perdition because Rome has fallen away from True Faith, then why would any sensible woman want to be a priestess in an evil church which drags souls down to perdition?

You can give the same two options to women when they consider any church with a male-only clergy. If some Protestant church with a male-only clergy leads people to heaven, because it is God's True Church, because it upholds the True Faith, then it makes no sense for women to risk hell by rebelling against that Church. Just accept reality. Just obey God's True Church. Be glad of your reward in heaven. And, of course, on the other hand, if the reality of the situation is this Protestant church with a male-only clergy is not God's True Church, because it has fallen away from the True Faith, and therefore it drags souls down to perdition, then why would any sensible woman want to be a priestess in a worthless corrupt evil Protestant church which drags souls down to perdition?

Apropos the contention that the New Testament supports slavery, Peter and Paul did tell slaves to obey their masters and look to the afterlife for their reward. If they told Christian slaves to rebel against their masters the result would have been a bloodbath. The Roman Empire was a huge slave empire. Whenever slaves in the Roman Empire tried to cast off their chains the Roman Empire was very adept at crushing the rebels with great cruelty. You could expect to be crucified if you were a slave and you failed in your rebellion against Rome. It's true that corrupt Christians in later centuries would twist the words of the New Testament and say that the New Testament supported the African slave trade. But this is merely one of countless examples of corrupt Christians corrupting the New Testament. Peter and Paul could have ordered the Christian masters to immediately liberate their slaves. But how was a freed slave supposed to support his family in those times? Women could become prostitutes and men could join the Roman army, but these are not fit occupations for Christians. In the pagan Roman Empire there weren't any Wal-Marts or Burger Kings or 7-Elevens or Temp agencies where an ex-slave could find a job and then struggle along to make ends meet. There weren't any high paying union jobs either. You couldn't find work 20 centuries ago as an electrician, a crane operator, an auto mechanic etc. And as for high paying corporate jobs, there were no CEOs, no CFOs, no Managing Directors, no MBAs from elite schools starting out at $100k: no large corporations whatsoever. The Roman Empire used slaves to till the fields; it used slaves to satisfy its need for labor. If you were a slave owner 20 centuries ago, and if you liberated your slaves, if you told them also they had to leave your place and find food and clothing and shelter some place else, then you would be acting in a very cruel and heartless way. The best thing you could do was to be kind to the slaves and provide for them.

To review some very important material. As we know Jesus said at the Last Supper - `This cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for the forgiveness of sins of many.' Christians insist that the new covenant, the new law, the Divine Law, the True Faith, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Holy Faith etc., are all different names for the same thing. Again, the first mention of a new covenant to amend the old covenant, old the Mosaic Law, is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, which runs as follows:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

These words about even the least of God's people being able to understand the new covenant have you thinking that the new covenant must be something fairly simple. It's true that God might perform a miracle and write a complicated legal code on to the hearts of His people, but, for the moment at least, let's focus on simple creeds which are easy for everyone to understand. Obviously, if you take a creed which says: Obey all of the New Testament, then some confusion might arise over interpretations of various scriptures. Some insist a Christian can have true faith or true belief even if his works indicate he lacks true faith / true belief. St. Paul can be a little difficult to understand. But if we look at scriptures such as John 14. 21-26, and Matthew 25. 31-46 and Revelation 20. 12-15, we have a good deal of emphasis on the necessity of good works, but this doesn't invalidate the New Testament scriptures which say we are saved by faith and not by works, not if you interpet all this to mean we are saved by true faith, and not by our works, however, if one has true faith then one will also have good works. Perhaps some Christians insist the new covenant which God inscribes on the hearts of His people is this: Ignore Matthew 25. 31-46, ignore the Repent or Perish sermon in Luke 13. 3, ignore the anti-rich propaganda in Luke 16. 19-31 and Luke 18. 25, ignore the words on hellfire in Matthew 5 and John 15. 6, just say you believe in Jesus and you will attain heaven and escape perdition.'

If you say that 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 is not part of the new covenant – in 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 St. Paul tells us that fornicators, revilers, the covetous, homosexuals, drunkards etc., will not go to heaven – if you reject 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 then you're calling into question St. Paul's authority in Galatians 1. 8-12 – where he tells us he learned his doctrine directly from Christ and tells us even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters this doctrine, and calling into question the authority of Acts 26. 12-18, which states: 'Where as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun...And I said, Who art thou, Lord, and he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But arise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared to thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness...delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God...:

If you can't trust the above words, then St. Paul's words in Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 – these tell us Jesus is God – become suspicious or untrustworthy If you can't trust Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 then all of Christianinty becomes, if not invalidated, then something close to invalidated.

In any event, if you say the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 which God writes on the hearts of his people says all of the New Testament is trustworthy and divinely inspired then this is something even the least of God's people can understand. But if you say one must go through the New Testament line by line and throw away those scriptures which are offensive to some faction, offensive to some special interest group, then everything either gets very complicated and subjective or else you're just seeking to invalidate Christianity. If you say John 14. 21-26 is untrustworthy then you're basically saying the entire New Testament is untrustworthy. If you say John 14. 21-26 and Acts 26. 12-18 are trustworthy, then you are more or less saying the entire New Testament is trustworthy.

Consider the creed which says: `The Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven, the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Church which the gates of hell will not prevail against, so always obey the Roman Catholic Church and you will be led to heaven, but if you rebel against the Roman Catholic Church, then the deal is off: if you rebel against Rome you might go to hell.'

To analize the above, we have 2 especially important scenarios to consider:

1) Regardless of former centuries, the Roman Catholic Church in the 21st century upholds the True Faith sufficiently well: mistakes have been made, mistakes are always being made certainly, but Rome leads people to heaven in the 21st century: you will be led to heaven if you obey the Roman Catholic Church in the 21 century, but if you rebel against Rome you might certainly go to hell, so don't rebel against Rome in the 21st century.

2) Regardless of former centuries, the Roman Catholic Church in the 21st century has fallen away from the True Faith: Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Rome leads souls to perdition, so renounce the Roman Catholic Church. Get out of the Roman Catholic Church or else Rome will lead you to perdition.

So, those are the two key scenarios. Suppose Scenario 1 from above is true. Now, in what might be called Scenario 1A, we have the following: Rome has always been God's True Church. Rome has never fallen away from the True Faith. Rome has always led people to heaven. And in Scenario 1B we have: Rome fell away from the True Faith in former centuries, and led people to perdition, but Rome is God's True Church in the 21st century, and Rome leads people to heaven in the 21st century, so you don't want to say that Rome once led people to perdition, even though rome did, formerly, lead people to perdition, because if you said that, though it is true, you would be rebelling against God's True Church, rebelling against the Roman Catholic Church in the 21st century, and it makes no sense to rebel against God's True Church and risk hellfire: just obey God's True Church in the 21st century: Rome: agree with Rome when Rome says Rome never led people to perdition, even though Rome once fell away from the True Faith and led people to perdition.

You would think that the idea that the Roman Catholic Church had fallen away from the True Faith taught by Christ and the apostles would enter the heads of most people when the Roman Catholic Church began to burn people at the stake for reading the Bible.

Paul Johnson writes in `A History of Christianity', p. 273,

`In the West, the clergy had begun to assert an exclusive interpretive, indeed custodial, right to the Bible as early as the ninth century; and from about 1080 there had been frequent instances of the Pope, councils and bishops forbidding not only vernacular translations but any reading at all, by laymen, of the Bible taken as a whole...attempts to scrutinize the Bible became proof presumptive of heresy - a man or woman might burn [at the stake] for it alone.'

Again, we have these scenarios which we have to try to keep straight in our minds: if the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven in the 21st century, if Rome is God's True Church in the 21st century, then, even if Rome did fall away from the True Faith in former centuries, even if Rome did lead people to perdition in former centuries, then, provided Rome is God's True church in the 21st century, then you should obey Rome / God's True Church in the 21st century, and not contradict Rome's official doctrines in the 21st century. Rome in the 21st century says Rome has never fallen away from the True Faith, never fell away even during those years or centuries when Rome burned people at the stake for defying Rome's order forbidding people to read the Bible.

Of course if Rome is not God's True Church in the 21st century, if Rome leads people away from heaven and straight to perdition in the 21st century, then everyone needs to renounce Rome before Rome drags them down to perdition.

Will Durant wrote in `The Reformation' (p. 731):

"In 1451 Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, one of the most enlightened men of the fifteenth century, enforced the wearing of badges by the Jews under his jurisdiction. Two years later John of Capistrano began his missions, as legate of Pope Nicholas V, in Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland. His powerful sermons accused the Jews of killing children and desecrating the Host -charges which popes had branded as murderous superstitions. Urged on by this "scourge of the Jews," the dukes of Bavaria drove all Hebrews from their duchy. Bishop Godfrey of Wurzburg, who had given them full privileges in Franconia, now banished them, and in town after town Jews were arrested, and debts due them were annulled. At Breslau several Jews were jailed on Capistrano's demand; he himself supervised the tortures that wrung from some of them whatever he bade them confess; on the basis of these confessions forty Jews were burned at the stake (June 2, 1453). The remaining Jews were banished, but their children were taken from them and baptized by force. Capistrano was canonized in 1690."

To this day, Rome insists that all True Christians must venerate John of Capistrano as a true saint. Paragraph 2148 of the Catechism informs us that one commits blasphemy if one directs abusive language towards Capistrano or any other canonized person. Paragraph 2148 also says it is a blasphemy of God to torture and execute people in the name of God. Not to imply that the Eastern Orthodox or the Protestants were never ferocious, but, nevertheless, the Church of Rome tortured and executed people in the name of God for over six centuries via the Inquisition. If Rome is the True Church in the 21st century, then obey Rome and venerate John of Capistrano. If Rome in the 21st century is God's True Church, then it doesn't matter if Capistrano was a saint or a devil – just obey God's True Church and venerate Capistrano, even if he was a devil - and you will be led to heaven. But if you rebel against God's True church, then you risk hellfire, so that's not sensible. Of course, obviously, if the Roman Catholic Church has fallen away from the True Faith in the 21st century, if Rome is not God's True Church in the 21st century, then get out of the the Roman Catholic Church before it drags you down to perdition.

Abram Leon Sachar, a former president of Brandeis University, wrote in _A History of the Jews_ (Knopf, 1960):

`This time the villain of the piece is the papal legate John of Capistrano, a Franciscan monk whose persecuting zeal earne him the unenviable title of "Scourge of the Jews."...Wherever he went, thousands...were carried away by his immense sincerity, his ferocious energy. Riots were common in Germany and Slavic lands after his tongue had lashed heretics and Jews...In Breslau a Bernadine chapel was built with Jewish money after nearly the whole community had been burnt alive for blasphemy...So went the tale of woe decade after decade, endlessly. Four hundred years had now passed since the hideous nightmare had begun. Hounded by successions of crusaders...Even sunny Spain was beginning to use the thumb-screw and the torch...Jews turned to their Bibles and prayer-books, scanning the tear-stained pages in vain for the consolation which the living world denied them...While France and England, Germany and Austria ransacked chambers of horror to discover new torments...In Seville several thousand were butchered...The riots spread like a plague...About seventy cities of Old Castile were thus devastated and a trail of broken homes and broken hearts was left in the wake of the bloody hooligans...The fertile province of Valencia, the prosperous seaport of Barcelona, even the islands off the coast of Spain, were all swept by the ferocity of the persecutors. After three months the orgy ended, with thousands of Jewish lives snuffed out and tens of thousands of forced baptisms.'

Of course we can find examples of Protestant atrocities. Protestants are under pressure from the popular culture to not denounce the Roman Catholic Church as a satanic cult which leads people to perdition. But then to say that Rome leads people to heaven is to say that Rome upholds the True Faith in the 21st century, and is God's True Church in the 21st century. And while you might insist it is idiocy to venerate Capistrano, nevertheless, if in fact Rome in the 21st century is God's True Church, if Rome leads people to heaven, then it is idiocy to rebel against God's True Church, such as by refusing to venerate Capistrano as a saint. Now if Rome leads people away from heaven and leads then to perdition, if Rome is not God's True Church in the 21st century, then there is nothing wrong with Protestants saying Rome is a cult, it is a cult which leads people away from heaven and drags them down to perdition, therefore Rome is a satanic cult.

The Atheist doesn't believe in heaven or hell. Well, if the Atheist is mistaken, but if heaven and hell do exist, and if Rome leads people away from heaven...

Protestants sometimes don't know where to begin in attacking Rome. Take the issue of Purgatory. Suppose it is a big delusion. If you lead people to believe that they will have a chance to get to heaven by going through Purgatory, but if in fact there is no Purgatory – Rome says it exists but if Rome is wrong because it doesn't exist! - if in fact the dead sleep until the Last Judgment, and then they are judged, and they either attain heaven or they get tossed into a lake of fire, then those people who get tossed into the lake of fire have a reason to be angry with Rome. They were given hope by Rome that they would get to heaven via Purgatory. Suppose the Protestants are right. Suppose there is no Purgatory. So, in this scenario, Rome gives people false hopes which result in them being led away from heaven and straight to perdition. So, if Rome is responsible for leading people to the lake of fire, by telling the lie that Purgatory exists, because these people refused to repent, and placed their hopes in gaining heaven by first going to purgatory, then Rome led people to perdition. That's not what God's True Church does. God's True Church does not give people false hopes with the upshot that they are led to perdition. So, Rome is not God's True Church, if the Protestants are right in saying Purgatory does not exist, and if the false hope in Purgatory led some people to perdition. Revelation 22. 18-19 tells of curses upon those who deny or corrupt the Book of Revelation. Roman Catholic doctrine corrurupts the Book of Revelation. Revelation says the dead sleep until the Last Judgment. Then the dead are awakened and go to judgment. The saints then go to heaven and the damned are tossed into a lake of fire. Roman Catholic doctrine says that when a saint dies he immediately goes into the presence of God and receive the Beatific Vision. If the saints don't go into the presence of God after their deaths on earth, if they sleep until the Last Judgment, then they can't make intercession for people on earth when people pray to the saints. And of course many or most Protestants will insist that praying to saints is just another Catholic heresy.

1 Peter 3. 15 tells Christians that we are to be ready with an answer to explain the hope we have within us. When Atheists insist that the Books of Genesis, Exodus etc., along with the whole Biblical account of the creation of the universe are preposterous, given that science tells us the universe was NOT created in six days, we have to recall that Christ taught via parables, and parables are fictions which teach spiritual truths. Christ told His disciples when he was speaking via parables but He didn't tell this to all of His listeners. It would be rather insane to insist that Christ must be considered untrustworthy, must be considered a fraudulent Deity, unless He can provide birth certificates giving the full names along with the dates of birth of the 10 wise virgins along with the same biographical info on the 10 foolish virgins who also make their appearance in the famous parable. Whether or not the account of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is literally true in every respect and in every little detail, or whether it is a parable, a fiction which teaches spiritual truth, either way, as long as the Bible is trustworthy in its central message then this is all that matters. As long as the Christian Bible is trustworthy in its central message that God rewards in the afterlife those who obey Him and punishes in the afterlife those who rebel against Him, then who cares if this message is delivered via a parable or via something other than a parable?

The attorney for Judaism will say that the Mosaic Law is an eternal law, a law which will never be replaced, at which point the lawyer for Christianity will say that the Mosaic Law is eternal in the sense that it will always be remembered, and parts if it, such as the Ten Commandments, will always be enforced, but the Hebrew scriptures are perfectly clear in stating that God will make a new covenant with the Jews, see Jeremiah 31. 31-34. And Ezekiel 20. 25 plainly tells us that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their rebelliousness. If in fact the Jews were still bound by the Mosaic law, then they would still have to obey all of it, such as parts of the Mosaic law which call for the execution of Sabbath violators, of homosexuals, of enchantresses, of children who curse their parents etc.

So much of the evidence against the many churches under the sign of the cross pertains to their failure to excommunicate evil Christians. For century after priests gave communion to kings and nobles who were vicious in their treatment of the peasantry. The Church of England did not refuse to celebrate the Eucharist with Henry VIII - Henry of course was the 16th century founding father of the Church of England, and Henry was the sort of Christian who boiled people to death in hot oil, who murdered his wives when he wanted to get rid of them. Well, you might say, the Church of England is no longer led by murderous barbarians! Yes, but to hold the True Faith, which is explained in the New Testament, you have to do various things, such as you have to obey commandments and teachings from Christ and from St. Paul - the latter learned his doctrines directly from Christ - Galatians 1. 8-12 - and merely because one is not a murderous barbarian does not guarantee that one is a saint in the True Church - a saint is someone who will attain heaven and escape perdition - a saint is not sinless, only God is sinless - merely because one is a good deal less barbarous than Henry VIII does not guarantee that one teaches the True Faith correctly, it does not guarantee that one is free from heresy - and a heresy is a false doctrine which is so false and pernicious that it leads people to perdition. For instance, consider the doctrine which says: Christian churches in the 21st century need not excommunicate Sabbath violators. Is this an example of a heresy, of a false doctrine which is so false, evil and contrary to the True Faith that it leads souls straight to perdition? We might at least try to make an educated guess even if we entertain some doubts about arriving at a 100% certified true and infallible answer. We know that St. Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 11. 27 that it is a terrible sin to partake of the Eucharist in an unworthy manner, and elsewhere St. Paul tells us Christians must excommunicate Christians who are not behaving themselves the way good Christians are supposed to behave themselves. There's nothing in the New Testament which indicates that any one of the Ten Commandments has been rendered obsolete. Christians are still commanded to keep the Sabbath Day holy. We're not to labor, and we're not to buy or sell on the Sabbath Day. When you buy or sell on the Sabbath you're encouraging someone, like a sales clerk or a waitress, to labor on the Sabbath. So, if you are in a church which refuses to excommunicate people who violate the Sabbath, then, don't you think you in a church which celebrates the Eucharist in an unworthy manner? If celebrating communion with Sabbath violators is not a sin which leads to perdition then there is no pressure to stop celebrating communion with Sabbath violators. But if one is damned to perdition for celebrating communion with Sabbath violators, then one has a reason to stop celebrating communion with Sabbath violators.

Christ. Recall 2 Thess 1. 8 - fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Recall Luke 13. 3, John 15. 6, Matthew 5 etc. Revelation 20. 12-15 is so interesting for many reasons, but partly because it says one is judged according to ones works. So many Protestants have been indoctrinated into thinking that works don't matter. It's as if these Protestants have never read Matthew 25. 31-46. Is it that complicated to make the distinction between phony faith / phony belief and true faith / true belief? The latter have good works behind them to prove they are true, whereas the former don't.

So much depends on the trustworthiness of St. Paul. Even if we ignore for the moment St. Paul's clear declarations that Jesus is God - Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 - there's still John 1. 1-14 and Matthew 1. 23, which more or less tells us Jesus is God, and then we have some Old Testament scriptures, such as Psalm 2, which, though they don't mention the name Jesus, nevertheless, they lead one to believe the begotten Son is God, along of course with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 9. 6 tells us the Son is God. Elsewhere in the Book of Isaiah we are told that Isaiah walked around naked for three years, so one might see the hand of God in this. Worldly people insist that you just can't trust the theology of a guy who walks around naked for three years. If the authors of those New Testsment scriptures which say Jesus is God were led astray by Isaiah 9. 6, then this is a terrible, terrible thing, but then, on the other hand, if there is no mistake, if Isaiah 9. 6 is true, as those of us who are Trinitarians insist, then those eho reject the Divinity of Jesus have descended into heresy. We're still looking into the questions: Is St. Paul trustworthy? Does he lead people to heaven or does he lead people to perdition? If he is trustworthy then it is all wrong to ignore his words about the need for Christians to excommunicate those Christians who aren't behaving themselves. So, if, a person tells you that St. Paul is trustworthy, if a person tells you that St. Paul's authority is from God, if he tells you that St. Paul's teachings lead people to heaven and lead no one to perdition, but then, in the next breath, if this person tells you that churches don't have to listen to St. Paul when he says Christians are not to celebrate the Eucharist with misbehaving Christians, and if this person tells you to just go ahead and ignore completely what St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11. 27, then, what are we to conclude about the sanity of this person? Galatians 1. 8-12 tells us St. Paul learned his doctrine directly from Christ, and even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters these doctrines. There are two possibilities for Galatians 1. 8-12: it is either trustworthy or else it is untrustworthy.

Acts 26. 12-18: 'Where as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun...And I said, Who art thou, Lord, and he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But arise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared to thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness...delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God...:

We've been over the logic which says a church, any church, is either good enough to be God's True Church, or else it just isn't good enough. A church is either the Church which Christ founded on a rock, or else it just isn't. Suppose the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. If so then you just can't lose, you will never be sent to the fires of hell, if you always obey Rome. So, it is idiocy, it is madness, it is utter insanity etc., etc., to ever disobey Rome, provided Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock...Look at the Garden of Eden. Look at what happened to humanity because of the rebellion there. Adam and Eve were given strict orders to not partake of the forbidden fruit. Look at all the pain and anguish and torment which befell humanity because of their rebellion.

Or, on the other hand, suppose the Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church, not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Suppose Rome has fallen away from the True Faith. Suppose Rome has fallen into heresy. Suppose Rome leads people away from heaven and drags them down to perdition. Suppose Rome is a murderer of souls...

As we've seen Jeremiah 31.31-34 tells us that the True Faith / Divine Law will be inscribed on the hearts of even the least of God's people. This has one thinking the Divine Law must be simple and concise. But consider merely the issue of excommunicating people. It seems at least a little complicated to me. Suppose a Christian confesses to evil crimes: the rape of women, or vile abuse of children, or murder, or kidnapping etc. Are you just going to give such a Christian the Eucharist 5 minutes after he makes such a confession? Wouldn't that be celebrating the Eucharist in an unworthy manner? Recall what St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11. 27. What do you do with Christians who confess to villainy? Do you excommunicate them forever? Do you excommunicate them for twenty years? for ten years? How is one supposed to resolve this issue in a concise and infallible way, or at least in a way which is not a heresy? I suppose you could simply let the Bishops decide these sorts of issues. Of course, you'll want to check and double check everything to make sure the Bishops you're talking about are actually Bishops in God's True Church. You will want to make sure they are not deluded Bishops who insist they are legit Bishops in God's True Church when in fact they are delusional Bishops in some worthless fallen heretical church which leads people to perdition...You'll need some books to help you check and double check everything.

Various Biblical characters are scheduled to show up in the future, show up either for the first time, or to make a return engagement. Christ is scheduled to make a Second Coming. The Antichrist will have to show up sometime. These three angels prophesied in Revelation 14. 6-11 will have to show up sooner or later. Daniel 12. 1 tells us the Jews will be delivered during a time of unprecedented trouble on earth when the archangel Michael finally shows up.

Revelation 20.12-15 tells us your name is either written in the Book of Life, or else it isn't written in the Book of Life. If it's written there then you are in the True Church and you will go to heaven. If it's not written there, then, you'll have to find a way to get it written there, or else you'll go to perdition.

What do you think? Did Christendom go to hell under emperors / kings like Constantine and Justinian, Ivan the Terrible, Henry VIII and Louis XIV? These people claimed to be Christians but weren't they really evil tyrants? How were they legit disciples of Christ? Under the laws of Constantine, a chaperon would have molten lead poured down her throat if she helped a young woman, aged 25 or less, elope with her boyfriend without the consent of her father. How is that law not a heresy under the True Faith taught by Christ? So we have two options. Christendom went to hell under emperors like Constantine and Justinian, or else Christendom didn't go to hell under those sorts of emperors. One either falls away from the True Faith when one holds communion with evil emperors, or else one does not fall away from the True Faith when one holds communion with evil emperors. Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, was courageous in excommunicating Theodosius after that emperor's massacre of Thessalonika. But Ambrose is the exception to the general rule saying Christians throughout the middle ages failed to excommunicate evil kings. 1 Corinthians 11. 27 says one is guilty of a very serious sin if one celebrates the Eucharist in an unworthy manner. St. Paul is quite clear in stating good Christians must excommunicate evil Christians, and for century after century the people under the sign of the cross failed to excommunicate lots and lots of evil Christians; they failed to excommunicate lots of evil popes, lots of evil priests, lots of evil kings, lots of evil nobles, lots of evil henchmen of lots of evil kings and nobles etc., and it stands to reason that you celebrate the Eucharist in an unworthy manner whenever you celebrate the Eucharist with Christians who make no secret via their public words and actions that they are evil Christians. You can't be held responsible under 1 Corinthians 11. 27 if you celebrate the Eucharist with people who are adept at concealing their evil actions, but if you celebrate the Eucharist with people who make no secret of their evil, then you are celebrating the Eucharist in an unworthy manner.

2 Thess 1. 8, which, again, mentions fire for those who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who do not know God, is a little complex, don't you think? I mean, of course, the Gospel has some very simple aspects: we are commanded to love God and to love our neighbors. And to love God the scriptures - 1 John 5. 3 - tell us we must obey the commandments: don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't covet, keep the Sabbath Day holy etc. Jesus tells us we must forgive people who trespass against us or else God will not forgive our trespasses. We have to shun sexual immorality; we mustn't celebrate the Eucharist in an unworthy manner etc. The part about fire for those who do not know God, in 2 Thess 1. 8, is a little more complex. Recall Matthew 16. 13-19 and Revelation 20. 12-15, and suppose, at least for the sake of argument, the Roman Catholic Church and only the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. When an Eastern Orthodox believerer falls to his knees to worship God, he worships a god who says the Eastern Orthodox Church is the True Church, and therefore he worships a false god, provided the True God, the True Creator of the Universe, says the Roman Catholic Church and only the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Even though both both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy worship a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they don't worship the same Trinity, because one Trinity says Rome is the True Church, whereas the other Trinity says the Eastern Orthodox Church is the True Church. So, to know God you must know how to correctly identify God's True Church. If you can not correctly identify God's True Church, how will you ever become a member of God's True Church? If you're not a member of God's True Church, then your name is not in the Book of Life, and if your name never gets written into the Book of Life, then, Revelation 20.12-15 tells us you get tossed into the lake of fire at the Last Judgment.

Various New Testament scriptures are rather ferocious in their hostility toward the rich. There's Luke 16. 19-31 and Revelation 18 likens merchants to sorcerers. Scripture says covetousness is idolatry. There's a commandment against covetousness of course, and merchants use advertising to stir up covetousness in people, to cast spells upon them, figuratively not literally, and covetous people build materialistic anti-spiritual hence anti-Christian societies, societies which teach one to pile up wealth for oneself and for ones family, whereas Christ wants Christians to be full of charity toward strangers not merely toward those in ones circle of friends and family. If one is always giving away money to strangers one will soon be destitute and stressing terribly over being destitute. The True Church tries to manage the finances of Christians in a way which leaves no one destitute and stressing terribly. Soviet Communism used Siberian slave labor camps, mass torture, mass murder, mass starvation and secret police to enforce obedience. What does the True Church do to enforce obedience to the True Faith? No doubt when the prophesies found in Revelation 18 come to pass - famine, economic collapse etc. - seeking to hoard wealth for oneself and ones family will be seen as heresy, whereas the scriptures which teach the sharing of the wealth throughout the True Church - Acts 2. 44-5 etc. - will cease to be ignored as they presently are.

An impassioned lawyer, one who favors the cross, might argue as follows: you would certainly have to be a slave of the devil if you insist the sign of the cross, which is the holiest symbol in the universe, is a symbol which reflects some evil. And, I suppose, an impassioned lawyer who is opposed to the cross might say: you would have to be a slave of the devil if you think a cross - a representation of a pagan instrument of torture and execution - is sacred to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred, but the cross Christ was crucified on, or a representation of the cross which Christ was crucified on, is not sacred. Christ and the apostles never said such things are sacred. They never used the sign of the cross as their symbol. The Nazis committed evil for a few years, and as a result we say the Nazi swastika reflects the Nazi evil. The people under the sign of the cross perpetrated evil for century after century after century. And whatever good Christians there were over the centuries under the sign of the cross refused to excommunicate the evil Christians. Arguing like an impassioned lawyer still, a person would have to be a slave of the devil if he can not understand that crosses and the sign of the cross reflect evil.

If the cross is sacred to God then it's a sacrilege, a mortal sin, to say the cross reflects evil. But if God says the cross reflects evil, then it is a sacrilege to say the cross is sacred.

The argument saying Christianity is true, but also that every church under the sign of the cross leads people to perdition, presupposes that Case 2 from above is true, it presupposes that the cross symbolizes some evil. We saw this logic earlier: suppose a church under the sign of the cross advises you to put the mark of a cross on your forehead, insisting it is the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, the holy seal which saves one from torment, but, if the cross is actually the mark of the beast, and if you end up burning in hell forever, because you took the advice of that church under the cross, and put the mark of a cross on your forehead, then, obviously, it wasn't God's True Church which led you to the horrible fate of burning forever in the flames of hell, rather, it must have been a false church, not God's True Church: it must have been some worthless false church which leads people to perdition which gave you the really really bad advice....

So, if at least one church under the sign of the cross leads people to heaven, if at least one church under the cross is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then the cross is sacred, and therefore it can not be the evil mark of the beast, but, rather, it might be the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9 which saves one from torment when on one's forehead. But, then, on the other hand, if every church under the cross leads people to perdition, then, though this wouldn't prove with 100% certainty that the cross is evil, nevertheless, if indeed the cross reflects evil, if the evil perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses is reflected in the cross, and if you put the mark of the evil cross on your forehead, acting under the delusion that the cross is sacred and that it is the seal of God from Revelation 9, and if you end up burning in hell forever and ever because of your delusion, then, somehow, you have got to get out of your delusion before the unimaginable horror becomes your reality.

Just how trustworthy is the Roman Catholic Church. If you say the Inquisition was evil and needed to be destroyed then you've just committed sacrilege, provided Rome is God's True Church. For centuries Rome has called the Inquisition the 'Holy Office'. If Rome is God's True Church then the 'Holy Office', the Inquisition, is indeed holy, and it is a sacrilege to say that something which is holy is evil and needs to be destroyed. Popes gave their blessing to laws which said if a woman has a wart on her face this is sufficient evidence to subject her to torture, to determine if she is a witch. She would then be stabbed with needles till the 'witches mark' was found, the place on her body where she didn't flinch with pain when a needle was inserted there. You might say it is insanity to not rebel against such evil barbaric laws! But if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads people to heaven, if you will burn in hell if you rebel against Rome, then it makes no sense to ever rebel against Rome! Of course of course, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome leads people to perdition, then you obviously don't want to let Rome drag you down to perdition. And if Rome does lead people to perdition, if Rome is simply not God's True Church, why would you trust Rome when Rome preaches the doctrine not found in scripture that crosses are sacred to God?

1 John 2. 18 mentions an `Antichrist.' 2 Thess 2 mentions a `man of sin' / `son of perdition' who is, presumably, one and the same as this Antichrist mentioned in 1 John 2. 18. 2 Thess 2 tells us this man of sin, who sees himself as God, will stand in the Holy Place. This is a little ambiguous, in that it might mean, 1) the Antichrist will stand in a Temple in Jerusalem, a new Temple which currently doesn't exist, as the last one was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, so it will have to be rebuilt, and presumably the Islamic Dome of the Rock will have to be removed to make room for the new Temple. There is certainly no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, at least not as of 2017. Or 2) recall that St. Paul tells us that the body of a Christian is the Temple of the Holy Spirit – 1 Corinthians - 6. 19 - so, if the Antichrist was to write the Law of the Devil on people's hearts, when it is God's Law which is supposed to be written on people's hearts - recall Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Isaiah 59. 20-21 - then, in a sense, the Antichrist would be standing in the Holy Place. So we have to be on the lookout for foul satanic heresies written on human hearts. 2 Thess 2 mentions `a falling away.' What sort of falling away? Perhaps a falling away from the True Faith. Perhaps a plunge into heresy. I'm told that Thomas Paine's _Common Sense_ is a devastating attack against the Divine Right of kings. I'm sort of prejudiced against Paine because I read somewhere, I think probably in Chalmer's _Christian Evidences: Fulfilled Bible Prophesies_ that Paine called the prophet Isaiah a lying prophet. The New Testament supports kings, but the New Testament is quite clear in stating that Christians who seek to uphold the True Faith must excommunicate evil Christians: evil kings, evil nobles, evil priests, evil peasants etc. The whole history of the Civilization under the Sign of the Cross is the history of the total failure of the good Christians, failure for century after century, to excommunicate the evil Christians. Gibbon writes of the 4th century Catholic Emperor Valentinian and his judges,

`They easily discovered, that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of executions that were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained by perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity, but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, was seldom permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures...The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, `Strike off his head;' `Burn him alive;' `Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;'....He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage.'

So you can see how this Catholic Emperor, Valentinian, probably insisted that he worshipped the Creator of the Universe. But, or so the theory runs, Valentinian ascribed false and evil attributes to the Creator of the Universe - he worshipped a god who, he believed, approved his actions, and therefore he worshipped a false and evil god - he worshipped a god who smiled upon Valentinian's conduct, whereas, we can safely assume, the True God is not the sort of God who smiled upon Valentinian's conduct.

Gibbon writes of Constantine, the first `Christian' Roman Emperor:

`The laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since the description of that crime was applied not only to brutal violence which compelled, but even to gentle seduction which might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of her parents. The successful ravisher was punished with death; and as if simple death was inadequate to the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin's declaration that she had been carried away with her own consent, instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves, whether male or female, who were convicted of having been accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity of melted lead.'

For century after century, under the sign of the cross, evil kings, evil nobles, evil priests etc., were not excommunicated by whatever good Christians there were. If this is not a falling away from the True Faith, then evidently the True Faith says: don't excommunicate evil kings, evil nobles, evil priests. How likely do you think that is what the True Faith actually says? Luke 13. 3-5 says: repent or perish. John 15. 6 says: you're going into the flames if you do not abide in Christ. 2 Thess 1. 8 says what it says: hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you say that, under the True Faith, it is unnecessary to excommunicate evil Christians, then we might resume the discussion on strong delusion, and 2 Thess 2: the Antichrist, delusion, and this `falling away'. Christ and the apostles did not tell people to act like fiends and write legal codes that devised death by lingering torture....St. Paul is very clear in stating that good Christians must excommunicate evil Christians. So, when good Christians refuse, for century after century, to excommunicate evil kings, evil nobles, evil priests, evil peasants etc., what else can you conclude but both the good Christians and the evil Christians fell away from the True Faith?

In the 21st century the churches, essentially, don't excommunicate anyone. They don't excommunicate covetous people, they don't excommunicate fornicators, adulterers, pro-choicers, drunkards, Sabbath violators – on the Sabbath day not only is all work forbidden but you also are not to buy or sell things. Obviously, a church which refuses to excommunicate people who make no secret of their sinning has fallen away from the True Faith. This is something which is so obvious that, when a person can't see that it is obvious, then you can only conclude that Satan has enslaved him, blinded him, drugged him, rendered him witless, docile and subservient, so that he will be all the more obedient to his Satanic master. What else can you conclude?

I'm not dogmatically asserting there will never be mercy - never be admittance into the kingdom of heaven given to anyone in an heretical church. For instance, if a little kid was born into a family of heretics, but then dies young, perhaps from cancer or a car accident or a school shooting....And of course merely because there might be some exceptions to the general rule that says heretical sects drag souls down to perdition doesn't mean the general rule is invalid.

Christianity needs to be explained in a way which is concise enough to be inscribed on a human heart, recall Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Christianity is fairly complex – I mean aside from the complexity we have with all of these churches with conflicting creeds competing for the crown of being God's True Church. Christianity is complex in that lots and lots of people have lots and lots of different interpretations of the scriptures. We've seen that John 15. 6 says that those who do not abide in Christ are like sticks which are thrown into the flames. This is more or less unambiguous, aside from the fact that just because a person claims to abide in Christ doesn't prove he actually does, but right after John 15. 6 we find John 15. 7, which has Jesus saying: `If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.' If Christ's words abide in you then you will recall the Lord's Prayer, which is a model prayer, one which Christ used to teach the apostles how to pray, and we're specifically instructed to pray for God's will to be done, and we're not instructed to ask for our heart's desire, as God already knows what we want. Praying for wealth, for instance, seems very contrary to the spirit of the Lord's Prayer, which is really not a prayer which teaches one to ask God for the typical cliché stuff that guys wish they had – like a billion dollars and a trophy wife, that sort of stuff. But there are churches out there which teach the doctrine that God wants you to be rich, that God wants you to have only the finest things in life. 1 Corinthians 2. 9 has St. Paul reprinting Isaiah 64. 4 – _Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him._ This is clear and straight forward, and recall of course that John 14. 21 says you must keep the commandments to love God. Jesus railed against Pharisees who were hypocritical in their observance of the Sabbath, but He certainly never said the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy is invalidated under the new law. Isaiah 66. 22-23 gives us a prophesy of a future which involves Sabbaths, `For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,' says the LORD, `so shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,' says the LORD. Christians fail to keep the Sabbath holy – no work and no buying or selling on the Sabbath – not because the Bible is unclear on the matter, but because bad traditions have led a great many Christians astray. People reason as follows: so-and-so is a great preacher, and since so-and-so doesn't preach against those who fail to keep the Sabbath day holy, it must be OK to let things slide quite a bit.

§ 13. Trinitarians Speaking without Tongues

A powerful articulation of the doctrine that Jesus is the Creator of the Universe – that is, Jesus, God the Son, created the universe along with the Father and the Holy Spirit – comes from the pen of Edward Gibbon, who we encountered earlier in our discussion of various other tyrants. For those of you who don't know who Edward Gibbon is, well, Edward Gibbon was a great English historian from the 18th century. The reader should also understand that Athanasius was, many centuries ago, the supreme defender in Christendom of the doctrines which say that the Son is equal to the Father, that Jesus is God the Son, which say that Psalm 2, John 1: 1-14, Col 2: 8-10, I Tim 3: 16, and Isaiah 9: 6 are all quite true and trustworthy. If perchance you don't understand what Gibbon is saying in the extract given below then I'll translate it for you now. Gibbon is telling us that various people who all believed that Jesus is God – who all believed that God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – had their tongues torn out by the soldiers of a Roman emperor who rejected the Trinity, who rejected the idea that Jesus is God the Son. Then, lots of eye witnesses came forward to proclaim that a genuine miracle from God happened. The witnesses said that the people with their tongues torn out were able to speak, even though they had no tongues in their mouths This miracle strongly implies that their doctrine was pure, that is, it strongly implies that the doctrine of the Trinity is sound doctrine. Therefore it strongly implies Jesus must be worshipped as God, as the Creator of the Universe, worshipped along of course with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The following is found in the 37th chapter of Edward Gibbon's _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ ,

`The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious miracles by which the African Catholics have defended the truth and justice of their cause, may be ascribed, with more reason, to their own industry, than to the visible protection of Heaven. Yet the historian, who views this religious conflict with an impartial eye, may condescend to mention one preternatural event, which will edify the devout, and surprise the incredulous. Tipasa, a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east of Caesarea, had been distinguished, in every age, by the orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the Donatists; they resisted or eluded the tyranny of the Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical bishop: most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed over to the coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their pious, but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric. A military count was despatched from Carthage to Tipasa: he collected the Catholics in the Forum, and, in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of their right hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published a history of the persecution within two years after the event. "If anyone," says Victor, "should doubt of the truth, let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of Restitutus, the sub-deacon, one of the glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout empress." At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, and unexceptional witness, without interest, and without passion. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these African sufferers. "I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears: I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal." The testimony of Æneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople, as the minister of the Roman pontiff. They all lived within the compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal knowledge, or of public notoriety, for the truth of the miracle, which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and submitted, during a series of years, to the calm examination of the senses. This supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only, who already believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, will not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.'

Let's look at the issue of the trustworthiness of scripture. If a theologian insists that those who say that not all of Christian scripture is literally true are damnable heretics, then there is obviously a problem here, because Jesus often taught via parables - parables are fictions which teach spiritual truths. Whether or not the Old Testament account of the fall of Adam and Eve, and the Old Testament account of Noah and the ark, are parables, or literal truths, is really irrelevant. As long as they are trustworthy in their messages, regardless if they are parables - fictions which teach spiritual truths, or literal truths, then this is all that matters. The important thing is to not lose sight of their messages: God punishes those who rebel against Him and God punishes those who do evil. Isn't the theologian who insists that one is a damned heretic if one denies the literal truth of any part of the Christian scriptures, such as the part which says every last species of animal on earth went into Noah's ark, a rather confused theologian? In the New Testament Jesus told His disciples when He was speaking in parables, but He didn't tell everyone. Those outside of the inner circle might have assumed He was teaching literal truths in these parables. Perhaps there are parables in the Old Testament. I accept the literal truth of 2 Timothy 3. 16, which tells us all scripture is trustworthy, but a parable is perfectly trustworthy in its message, or at least it might be perfectly trustworthy, even though it is not literally true.

If a theologian is always going to be protesting about this scripture, or whining about that scripture, if one says that scripture X deserves to be inscribed on human hearts, but scripture Y deserves to be expunged from the New Testament, then one is not advancing the cause which says Christianity is the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, one is not promoting the cause which says Christianity is coherent enough and concise enough to be inscribed on human hearts. Must one first check with those theologians who say God is OK with sodomy, who insist gay marriage is holy in the eyes of God, in order to determine what exactly Christianity is and what exactly Christianity teaches? Conservative Christians tend to ignore scriptures which they don't like, rather than clamour to have those scriptures edited out of the Bible, which is more a Liberal Christian strategy. I first saw my essential argument against the cross way back in 1987. I didn't get round to my currect analysis of the crucifix until I wrote Rock Island, in 2016. I deal with the issue of problems with Conservative Protestants in 'Rock Island' though I'm not happy about how that books seems to sprawl in parts. Look at Luke 18. 24 and Luke 16. 19-31, which are all about damning the rich for not helping the poor. And Acts 2. 44-5 and Acts 4. 32-5 tell us there is equal sharing of the wealth in the True Church. The speculation is you're wasting your breath if you try to teach these scriptures to Conservatives. But after the prophesies in Revelation 18 come to pass - note especially the part about the economic collapse - note also that merchants are likened to sorcerers in Revelation 18 - then some more speculation says that lots of people will be receptive and will perhaps even be quite enthusiastic in embracing scriptures such as those two scriptures in Acts which tell us there is equal sharing of the wealth in the True Church. Freeloaders are of course excluded from any share of the $$$ - St. Paul said the able bodied who refuse to work should not be given alms.

Just because Christianity has been around for thousands of years doesn't mean it is easy to explain. To some people Christianity is whatever the Roman Catholic Church says it is. Others insist this sort of thinking is all wrong. I would probably get more readers if I was more colorful. But Christianity has some standards, and you fall away into anti-Christian terrain whenever you fall below Christianity's standards of decorum. A guy on You Tube was highly readable in his colorful and obscene commentary when he was lashing into the Faroe Islanders because of their barbaric habit of harpooning whales. I know it seems like we started down a tangent here, all this seems like a _non sequitor_ , this whaling business, but we're still on the subject of trying to define what Christianity is. We're still trying to define what is anti-Christian and what is not anti-Christian. Is harpooning whales anti-Christian? John Buchan writes in `The Free Fishers',

`Another had gone into the Arctic among the great whales, and stammered a tale - he had some defect in his speech - of waters red like a battlefield, of creatures large as a hill rolling and sighing in their death-throes, and of blood rising in forty-foot spouts and drenching the decks like rain.'

Of course pro-lifers like myself can use this sort of info when we debate pro-choicers, because we can argue as follows: `You pro-choicers have enough humanity to see it is evil to subject whales and cute little kittens and puppy dogs etc., etc., to barbaric cruelty, so why don't you have enough humanity to see that the abortion procedures are barbaric, vile, cruel, evil etc., etc., and therefore they need to be outlawed?'

No doubt many people would say harpooning whales is not inconsistent with the Gospel, and many other people would say harpooning whales is contrary to the Gospel, because harpooning whales is evil, and everything evil is automatically contrary to the Gospel. We might at least cover some of the basics even if people will always disagree about what is anti-Christianity and what isn't anti-Christian.

Is Christianity concise enough to be inscribed on human hearts? Christianity claims to be the New Divine Law which amends the Old Divine Law, the Old Divine Law, the old law which Moses carried down on stone tablets from atop Mt. Sinai. So, the New Covenant / the New Law which is inscribed, not on stone tablets, but on the hearts of God's people must therefore be concise enough to be inscribed on a human heart. If all of the Christian scriptures are trustworthy then this info is something which is easy to inscribe on human hearts. If the Christian scriptures are a minefield full of both true scriptures which lead people to heaven and false scriptures which will blow up in your face, and lead you to be dragged down to perdition, should you place your trust any false scriptures, and it's your job to separate the true scriptures from the false scriptures, then this makes Christianity very complicated. Ignorance of the Book of Revelation seems to trip up many people. Suppose a medium puts you in touch with one of your dead ancestors. Of course consulting mediums and necromancy and sorcery and witchcraft are mortal sins, but that aside, merely because your dead ancestor via a medium tells you that he / she feels fine, one must not be too naive and gullible. One must understand that the Last Judgment happens after the Millennium, which happens after Armageddon, which happens at the time of the Second Coming of Christ, which happens after the Great Tribulation, which happens sometime after today, August 27, 2017. A medium might put you in touch with the spirit of one of your dead ancestors, and this spirit might tell you he / she feels blissfully great, or not so euphoric, but we can't know if this dead ancestor will be damned to perdition or redeemed to heaven until the verdict comes down at the Last Judgment, which is far in the future.

The Roman Catholic Church says that when a saint dies he goes immediately into the presence of God. This contradicts the Book of Revelation, and Revelation 22. 18-19 damns those who contradict the Book of Revelation, which, as we have just seen, says the saints and the damned sleep until the Last Judgment. A saint who dies on earth does not see God until after the Last Judgment, which is far in the future. This is the clear teaching of the Book of Revelation. There's nothing complicated about Revelation 22. 18-19. If the Roman Catholic Church has taught you that Rome is God's True Church, has taught you that if you always obey Rome you will be led to heaven and will escape hell, well, if that's a lie then you will go to perdition, but if Rome is God's True Church then you put yourself on the road to perdition if you rebel against Rome / God's True Church.

Is Christianity concise enough to be inscribed on human hearts? A rule such as: Never contradict the New Testament, or, Never Contradict the Book of Revelation is easy and concise. The rule: Never Rebel Against the Roman Catholic Church is very simple. There are lots of easy rules. The key is to find the correct simple rule which leads people to heaven. You don't want some rule that is simple and easy to understand if it leads you straight to hell, obviously.

The rudiments of Christianity certainly include the commandments given by Christ: we must love God and we must love our neighbors. 1 John 5. 3 says you must obey the commandments to love God. John 14. 23-26 says you must keep Christ's words to love Jesus. And we must forgive people. We mustn't hold grudges. '....Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us....' These are the basics of Christianity. You'd also hjave to include 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 in the category of: Some of the Simplest Christian Scriptures.

But then there are lots of ambiguous areas of Christianity. For instance, when do clothing and fashion start to get so immodest that they violate the Gospel? What sort of dancing is so immodest that it violates the Gospel? What about games of chance? Games of chance can involve pushing kids into poverty and despair if they have parents who are failed gamblers. It sounds rather anti-Christian to drive kids into poverty and despair! When does music became anti-Christian music? When does a movie become an anti-Christian movie? When must the faithful, the True Church, excommunicate various people who say and / or do various things? To answer such questions one might turn to the True Church, if you can find it! The True Church is a collection of people, a collection of saints - a saint is a human being who will attain heaven and will escape perdition.

There are two options for any church. If a Church leads people to heaven, if it is God's True Church, if it upholds the True Faith, then it is always going to be an act of stupidity to rebel against that Church, because you can't lose, your soul will never be shipped off to some fiery hell if you never rebel against God's True Church. A church, any church, is either the Church which Christ founded on a rock, or else it isn't. A Church is either God's True Church, or else it isn't. A church, any church, has either fallen away from the True Faith or else it hasn't fallen away from the True Faith....Of course non-Christians will say the Christian scriptures are untrustworthy....and of course the many sects within Christianity have many disagreements, and, of course, you can find lots of issues which hinge on two options! Mathew 16. 13-19 is either trustworthy or else it is untrustworthy. The same goes for Jeremiah 31. 31-34. God will either write His new covenant on the hearts of His people, or else God won't write His new covenant on the hearts of His people...2 Thess 1. 8 is either trustworthy or else it is untrustworthy. The same goes for John 15. 6 and Revelation 20. 12-15. Christ said at the Last Supper: '...this cup is My blood of the new covenant...'. These words are either trustworthy or they aren't. Christianity is either the new covenant which God writes on the hearts of His people, or else Christianity is not the new covenant which God writes on the hearts of His people.

Marriage is a sacrament, a ritual which, like Baptism, confers grace. Marriage is the rite which transforms fornication into lawful sex. Sex outside of marriage - fornication - is sin which leads offenders who refuse to repent to perdition. Gay marriage is not legitimate marriage in that it does not confer grace. There's some ambiguity about how far gays and lesbians can go in their passion and still remain good Christians. If two lesbians just hold hands with each other, but keep their clothes on etc., etc., then there's no sin. But if two lesbian girls engage in the most unrestrained of passion that you can imagine, well then, obviously....The Bible doesn't spell everything out for us in the plainest and most unambiguous of terms. You have to use your wits on these matters. The Bible doesn't tell us exactly what sorts of things two lesbian Christians are forbidden to do with each other's bodies. The Bible doesn't tell us in plain language what bedroom actions will get two lesbians cast into eternal perdition. Similarly, the Bible doesn't tell us how many villainous crimes and foul murders a church can commit or connive at over the centuries and yet still remain God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, Matthew 16. 13-19. Holy matrimony, is a sacrament - it transforms unlawful sex - fornication - into legal sex. Thus it confers grace. Thus it is a sacrament. On the other hand, gay marriage, which tramples on the sacrament of marriage, is a sacrilege because it is a sacrilege to trample on a sacrament. And of course sacrilege is a sin which leads straight to perdition.

When Christians speak of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when we speak of the True Faith, we mean this new covenant which was mentioned by Christ at the Last Supper. Recall the following words found in Matthew 26. 28,

`For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many.'

Mark 14. 24,

`This cup is the new covenant in My blood which is shed for you."

Luke 22. 20,

`This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.'

Again, the first mention in the Bible of a new covenant, a New Law to amend the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Obviously, at least I think it is obvious, one of the first things that strikes you about most Christians is that they do not appear to have any sort of exhaustive and well-organized sort of Divine Law written on their hearts. A lot of Christians, a lot of modern Christians I mean, would probably choose martyrdom over renunciation of the faith. I imagine 90% of modern Christians, or some such high percentage as that, would prefer to be killed rather than to become apostates or Judas-traitors, you know, say for instance they were held hostage by Muslim terrorists and were offered two choices: either convert to Islam or get your head cut off. So, in some sense, if a Christian would choose martyrdom over apostasy, then you might say he has a Divine Law written on his heart. But then if a person really doesn't know up from down about Christian theology, if he has never read the Bible or any books of Christian theology, if he doesn't even know that Christians are not to celebrate the Eucharist in an unworthy manner, as this is seen as a crime akin to shedding the blood of Christ, if he doesn't even know that Christians are not to celebrate the Eucharist with heretics etc., etc., then you ask yourself: how can this person have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on his heart?

§ 14. Review - The True Church

To review the scriptures which tell us there is a True Church recall John 14. 23-26,

`Jesus answered him and said unto him, if a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth Me not keepeth not my sayings...But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'

John 14. 23-26 is similar to Jerome's famous observation: `Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ'. If one accepts John 14. 23-26, then one will keep Christ's words in Matthew 16. 13-19,

`When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the son of Man, am? So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'

Matthew 16. 13-19 tells us that Jesus founded one Church - not two or three or four Churches - but, one Church, the True Church.

Jesus says in John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

If one abides in Christ then one is in the True Church.

The True Church is not a cathedral or any sort of building. It is a collection of people, a collection of saints, who teach doctrines which lead souls to heaven, and who do not teach a single doctrine which leads souls to perdition.

The saints in the True Church are not perfect and sinless. Only God is perfect. And the True Church can teach errors. The key attribute of the True Church is that she leads souls to heaven and she does not lead anyone to perdition. Whatever mistakes the True Church makes are minor – or at least these mistakes don't lead anyone to perdition. If a church leads souls to perdition then it can not be the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

We also have the words of St. Paul in Ephesians 4. 4-6,

`There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'

In St. Paul's terminology this phrase - `there is one body' - means there is only one True Church. Note Ephesians 5. 30, where St. Paul says of the Church and Christ,

`For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.'

Matthew 7. 13-16 indicates the True Church is rather exclusive,

`Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits...'

Revelation 20. 12-15,

`And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the _Book of Life_. And the dead were judged according to their works the things written in the books [note that it does not say they were judged according to their faith, but they are judged according to their works, as faith without works is not legitimate faith: `be doers of the word not merely hearers', and who can forget 2 Thess 1. 8 – `fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ' etc]...And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.'

Those who have their names written in the Book of Life are members of the True Church. Those who are cast into the lake of fire are not members of the True Church. So that's simple enough.

So often it helps to explain things by breaking matters down into two clear-cut options. Henry VIII either upheld the True Faith or else he didn't. Henry VIII was either a member of God's True Church when he created the Church of England, or else he was not a member of God's True Church when he created the Church of England. 2 options. The evils perpetrated over the centuries by people under the cross are either reflected in the cross or else they are not reflected in the cross. The cross either reflects some evil or else the cross reflects no evil. 2 options. Jesus is either God or else Jesus is not God. 2 options. Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, Matthew 1. 23 (Immanuel = God with us = Jesus), Colossians 2. 8-10, John 1. 1-14 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 tell those of us who are Christians that Jesus is the Divine Son - that He is God as surely as God the Father is God.

Merely because one can find kind and generous Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Eastern Orthodox believers etc., this doesn't prove their various doctrines are any good. Merely because you can find 4 nice people, or 40 nice people, or 400 million nice people who support Religion X doesn't prove Religion X leads people to heaven.

Look at the account in Genesis of the Garden of Eden and the fall of Adam and Eve. We have to choose between two main options. The account is either trustworthy or else it is untrustworthy. Whether the account is literal history or whether it is a parable from God is somewhat irrelevant. It's central message is either trustworthy or it is untrustworthy -- it's central message is that a person will suffer anguish and lots of it if he rebels against God. So, if this message is trustworthy, and if Rome is God's True Church, then this is only more reason to never rebel against Rome. But if Rome leads people to perdition, if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock....

Romans 14. 12 tells us that everyone will eventually have to stand before the Creator of the Universe and give an account of himself / herself. John 14. 23-26 tells us that those who love Christ keep His words. Christ, in Revelation 2. 9, calls the Jews a synagogue of Satan. He didn't mean they prayed to the devil. He meant they are heretics, and heretics are people who, unwittingly, teach false doctrines which drag souls down to perdition. Though heretics don't mean to lead people away from heaven and to perdition, nevertheless, that's what they do.

Revelation 14. 6-7 presents an angel explaining the Gospel to the world. But this is all very problematical. If an angel from heaven, an angel with wings and with all the other angelic attributes and paraphernalia – the ability to fly, a heavenly persona, a halo, an aura of invincibility etc., etc., - if an angel from heaven tells people that they're damned if they reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, then non-Roman Catholic Christians will simply assume that this angel from heaven is actually an angel from hell. Recall 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15 – `Satan masquerades as an angel of light....' But then, on the other hand, if an angel from heaven, if a messanger from God preaches an anti-Catholic version of the Gospel, then Catholics will assume that this angel from heaven is an angel from hell.

2 Thess 1. 8 mentions hellfire for those who don't obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But there's a good deal of disagreement among the Christian sects about what exactly the Gospel is. And 2 Thess 1. 8 is not an isolated scripture. It's perfectly in tune with Luke 13. 3, John 15. 6, Matthew 5, Matthew 25. 31-46, Galatians 1. 8, Revelation 20. 12-15 etc., etc.

Close to 2 Thess 1. 8 is another important scripture, a scripture about a falling away – presumably a falling away from the True Faith / Gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, St. Paul writes in 2 Thess 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

So you can see how people who have fallen away from the True Faith might be deluded enough to think that they have not fallen away from the True Faith, when in fact they have fallen away from the True Faith. Or, if you are in a false fallen church which leads people to perdition, because the gates of hell have prevailed against that church of yours, but if you are deluded enough to insist that you are in God's True Church, then you will need to wise up, and get out of your delusion, before that worthless church of yours drags you down to eternal perdition.

§ 15. Summation of Chapter 1

Suppose a kid asks you what steps he must take to escape hell and to attain heaven. Those of us who are Christians will tell the kid to embrace Christianity, and Christianity, at its very heart, pushes scriptures which say Jesus is God: Matthew 1. 23, John 1. 1-14, 1 Timothy 3. 16 etc.

Do you tell the kid to embrace the cross or to get rid of the cross? Let me run you through some arguments which say that while Christianity is true, the cross is evil, and it is sacrilege to say the cross is sacred. It is sacrilege to say sacred things are evil, but then it is also sacrilege to say evil things are sacred.

The Book of Revelation is very clear in saying, in so many words, that the Antichrist and his followers will have an evil mark on their foreheads or right hands. This is the mark of the beast. So, if you have no mark whatsoever on your forehead or right hand then you can't possibly be shipped off to eternal hellfire for the sin of having the mark of the beast on your forehead or right hand. Now some might claim that God has spoken to them, and these people might say that God says that the cross is the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, and they might say that God says everyone must have the mark of a cross on their foreheads, during the great tribulation, in order to escape the torments described in Revelation 9.

My theory is that the smart strategy, during the great tribulation, is to never put any mark on your forehead or right hand, including or especially the mark of a cross. This book runs you through a brief history of the evils under the sign of the cross. This book gives evidence saying every church under the cross leads people to perdition, because they all make a mockery of 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29.

So, if a kid asks you how he may attain heaven and escape hell, and if you're telling a kid the cross is sacred, but if it turns out the cross is evil, then you're leading the kid to hell by leading him into sacrilege. And you're leading yourself to hell because you're leading a kid to hell.

On the other hand, suppose the cross is sacred to God. Suppose, furthermore, that someone like the Pope or some Protestant clergymen say they have spoken to God, perhaps in dreams, and suppose God actually says that you must put the mark of a cross on your forehead, to escape the torments described in Revelation 9. Then that's what you have to do to escape the torments.

But then, on the other hand, suppose God didn't say any such thing, suppose the devil masquerading as God gave false info to some clergymen. Suppose the truth is the cross is evil, suppose one will burn in hell forever and ever if one puts the mark of a cross on his forehead...

Anyway, if a kid asks you right now, prior to the great tribulation - see Revelation 18 for more info on the Great Tribulation – if a kid asks you how he / she can escape perdition and attain heaven, then you'll have to address the issue of the cross, right now.

Do you tell the kid to embrace the cross or to get rid of it? If you lead a kid into sacrilege on the issue if the cross then you certainly put yourself on the road to perdition.

You have to look to the future, to the great tribulation, to the time when the Antichrist is on the earth, to the time when the 3 angels from heaven mentionen in Revelation 14. 6-11 are here on earth, and you have to ask yourself: is putting the mark of a cross on your forehead a good idea or a bad idea?

Yes, so much depends on being able to avoid sacrilege: Is the cross sacred? Is the cross evil? Are the evils perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses reflected in the cross? There was certainly lots of evil.

On the first page of 'A Tale of Two Cities' Charles Dickens gives us an example of an abuse which led to the French Revolution,

`France, less favored on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and the trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards.'

Dickens once tarried in Avignon and wrote of what he saw in his 'Sketches of Italy.' He described to us one of the torture chambers in the Palace of the Popes. There was a painting of the Good Samaritan on the wall right by the iron spikes, which were heated red-hot. The victims of the Inquisition were impaled on the red-hot spikes.

Tocqueville told us in 'The Ancien Regime and the Revolution:'

`Nothing is better for imbuing modesty in philosophers and statesman than the history of our Revolution. Never was an event so momentous and of such ancient causes, so inevitable, and yet so unforeseen.'

Apropos of Tocqueville's theme - the blindness of philosophers and statesmen - as well as our themes concerning the evils under the sign of the cross, Frederic Harrison informed us in 'The Meaning of History' (Macmillian, 1896):

`Take a rapid survey of France in the closing year of the Monarchy. She had not recovered from the desolation of the long wars of Louis XIV., the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the banishment of the Protestants, the monstrous extravagance of Versailles and the corrupt system which was there concentrated. The entire authority was practically absorbed by the Crown, whilst the most incredible confusion and disorganization reigned throughout the administration. A network of incoherent authorities crossed, recrossed, and embarrassed each other throughout the forty provinces. The law, the customs, the organization of the provinces, differed from each other. Throughout them existed thousands of hereditary offices without responsibility, and sinecures cynically created for the sole purpose of being sold. The administration of justice was as completely incoherent as the public service. Each province, and often each district, city, or town, had special tribunals with peculiar powers of its own and anomalous methods of jurisdiction. There were nearly four hundred different codes of customary law. There were civil tribunals, military tribunals, commercial tribunals, exchequer tribunals, ecclesiastical tribunals, and manorial tribunals. A vast number of special causes could only be heard in special courts: a vast body of privileged persons could only be sued before special judges. If civil justice was in a state of barbarous complication and confusion, criminal justice was even more barbarous. Preliminary torture before trial, mutilation, ferocious punishments, a lingering death by torment, a penal code which had death or bodily mutilation in every page, were dealt out freely to the accused without the protection of counsel, the right of appeal, or even a public statement of the sentence. For ecclesiastical offenses, and these were a wide and vague field, the punishment was burning alive. Loss of the tongue, of eyes, of limbs, and breaking on the wheel, were common punishments for very moderate crimes. Madame Roland tells us how the summer night was made hideous by the yells of wretches dying by inches after the torture of the wheel. With this state of justice there went systematic corruption in the judges, bribery of officials from the highest to the lowest, and an infinite series of exactions and delays in trial. To all but the rich and the privileged, a civil cause portended ruin, a criminal accusation was a risk of torture and death...Just before the Revolution the total taxation of all kinds amounted to some sixty millions sterling. Of this not more than half was spent in the public service. The rest was the plunder of the privileged, in various degrees, from king to the mistress's lackey. This enormous taxation was paid mainly by the non-privileged, who were less than twenty-six millions. The nobles, the clergy, were exempt from property-tax, though they held between them more than one half of the entire land of France...Twelve thousand prelates and dignified clergy had a revenue of more than two millions sterling. Four millions more was divided amongst some 60,000 minor priests. Altogether the privileged orders, having hereditary rank or ecclesiastical office, numbered more than 200,000 persons. Besides these, some 50,000 families were entitled to hereditary office of a judicial sort, who formed the `nobility of the robe.'...About a fifth of the soil of France was in mortmain, the inalienable property of the Church. Nearly half of the soil was held in big estates, and was tilled on the métayer system. About one-third of it was the property of the peasant. But though the property of the peasant, it was bound, as he was bound, by an endless list of restrictions. In the Middle Ages each fief had been a kingdom in itself; each lord a petty king; the government, the taxation, the regulation of each fief, was practically the national government, the public taxation, and the social institutions. But in France, whilst the national authority had passed from the lord of the fief to the national Crown, the legal privileges, the personal and local exemptions, were preserved intact. The peasant remained for many practical purposes a serf, even whilst he owned his own farm. A series of dues were payable to the lord; personal services were still exacted; special rights were in full vigour. The peasant, proprietor as he was, still delved the lord's land, carted his produce, paid his local dues, made his roads. All this had to be done without payment, as corvee or forced labour tax. The peasants were in the position of a people during a most oppressive state of siege, when a foreign army is in occupation of a country. The foreign army was the privileged order. Everything and everyone outside of this order was the subject of oppressive requisition. The lord paid no taxes on his lands, was not answerable to the ordinary tribunals, was practically exempt from the criminal law, had the sole right of sporting, could alone serve as an officer in the army, could alone aspire to any office under the Crown...There were tolls on bridges, on ferries, on paths, on fairs, on markets. There were rights of warren, rights of pigeon-houses, of chase, and fishing. There were dues payable on the birth of an heir, on marriage, on the acquisition of new property by the lord, dues payable for fire, for the passage of a flock, for pasture, for wood. The peasant was compelled to bring his corn to be ground in the lord's mill, to crush his grapes at the lord's wine-press, to suffer his crops to be devoured by the lord's game and pigeons. A heavy fine was payable on sale or transfer of the property; on every side were due quit-rents, rent-charges, fines, dues in money and in kind, which could not be commuted and could not be redeemed. After the lord's dues came those of the Church, the tithes payable in kind, and other dues and exactions of the spiritual army. And even this was but the domestic side of the picture. After the lord and the Church came the king's officers, the king's taxes, the king's requisitions, with all the multiform oppression, corruption, and peculation of the farmers of the revenue and the intendants of the province. Under this manifold congeries of more than Turkish misrule, it was not surprising that agriculture was ruined and the country became desolate. A fearful picture of that desolation has been drawn for us by our economist, Arthur Young, in 1787, 1788, 1789. Every one is familiar with the dreadful passages wherein he speaks of haggard men and women wearily tilling the soil, sustained on black bread, roots, and water, and living in smoky hovels without windows; of the wilderness presented by the estates of absentee grandees; of the infinite tolls, dues, taxes, and impositions, of the cruel punishments on smugglers, on the dealers in contraband salt, on poachers, and deserters. It was not surprising that famines were incessant, that the revenue decreased, and that France was sinking into the decrepitude of an Eastern absolutism. `For years,' said d'Argenson, `I have watched the ruin increasing. Men around me are now starving like flies, or eating grass'...This state of things was only peculiar to France by reason of the vast area over which it extended, of the systematic scale on which it was worked, and the intense concentration of the evil. In substance it was common to Europe. It was the universal legacy of the feudal system, and the general corruption of hereditary government. In England, four great crises, that of 1540, 1648, 1688, and 1714, had largely got rid of these evils. But they existed in even greater intensity in Ireland and partly in Scotland; they flourished in the East of Europe in full force; the corruption of government was as great in the South of Europe. The profligacy of Louis XV. was hardly worse in spirit, though it was more disgusting than that of Charles II. The feudalism of Germany and Austria was quite as barbarous as that of France. And in Italy and Spain the Church was more intolerant, more depraved, and more powerful...Schoolboys in France can repeat the historic passage about the woman near Mars-la-Tour, aged twenty-eight, but so bent and furrowed and hardened by labour that she looked sixty or seventy, as she groaned out: `Sir, the taxes and the dues are crushing us to death!'

There was a great deal of repetition of material in this chapter! I don't know how many times I mentioned 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29, and how you drink damnation into your soul if you celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner. There's so much important info to remember with Ezekiel 36. 24-28, especially the part about Zionism and God putting His Spirit into the Jews And don't forget about 1 Peter 5. 8, which, of course, says the devil walks about like a roaring lion looking to devour people, and of course of course, you don't want to forget about Jeremiah 31. 31-34, which says that God will write His New Law on the hearts of His people. You don't want some false law written on your heart. False laws will lead you to perdition. And don't forget about Malachi 4. 1, you know, the part about a day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud and wicked people will be set on fire. I didn't mention Luke 22. 3 too often. It seems sort of superfluous, or very over the top, to keep reminding people to not be like Judas and to not become possessed by the Devil.

There's quite a bit to remember! Don't forget Romans 1. 24-27. I forgot to mention that scripture in this chapter. Don't forget about John 14. 23-26, Galatians 1. 8-12, Acts 26. 13-18, Revelation 22. 18-19 etc. Don't forget that part about how you want to make certain that you are not teaching sacrilege in regards to the cross and the crucifix. If you are a good Christian, if you have the New Law written on your heart – don't forget about Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34 – if you have the Divine Law written on your heart then you will certainly be able to lead other people to heaven and not to perdition. Suppose you were to lead a kid into sacrilege, on the issue of the cross and the crucifix, well, obviously, that's no way to attain heaven and escape perdition. So, you want to make sure you know how to avoid sacrilege with the cross and the crucifix. A general rule in avoiding sacrilege is this: Don't declare that evil things are sacred to God, and don't declare that things which are sacred in the eyes of God are evil.

What do you think? Is the crucifix is evil? Are you on the road to hell if you say the crucifix is sacred? Are you on God's side if you say the cross is sacred?

We know that you will never be shipped off to hell, to burn in hellfire for all eternity – to be tortured in hell for billions and endless neverending trillions of years – for the sin of having an evil mark on your forehead or right hand if you have no mark whatsoever on your forehead or right hand. Don't you think the smart strategy is to let God mark you with the seal of God, the seal which saves one from the torments mentioned in Revelation 9? Don't you think you will just make a big mistake if you try to do it yourself? If you listen to false prophets you will end up in hell.

Now suppose the popes have inherited the power to bind and loose. Recall Matthew 16. 13-19. If the popes have the power to bind and loose then Rome is God's True Church. And if Rome is God's True Church, then everyone would be wise to convert to Roman Catholicism and obey Rome in all things. Who needs these anti-Christian Senates and Executive and Judicial branches which just lead people to perdition with their anti-Christian ways. If Rome is God's True Church then Rome is the only government that we need.

But then, on the other hand, if Rome is a false church, if Rome leads people away from heaven and straight to eternal perdition...

Yes, lots of info in this chapter. You first have to decide if Jesus is God or not. If you determine Jesus is God then the next thing you have to do is locate the Church which Jesus founded on a rock, recall Matthew 16. 13-19. The True Church leads people to heaven. False churches lead people to eternal perdition. We've been all over this!

Now, of course, if the cross is evil then then don't look for God's True Church among churches which say the cross is sacred. Those are false churches. However, if the cross is sacred to God, then look for God's True Church among those churches which embrace the cross. So this is pretty simple and straight forward. I'm saying the cross is evil, but I like to explain things in a way which give people all their options.

And then we've been over and over Ezekiel 36. 24-28, been all over how it supports Zionism. You might have a group of people who are in perfect agreement on the cross and the crucifix, and they might all agree or almost agree on which Church is God's True Church, but they might disagree very greatly on how long you keep people like Susan Atkins excommunicated. I mean, suppose you have a self-proclaimed Christian, and let's suppose this Christian is not committing sacrilege, and looks to be a good Christian, but let's suppose he or she has some really nasty sins on their record, such as a horrific murder, on their rap sheet. How long do you keep such a person excommunicated after they have repented? Recall Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and these converted Jews who have the Spirit of God within them. Of course many Gentiles will have the Spirit of God within them too, but, nevertheless, Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Isaiah 59. 20-21 are specifically addressed from God to the Jews. No doubt these converted Jews will speak with great authority when they render judgments on issues pertaining to excommunication.

And we've been over how it is that non-Christians say Christianity is a big lie, whereas Christians insist Christianity is the True Faith which leads people to heaven. Ultimately the Christian prophesies will have to come true in order for Christianity to be vindicated. The Antichrist will have to show up. And these 3 angels from heaven mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11 will have to show up, sooner or later. The Antichrist might be some sort of Christian or he might be a non-Christian. He might start out preaching 100% pure truth, but then he will change and will slip in some satanic lies, or he might start off, right from the beginning, mixing truth with satanic lies. And we've been over the logic which says that if you have no mark whatsoever on your forehead or right hand then you will never be shipped off to eternal hell for the sin of having an evil mark on your forehead or right hand. We've been over Revelation 9 and Revelation 14. 11, 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15, 1 Peter 5. 8, Acts 26. 13-18, Galatians 1. 8-12, 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10, John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16, Matthew 16. 13-19 etc.

And don't forget that Romans 14. 12 tells us that everyone will stand before God and everyone will have to give an accounting of himself or herself to the Creator of the Universe. You'll want to be at your best for your big interview! One strategy to use for your interview with God is to make sure you can handle the simplest parts of Christianity, you know, 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 etc. And don't forget to locate God's True Church. Merely because you are not fornicating and not committing sacrilege with the cross and the crucifix, and merely because you are right on a hundred other issues, doesn't mean you have found God's True Church! You might be correct on most issues, but if you have embraced some satanic lies in regards to some other issues, then you will end up in perdition. Don't take holy communion with Sabbath violators, with people who take God's name in vain, with pro-choicers, with pro-gay-marriage people, with people who sell the True Faith to make a profit – Christian bookstores are guilty of simony. Christ and the apostles didn't put price tags on Bibles and on their gospels / epistles. Don't be fooled by false delusional Christians who follow evil traditions which trample on the teachings of the New Testament.

Now if there is at least one church under the cross which leads people to heaven, if at least one Church under the cross is God's True Church, then you can trust that Church when it says the cross is sacred. But if every church under the cross is a false church, if every church under the cross leads people away from heaven and to perdition...

So, to wrap this up, be sure to find God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. This is a group of people who lead other people to heaven. Don't succumb to some false church! A false church is a group of people who claim they lead people to heaven but they actually lead people to eternal perdition.

Chapter 2 - The True Church and the True Faith

§ 1. 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29. § 2. The Antichrist § 3. True Church. § 4. Evil Christians Under the Sign of the Cross § 5. Cafeteria Catholicism. § 6. Rome and Violence § 7. Galatians 1. 8-12. And 1 Timothy 3. 2 § 8. Judaism. § 9. You're Damned if You Can't Teach Religion with the Authority of God? § 10. Knowing God. § 11. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. § 12. Some Controversial Roman Catholic Saints. § 13. Islam. § 14. Gay Marriage and Sacrilege. § 15. St. Paul and Slavery. § 16. The True Rulers of the World? § 17. Bush v. McCain. § 18. True Christianity vs. False Christianity. § 19. Old News about Judaism and Christianity. § 20. Regarding Miracles. § 21. The New Testament Hammers the Rich. § 22. Abortion, Liberal Christians, Born-Agains etc. § 23. The Defense of Christianity. § 24. You're Damned if You Reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility? § 25. The High Ambitions of the Church of Rome. § 26. Simple Creeds are for Simple Minds? § 27. The Holy Faith. § 28. Rome's War on Moriscos. § 29. The Antichrist and the Archangel Michael.

§ 1. 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29.

Yes, we're starting right back up with a scripture which is an old favorite.

On the one hand St. Paul tells us that it is best to not get married, but then, on the other hand, St. Paul informs us, if you are going to burn with passion then you ought to get married. Christianity doesn't want you to be a lusty monk with a head full of pornographic images. And Christianity doesn't want you to live like James Bond either, or live like some character on `Vanderpump Rules', you know, where you just drift aimlessly from one passionate fling, perhaps with a beautiful English blonde to a second fleeting affair with some hot French brunette to a third burning but brief romance with some exquisite China doll to a 4th passionate interlude with some gorgeous Mexican muchacha, to a 5th descent into passion and pleasure with...

Of course if do you settle on one woman /one man and marry her / him, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part, etc., you can't expect her / him to be some great and wonderful super spouse, one that never malfunctions or disappoints, for decade after decade. What can you do? I mean, what can you do if you find yourself stuck with a rundown or obnoxious spouse? What happens if your spouse reminds you of an old horse ready for the glue factory?

Christianity has outlawed polygamy and fornication and adultery, has outlawed all forms of sexual immorality that the ingenuity of man can invent, so you're trapped, trapped like a rat in a trap is trapped, trapped like a rat cornered by a cat, trapped like a character in a Werner Herzog movie, look how those head-hunters trapped those people on that steamboat in _Fitzcarraldo_ , and look just how that ex-con is trapped in _Strozek_ – he is sunk so far into misery and futility that his whole existence prior to his suicide is summed up in this scene where Herzog gives us a dancing chicken, and look how those dwarves are trapped, regardless of their rebellion, in _Even Dwarves Started Small_ , and look how like Aguirre and his band of merry conquistadors are trapped in an unforgiving universe in _Aguirre: the Wrath of God,_ well, then, so you see, it's all perfectly clear now, you're trapped in either celibacy or monogamy, take your pick. Christ tells us in Matthew 5. 32 that if you marry a divorced woman you commit adultery, so this is just more steel to re-inforce the trap, making it even more impossible to get out of. You can't commit sexual immorality because that is a sin which leads straight to perdition. What exactly does sexual immorality encompass? Looking at porn, having lustful thoughts, having adulterous fantasies, having real adulterous encounters, having NC-17 rated fantasies – there is some gray area with the term `sexual immorality' – I mean it's not always perfectly clear when exactly a movie ceases to be avant garde art and when exactly it verges with into pornography. I saw these Radley Metzger films....Oh never mind...Just about every man is guilty of sexual immorality, and pretty often! Don't you think? I remember a line from Michelet's _History of France_ where he was quoting a medieval monk: `What profit is it to a monk if he be virgin of body but not virgin of mind?' That seems rather profound. If your standard model hetero guy insists that he never lusts and fantasizes about curving hips and plunging necklines and pouting lips, if your standard male insists he never focuses any of his idle thoughts on the whole arsenal of feminine enchantments which seem to be so ubiquitous nowadays, never dwells on all the sensual delights which we associate with voluptuous female bodies: cleavage, curvature, silky soft skin etc., etc., never thinks about all the exquisite enticements which the voluptuous woman brings to the bedroom, never dwells on all those luscious female endearments which are so artfully designed to stimulate passion and enslave a man's thoughts and dreams...well, you know how it goes...if some hetero guy tells you he is all about apple pie and honoring the flag and defending the precious institution of motherhood, if some guy says he never looks at women except in a holy and spiritual and platonic way, then, don't you think this guy's own words prove he's a liar? I suppose maybe perhaps, who knows, there are some guys out there who are squeaky clean and 100% boy scouts...Anyway, it's not always completely clear, when watching a movie, when exactly that movie you're watching slides into pornography, at least in some parts of it, though Justice Potter Stewart was confident that he knew what porn was when he saw it. Watching porn certainly seems like a vice which can safely be categorized under the general heading of Sexual Immorality.

The general idea behind excommunicating people runs in two broad streams of logic. Suppose a woman catches her husband `reading' smut, you know, `reading' "Penthouse" or "Hustler" or some such lustful licentious erotica. Then, when the two of them go off to church the next Sunday and celebrate the Eucharist, both of them celebrate the Eucharist in an unworthy manner – they drink damnation into their souls. The woman should have told her husband that she refuses to celebrate the Eucharist with him until he repents and stops looking at smut. If he doesn't repent then she needs goes to the Church and explain to the people there – the saints - her husband's problem. She does this for two reasons: 1) she doesn't want to drink damnation into her soul by celebrating the Eucharist in an unworthy way, by celebrating it with someone she knows is unworthy to receive the bread and the wine, and 2) she wants to get her husband to repent, because he's damned if he doesn't repent, so she wants to get the Church to instill some discipline into her husband, via the process of excommunication, since he is incapable of disciplining himself, and since she can't instill discipline in him, and he must learn discipline in order to get him to repent so he won't be damned. When you fall away from the True Faith you're on the road to perdition. And of course you'll want to get off the road to perdition and get on to the road to heaven.

§ 2. The Antichrist

St. Paul writes in 2 Thess 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

Perhaps some other words from Chapter 1 also bear repeating. As noted earlier many commentators insist that the Temple in Jerusalem will have to be rebuilt, and presumably the Islamic Dome of the Rock will have to be removed, in order for 2 Thess 2 to be fulfilled. But, in Christianity, the hearts of human beings have replaced the Temple in Jerusalem as God's temple. Recall 1 Corinthians 3. 16-7,

`Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.'

And of course we know Jeremiah 31. 31-34 states that God will write His new covenant on the hearts of His people, not on tablets of stone – the old law you will recall was written on tablets of stone atop Mt. Sinai and was then given to Moses to give to the Israelites. So, this man of sin / son of perdition of 2 Thess 2 who stands in the temple, who is presumably the Antichrist mentioned in 1 John 2. 18, and who is presumably this beast mentioned in Revelation 19. 19, might not sit in a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, but he might reside in the hearts of human beings, or at least in the hearts of some humans, and human hearts are now, in Christianity, the temple of God. The Antichrist will attempt an imposture of some sort. Instead of writing God's New Covenant on people's hearts, he will write the Law of the Devil on people's hearts, or at least that is one theory.

It stands to reason that the Antichrist will attempt to drag souls down to hell by leading people away from the True Faith and the True Church. One would have to know what the True Faith is to know if one was being led away from the True Faith.

I Timothy 4. 1-3,

`Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.'

Revelation 20. 15 mentions people being cast into a lake of fire if their names are not written in something called the Book of Life. The good people under the sign of the cross failed to excommunicate the evil people under the sign of the cross. When you celebrate the Eucharist with people who perpetrate evil, then you fall away from the True Faith, even though you don't perpetrate evil. Christ and the apostles did not hold communion with people who perpetrated evil.

Matthew 16. 13-19 is probably the most famous scripture telling us there is a True Church. Christ founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. John 14. 23-26 tell us that those who love Christ keep His words. So, if one loves Christ, one will not reject the words He spoke in Matthew 16. 13-19, and elsewhere. John 15. 6 tells us that if one does not abide in Christ one is given to the flames. John 15. 6 is a lot like 2 Thess 1. 8: fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

§ 3. The True Church.

To review the scriptures which tell us there is a True Church and a True Faith, John 14. 23-26,

`Jesus answered him and said unto him, if a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth Me not keepeth not my sayings...But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'

John 14. 23-26 is similar to Jerome's famous observation: `Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ'. If one accepts John 14. 23-26, then one will keep Christ's words in Matthew 16. 13-19,

`When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the son of Man, am? So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'

Matthew 16. 13-19 tells us that Jesus founded one Church - not two or three or four Churches - but, one Church, the True Church.

Jesus says in John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

If one abides in Christ then one is in the True Church.

The True Church is not a cathedral or any sort of building. It is a collection of people, a collection of saints, who teach doctrines which lead souls to heaven, and who do not teach a single doctrine which leads souls to perdition.

The saints in the True Church are not perfect and sinless. Only God is perfect. And the True Church can teach errors. The key attribute of the True Church is that she leads souls to heaven and she does not lead anyone to perdition. Whatever mistakes the True Church makes are minor – or at least these mistakes don't lead anyone to perdition. If a church leads souls to perdition then it can not be the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

We also have the words of St. Paul in Ephesians 4. 4-6,

`There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'

In St. Paul's terminology this phrase - `there is one body' - means there is only one True Church. Note Ephesians 5. 30, where St. Paul says of the Church and Christ,

`For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.'

Matthew 7. 13-16 indicates the True Church is rather exclusive,

`Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits...'

§ 4. Evil Christians Under the Sign of the Cross

Paul Johnson informed us in A History of Christianity,

`Tertullian broke with the Church [Rome] when Calixtus of Rome determined that the church had the power to grant remission of sins after baptism, even serious sins like adultery or apostasy...Julian claims Catholics slaughtered "heretics" with state military support. Whole communities were butchered...in the 5th century there were over 100 statutes against heresy. The state now attacked heresy as it had once attacked Christianity...Jerome describes horrible tortures inflicted on a woman accused of adultery [inflicted by the Catholic-State]. In the late 4th century there was despotism in Christendom. The rack and red-hot plates were used. Ammianus gives many instances of torture...the Inquisition was born...Spain was staging pogroms of Jews by the time Augustine became a bishop...Inquisition: anonymous informers, accusations of personal enemies allowed, no right of defending council...Possession of scriptures in any language forbidden...from 1080 onward there were many instances of the Pope, councils and Bishops forbidding the Bible to laymen...people burned for reading the Bible...Erasmus saw 200 prisoners of war broken on the wheel at Utrech, on orders of the Bishop...Justinian Code: provided basis for persecution of dissenters...Protestants adopted the Justinian Code as well...Lutherans and Calvinists just as intolerant as Catholics...Counter-Reformation embodied no reform. It's sole effect was to stamp out Protestant "error"...It is a tragic but recurrent feature of Christianity that the eager pursuit of reform tends to produce a ruthlessness in dealing with obstacles to it which brings the whole moral superstructure crashing down in ruins...The Gregorian papacy, so zealous for virtue, fathered some of the worst crimes of the Middle Ages...mass burnings of Protestants in Spain 1559-1562...Spanish Inquisition was self-sustaining. It confiscated the property of the condemned...women 70-90 years old were tortured...young girls tortured...witch-hunting couldn't survive without torture...witch-hunting had papal sanction to use torture...Luther burned "witches"...Calvinists very fierce...Loyola popularized witch-hunting...Loyola not an anti-Semite...Vicious cycle: torture produced accusations - more torture, more accusations...'

Before the 4th century the Christians were persecuted. After the 4th century the people under the sign of the cross became the persecutors. Before the 4th century Christians didn't enforce evil laws with barbaric punishments. During and after the 4th century, the people under the sign of the cross enforced no end of evil laws with barbaric punishments. Obviously, there was some sort of a falling away: the first Christians didn't torture anyone to death whereas the Christians of later centuries tortured lots of people to death. Don't you think there was a falling away from the True Faith? Don't you think there is a connection between century after century of people under the sign of the cross perpetrating evil and this `falling away' mentioned in 2 Thess 2? Even the kind and altruistic Christians, even the Christians who didn't torture anyone to death, fell away from the True Faith, because they held communion with people who perpetrated evil, and you fall away from the True Faith when you hold communion with people who openly perpetrate evil.

The scriptures are perfectly clear there is only supposed to be one Christian Church - Matthew 16. 13-19, Ephesians 4. 4 etc. Just as there is only one True Church there is only one Divine Law - this Divine Law is also called the New Covenant, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and True Faith. The saints in the True Church have this Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 inscribed on their hearts.

Apropos of this `falling away' mentioned in 2 Thess 2, Bury states in 'History of the Later Roman Empire' (vol. i. p. 12) that the Catholic emperors in Constantinople, following the example of the pagan Emperors, took the epithets `sacred' and `divine' and insisted that these be applied to themselves. Bury writes, p. 15:

`The oriental conception of divine royalty is now formally expressed in the diadem; and it affects all that pertains to the Emperor. His person is divine; all that belongs to him is "sacred." Those who come into his presence perform the act of adoration; they kneel down and kiss the purple.'

Bury states, p. 14, that the Patriarch refused to crown the Emperor Anastasius unless he signed a written oath that he would introduce no novelty into the Church.

Might there be an evil absurdity lurking somewhere in the spectacle of Christian Emperors claiming to be sacred and divine, and demanding that their subjects adore them, and demanding these subjects prostrate themselves before them, while also promising to bring no innovations into the Christian religion? The Catholic Church united itself with evil when it failed to excommunicate the evil Catholic emperors, when it told Catholics to go ahead and prostrate themselves before human beings. Satan took Jesus to the top of the Temple and was looking to make a deal - bow down before Satan and....

When one bows down before someone or some thing one commits idolatry. Christians are not to bow before anyone but God. Recall Revelation 19. 10. The 1st commandment is very clear that one must worship only God. The Christian martyrs were martyred because they refused to worship the emperor - they refused to bow before images of the emperor - and because they refused to obey the magistrates when the magistrates ordered them to sacrifice to the pagan deities.

Still on this theme of this falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2, for centuries the civilization under the sign of the cross was divided into peasants and a privileged class of nobles who oppressed the peasants; this civilization subjected the accused to `the question,' that is to preliminary torture in criminal investigations; the civilization under the sign of the cross punished people by breaking them on the wheel - here an iron bar was used to break the bones of the felon - burying alive, burning alive, flaying alive - all of these punishments had the blessing of the church and state. Popes and Protestants blessed the African slave trade. Slave owners would separate children from their parents and of course they would whip the slaves to force them to work for no wages. In the Middle Ages peasants were tortured by the nobles to learn where the peasants had hidden their money. The peasants would starve during the lean years but the nobles knew how to hoard and steal enough food to survive. In the early Church, Christians didn't perpetrate these sorts of evils. There were always heretics and false brethren, but in the first, second and third centuries Christians didn't torture people on the rack or burn anyone at the stake. Everything went to hell, so to speak, beginning in the mid to late 4th century. Gibbon described the malevolence of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Catholic Emperors,

`They protected all persons of illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards the prince or republic, all privileges were suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of malicious information, which might select them as accomplices, or even as witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.'

J. B. Bury writes in `The Later Roman Empire',

`The criminal law of the Empire, which was chiefly based on the legislation of Sulla, Pompey, and Augustus, had been little altered or developed under the Principate; and the Cornelian laws on murder and forgery, the Pompeian law on parricide, the Julian laws on treason, adultery, violence, and peculation, were still the foundation of the law which was in force in the reign of Justinian. Such minor changes as had been made before the reign of Constantine were generally in the direction of increased severity. This tendency became more pronounced under the Christian Emperors. Two fundamental changes were introduced by these rulers by the addition of two new items to the list of public crimes, seduction and heresy; but in those domains of crime which we would consider the gravest there were no important changes...In contrast with this conservatism, a new spirit animated Constantine and his successors in their legislation on sexual offenses, and the inhuman rigour of the laws by which they attempt to suppress sexual immorality amazes a modern reader of the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian...The savage legislator Theodosius I. prohibited the marriage of first cousins, and decreed that for those who were guilty of this or any other forbidden alliances, the penalty of being burned alive and the confiscation of their property...The abduction of a female for immoral purposes, if not accompanied by violence, was, under the Principate, regarded as a private injury which entitled the father or husband to bring an action. Constantine made the abduction of women a public crime of the most heinous kind, to be punished by death in a painful form. The woman, if she consented, was liable to the same penalty as her seducer; if she attempted to resist, the lenient lawgiver only disqualified her from inheriting. If the nurse who was in charge of the girl were proved to have encouraged her to yield to her seducer, molten lead was to be poured into her mouth and throat, to close the aperture through which the wicked suggestions had emanated...Unnatural vice was pursued by the Christian monarchs with the utmost severity. Constantius imposed the death penalty on both culprits, and Theodosius the Great condemned persons guilty of this enormity to death by fire. Justinian...was particularly active and cruel in dealing with this vice...It is recorded that senators and bishops who were found guilty were shamefully mutilated, or exquisitely tortured, and paraded through the streets of the capital before their execution. The disproportion and cruelty of the punishments, which mark the legislation of the autocracy in regard to sexual crimes, and are eminently unworthy of the legal reason of Rome, were due to ecclesiastical influence and the prevalence of extravagant ascetic ideals. That these bloodthirsty laws were in accord with ecclesiastical opinion is shown by the code which a Christian missionary, untrammelled by Roman law, is reported to have imposed on the unfortunate inhabitants of Southern Arabia...Fornication (in Safar) was punished by a hundred stripes, the amputation of the left ear, and confiscation of property. If the crime was committed with a woman who was in the potestas of a man, her left breast was cut off and the male sinner was emasculated. Similar but rather severer penalties were inflicted on adulterers. Procurers were liable to amputation of the tongue. Public singers, harp-players, actors, dancers, were suppressed, and anyone found practicing these acts was punished by a whipping and a year's hard labor...Severe penalties were imposed for failing to inform the public authorities of a neighbor's misconduct. On the ground of St. Paul's dictum that the man is the head of the woman, cruel punishments were meted out to women who ventured to deride men. Perhaps the greatest blot in Roman criminal law under the Empire, judged by modern ideas, was the distinction which it drew, in the apportionment of penalties, between different classes of freemen. There was one law for the rich, and another for the poor. A distinction between honourable and respectable, and the humble or plebian classes were legalised, and different treatment was meted out in punishing criminals according to the class to which they belonged...The general principle, indeed, of this disparity of treatment was the extension of servile punishments to the free proletariat, and it appears also in the use of torture for the extraction of evidence...Next to death, the severest penalty was servitude in the mines for life, or for a limited period. This horrible fate was never inflicted on the better classes. They were punished by deportation to an island, or an oasis in the desert. Mutilation does not appear to have been recognized as a legal penalty under the Principate, but it may sometimes have been resorted to as an extraordinary measure by the express sentence of an Emperor. It first appears in an enactment of Constantine ordaining that the tongue of an informer should be torn out by the root...In the sixth century, mutilation became more common, and Justinian recognises amputation of the hands as a legal punishment in some of his enactments. Tax-collectors who falsify their accounts and persons who copy the writings of Monophysites are threatened with this pain...Amputation of the nose or tongue was frequently practiced, and such penalties afterwards became a leading feature in Byzantine criminal law, and were often inflicted as a mitigation of the death penalty. When these punishments and that of blinding are pointed to as one of the barbarous and repulsive characters of Byzantine civilisation, it should not be forgotten that in the seventeenth century it was still the practice in England to lop off hands and ears."

§ 5. Cafeteria Catholicism

Cafeteria Catholicism is essentially a conglomeration of creeds, but it is unified by the general rule which says that Cafeteria Catholics are those people who have been baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, and who have not been excommunicated, but they reject one or more official doctrines sanctioned by the Church of Rome. Therefore, Cafeteria Catholics reject Rome's authority to some degree, but not to the degree of rejecting Rome completely. Cafeteria Catholics scrutinize the various doctrines which the Vatican dishes up, and they devour those doctrines which look delicious to them, and they spit out those doctrines which they find unappetizing. Cafeteria Catholicism is a conglomeration of different creeds, because, though all Cafeteria Catholics accept Rome to some degree, and reject Rome to some degree, it doesn't make any sense to say that the pro-choice, birth-control-pill-popping, horoscope-consulting Roman Catholic woman covered with tattoos embraces the same creed as the pro-life, anti-contraceptive, anti-horoscope nun who differs only from Rome in that she believes women ought to permitted to be priests, bishops and popes.

In Professor Crow's `The Epic of Latin America' (Doubleday, 1971) we read that when the papal nuncio visited Brazil in the 19th century, during the reign of Emperor Dom Pedro II - who seems to have been the New World's pre-eminent Philosopher-King - the nuncio attempted to impose on Brazil Rome's decree that marriages between Catholics and Protestants were null and void. The Emperor and the people of Brazil would have none of this, holding that if two people loved each other, though they were of different religions, they should be permitted to marry.

What are Rome's reasons for opposing marriages between Roman Catholics and Non-Roman Catholics? Rome insists that God the Son was crucified on earth, and insists that God the Son endured torment and death in order to establish One True and Eternal Church. Rome has made the decision that Rome and only Rome is this True Church which Christ founded upon a rock. When Roman Catholics marry outside of their faith there will be a powerful inclination to inform the children that neither mother nor father is going to hell; there will be strong inducements to inform the children that regardless of their parents' religious beliefs, both mother and father are certainly going to heaven when they take their leave from this earth - even though one of them is not a Roman Catholic. And this teaching subverts a fundamental pillar of Roman Catholicism, the one which says: God came to earth to live righteously, to suffer, to die, and to be resurrected from death in order to establish His True Church - the Church of Rome. To say that one needn't belong to this True Church - which was bought with God's own blood - in order to attain salvation - to say that one needn't be a member of the Roman Catholic Church in order to attain salvation and avoid hell, is to subvert the Roman Catholic Church.

Cafeteria Catholicism has some conspicuous problems. I mean, if the Church of Rome is the True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition, if Rome is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, then, it makes no sense to ever rebel against Rome, which is what the Cafeteria Catholics do. Ones soul might go to perdition if one rebels against the True Church. Of course if Rome is not the True Church, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, if Rome leads souls to perdition not to heaven, then it makes no sense to be any sort of Roman Catholic, either a Practicing Catholic or a Cafeteria Catholic. So, in every case, in the case where the Roman Catholic Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and in the case where Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, it is delusional to a Cafeteria Catholic, and there might be a billion Cafeteria Catholics in the world. All of this pertains to 2 Thess 2, which tells of people lost in strong delusion. And, obviously, Cafeteria Catholics are lost in delusion. If Rome is the True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, then obey Rome! - but the Cafeteria Catholics refuse to obey Rome! If Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome leads souls to perdition - then renounce Rome – but the Cafeteria Catholics refuse to renounce Rome. Cafeteria Catholicism can't possibly be right. Cafeteria Catholicism is delusional in every scenario. As we know 2 Thess 2 deals with people who are lost in delusion. Again, if one rejects the doctrine that there is a True Church, one one rejects John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Matthew 16. 13-19 and Ephesians 4. 1-6, and it is anti-Christian to reject these scriptures.

Recall the words about people who do not love the truth, and therefore God sends them strong delusion - St. Paul writes in 2 Thess 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'
§ 6. Rome and Violence.

As we've seen, it is anti-Christian to say there is no True Church and no True Faith. This is because it is anti-Christian to reject John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Matthew 16. 13-19, Ephesians 4. 4, Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, 2 Thess 1. 8, 2 Thess 2, Luke 13. 5, Revelation 20. 15 etc., which tell us there is a True Church and a True Faith.

We must decide between two options: 1) The Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock: Rome leads souls to heaven and she leads no one to perdition, or, 2) The Church of Rome has fallen away; Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock: Rome leads souls to perdition.

Case 1. The Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. She leads souls to heaven and she does not lead any souls to perdition. Whatever violence and whatever torments she has inflicted on people over the centuries might be mistakes or they might not, but if they are mistakes, they are nothing serious: they have not cause Rome to fall away from the True Faith. Rome is still the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Indeed, if God's True Church determines that violence and torture need to be used against the enemies of the True Church, then True Christians will support the Church of Rome in her decision. Recall the key characteristic of the True Church: she can make errors, but, nevertheless, she only leads souls to heaven and she does not make a single error which leads anyone to perdition. Rome is the True Church, therefore, should Rome decide that violence and torture are required, then God supports the Church of Rome.

Case 2. The Church of Rome has fallen away from the True Faith. Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Rome leads souls to perdition. Everyone should renounce Rome.

A modern author, Nicholas Cheetham, picks up the theme that the Church of Rome has the right to use violence against those who rebel against her. He writes in his `A History of the Popes' (1982, Barnes & Noble, p. 211),

`Pius V (1566-72) was the Michele Ghislieri who had served as the Carafa Pope's Grand Inquisitor [Gian Putro Carafa was Pope Paul IV. (1555-9)]...the Romans were afraid that he might turn out another Paul IV. In so far as heretics were harsly repressed and many of them sentenced to death, their fears were largely realized, but the persecution was neither arbitry nor carried to excessive lengths. The Pope, who personally attended inquisitorial sessions, was determined to prevent the seepage of Protestantism into Italy...In that aim he was conspicuously successful.'

Protestants are not thrilled to have a 20th century writer say that it is fine to torture and execute Protestants - as long as the persecution is neither arbitrary nor carried to excessive lengths! And, after all, Pius V. - he's St. Pius V. and to this day the Church of Rome commands all True Christians to venerate St. Pius V. - was successful with his cruel methods in keeping Protestantism from seeping into Italy - which is a good thing if the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven and if Protestantism leads souls to hell. But at the moment we are more interested in Cafeteria Catholics - people who say that the Church of Rome is God's True Church, people who say that the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, people who say that it is intelligent, sometimes, to rebel against God's True Church. This wars against Logic because Logic says: If the Church of Rome is God's True Church, if she leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, then you can't possibly go to hell if you simply obey the Church of Rome. If Rome is God's True Church, then, when Rome tortures and burns Protestants, just agree with Rome and admit she has the right to torture and burn Protestants. If you rebel against God's True Church, if you say she does not have the right to torture and burn Protestants - then you might go to hell for rebelling against God's True Church.

Of course if the Church of Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome has fallen away, if Rome and leads souls to perdition \- then everyone should renounce Rome.

The Cafeteria Catholics refuse to obey Rome and yet they refuse to renounce Rome - and there might be a billion of Cafeteria Catholics in the world today.

In `Inquisition and Liberty' (Heinemann, 1938), by G. G. Coulton, we read:

`Deeds speak more decisively than words; and this has been emphasized by Cardinal Lápicier, Professor at the Gregorian University of Rome, with the express approval of Pius V. After arguing, in the fashion familiar to medieval schoolmen, for the Church's eternal and inalienable power over the bodies of obstinate heretics, he clinches all these abstract philosophical pleas by a blunt appeal to the fait accompli. He insists that the attempts of modern Roman Catholics to ignore or deny this principle are not "compatible with the constitution of the Church or with historical facts." He proceeds: "Perhaps this doctrine (of St. Thomas Aquinas) will seem too severe to our age, which neglects the spiritual order and is prone to sensible goods....But why do we require further proof for this point? Ought not unquestioned historical fact to stand for all proof? The fact, I mean, that many heretics have been condemned to death by the just judgment of the Church....The naked fact that the Church, of her own authority, has tried heretics and condemned them to be delivered to death, shows that she truly has the right of killing such men, as guilty of high treason to God and as enemies of society." These things have been done; and "who dares to say that the Church has erred in a matter so grave as this?"

Luther's main complaint against Rome was that Rome was trampling on scripture and Rome was also selling indulgences for money. The Pope was promising peasants that he would release their dearly departed relatives from the fires of purgatory if they would first give money to the papal indulgence peddlers. Luther reasoned that if the Pope had the power to rescue souls currently burning in purgatory then the Pope had the power to rescue them without charging their relatives money for the rescue service. Luther reasoned it was evil of the Pope to make a profit off of poor people desperate to help their relatives currently burning in purgatory. If indulgence peddling was Rome's only truly serious sin - the only sin serious enough to cause Rome to lead souls to hell - then, Luther might have politely advised Rome to stop commiting the evil of indulgence peddling. If Rome stopped the evil of indulgence peddling, then, there would be no need for Luther to break with Rome, provided indulgence peddling was the only sin which caused Rome to fall away from the True Faith and lead souls to hell. But if Rome had fallen away from the True Faith long before Luther's time, if Rome had been leading souls to perdition for centuries before the 16th century, because Rome was cruel, because Rome gave her blessing to evil laws - laws enforced by either Catholic princes or popes - Constantine, Theodosius, Valentinian, Justinian, Phocas, Clovis, etc., John XII., Innocent III., Innocent IV., Boniface VIII. etc., - then, Luther and Calvin and Henry VIII. etc., were right to break with Rome, but, nevertheless, they too had fallen away from the True Faith, because Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII. etc., also gave their blessing to cruel and evil laws.

If Rome has always been the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, then it would make no sense for anyone to rebel against Rome. Rome has declared for centuries that the `Holy Office' - the Inquisition - is holy. If Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, then it makes no sense to rebel against Rome, such as by insisting that the Inquisition is evil, by insisting that is is not holy, by asserting that Rome did not have the right to torture and execute the people she tortured and executed. Rome either leads souls to heaven or she leads souls to perdition. If Rome is not the True Church, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then renounce Rome. If Rome leads souls to heaven then obey Rome - do not be a Cafeteria Catholic - do not rebel against the True Church just because she makes some mistakes now and then.

The typical Cafeteria Catholic thinks he's an intelligent, independent thinker when he rebels against the Church of Rome, such as by refusing to venerate John of Capistrano - and Rome orders all True Christians to venerate St. John of Capistrano. But the Cafeteria Catholic is not thinking with clarity and intelligence! If Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell - then one should not be a Cafeteria Catholic and rebel against Rome, such as by refusing to venerate Capistrano. And, obviously, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome leads souls to hell, then one should not remain in the Roman Catholic Church, as the Cafeteria Catholic do.

H. R. Trevor-Roper writes in `The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries' (Harper & Row):

`In the eleventh century Roman law had been rediscovered in the west, and torture had soon followed it back into use. In 1252 Innocent IV, by the bull Ad Extirpanda, had authorized its use against the Albigensians. By the fourteenth century it was in general use in the tribunals of the Inquisition...In 1468 the Pope [Innocent VIII.] declared witchcraft to be a crimen exceptum and thereby removed, in effect, all legal limits on the application of torture in such cases...The evidence supplied by Lea clearly shows that the witch-craze grew by its own momentum...Accused witches often admitted to their confessors that they had wrongly accused both themselves and others, and these admissions are the more credible since they brought no advantage to the accused - unless they were willing, as they seldom were, to make a formal retraction, which meant submitting to torture again...When we consider the fully developed procedure at continental or Scottish witch-trials we can hardly be surprised that confessions were almost always secured. For such a crime, the ordinary rules of evidence, as the ordinary limits of torture, were suspended...As Jean Bodin would write, not one in a million would be punished if the procedure were governed by ordinary laws. So, in the absence of a `grave indicium', such as a pot full of human limbs, sacred objects, toads, etc. or a written pact with the Devil...circumstantial evidence was sufficient to mobilize the process. And the circumstantial evidence need not be very cogent: it was sufficient to discover a wart, by which the familiar spirit was suckled; an insensitive spot which did not bleed when pricked; a capacity to float when thrown into water; or an incapacity to shed tears. Recourse could even be had to `lighter indicia', such as a tendency to look down when accused, signs of fear...Any of these indicia might establish a prima facie case and justify the use of torture to produce the confession, which was proof, or the refusal to confess, which was even more cogent proof and justified even more ferocious tortures and a nastier death. Of the tortures used...Crushed the fingers and toes in a vice...the Spanish boot, much used in Germany and Scotland, which squeezed the calf and broke the shin-bone in pieces - `the most severe and cruel pain in the world', as a Scotsman called it...and there was the `ram' or `witch-chair' a seat of spikes, heated from below. There was also the `Bed of Nails'...In Scotland one might also be grilled on the caschielawis, and have ones finger-nails pulled off...Once a witch had confessed, the next stage was to secure from her, again under torture, a list of all those of her neighbours whom she had recognized at the witches' sabbat. Thus a new set of indicia was supplied, clerical science was confirmed, and a fresh set of trials and tortures would begin. It is easy to see that torture lay, directly or indirectly, behind most of the witch-trials of Europe, creating witches where none were and multiplying both victims and evidence. Without torture, the great witch-panics of the 1590s and the late 1620s are inconceivable...'

§ 7. Galatians 1. 8-12, 1 Timothy 3. 2

As we've see in Galatians 1. 8-12 St. Paul tells us he learned his doctrine directly from Christ and even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters these doctrines. In 1 Timothy 3. 2 St. Paul tells a bishop must be a man of one wife. The founders of Mormonism taught the doctrine that a bishop may have multiple wives. The Roman Catholic Church teaches the doctrine that a bishop must have no wife. In the pontificate of Gregory VII., in the middle of 11th century, the Catholic Church pledged itself finally and completely to a priesthood of unmarried men. Lecky tells us the wives of priests were sold into slavery at this time. Dr. Lea begins his `History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church' with,

`THE Latin Church is the great fact which dominates the history of modern civilization. All other agencies which molded the destines of mediaeval Europe were comparatively isolated or sporadic in their manifestations...Far above all, the successor of St. Peter from his pontifical throne claims the whole of Europe as his empire, and dictates terms to kings...It was by no means the least of the factors in the conquering career of the Church that it required of all to whom it granted the supernatural powers conferred in holy orders that they should surrender themselves unreservedly and irrevocably, that they should sunder all human ties, should have no aspirations beyond its service, no family affections to distract their loyalty, no family duties to waste its substance, and no ambitions save for the rewards which it alone could bestow.'

During the first 1,000 years of Christianity there was a great deal of bloodshed and tyranny from the Second Estate - the emperors, kings and nobles - but not too much torture and murder from the First Estate - the priests. But in the 2nd millennium of Christendom, after the establishment of a celibate priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, everything changed. If we can take an educated guess which says that men are more well-balanced when they are not ordered to forsake the love of wives and children, more well-balanced at least in most, if not all instances, then one has to expect that dire consequences might arise from this wife-abnegating, pope-imposed rejection of St. Paul's clear teaching - Celibacy is Not Mandatory. Urban II. launched the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century, with the first victims being the Jews living near the Rhine. The Episcopal Inquisition was begun in the 12th century. In the 13th century Innocent III. began the slaughter of Cathars in the South of France and the extermination of Lithuanian peasants. `Ad extirpanda', from Innocent IV., in the middle of the 13th century, gave the Inquisition the papal blessing to use of torture in the hunt to exterminate all dissent against Rome from baptized Catholics; this included Jews who had been forcibly baptized. Pope Nicholas V. authorized the African slave trade in the 15th century. Pope Sixtus IV. authorized the Spanish Inquisition in the same century. Pope Innocent VIII., still in the 15th century, gave papal sanction to the witch-craze in which many thousands of women were tortured and burned. Pope Paul III. re-organized the Roman Inquisition in the 16th century.

If Roman Catholic priests had had wives and children to impart a softening influence them, to make them less isolated and alienated, less monkish and fanatical, perhaps much of this fanatical evil would not have been inflicted upon the world. St. Paul never required priests to remain celibate but St. Paul does say in Galatians 1. 8 that even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters the gospel St. Paul is preaching. The Roman Catholic Church rejects what Paul wrote in I Timothy 3. 2 - a bishop must be a man of one wife.

To repeat yet again, Paul Johnson, in `A History of Christianity', gave us a date of 1080 AD when the Catholic Church, with the approval of popes and councils, first commenced the policy of forbidding the laity to read the Bible. The Inquisition was set in motion against people who were arrested and tortured because other people, who had been arrested and tortured, had implicated them in their testimony, just as these people had be implicated by still other people who had been arrested and tortured.

§ 8. Judaism

Isaiah 59. 20-21 is another Old Testament scripture which is similar to Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Isaiah 59. 20-21 states,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

Christ Listed Foolishness as a sin in Mark 7. 22. Furthermore the Parable of the Talents refers to maximizing the spiritual and intellectual gifts God has given us. Christians are not supposed to be lost and confused. If one is a fan of evil laws, or idiotic laws, then, one obviously doesn't have a Divine Law written on ones heart. If one advocates insane ideas then one simply can not have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on ones heart.

Consider the insanity shouted at us from the jacket of Paul Johnson's A History of the Jews. Mr. Johnson is an excellent historian, but, unfortunately, one of his editors did him a disservice, and this editor's nonsense runs as follows:

`This provocative 4,000-year survey covers not only Jewish history but the impact of Jewish genius and imagination on the world. The Jewish invention of ethical monotheism led to the evolution of Judaism with its democratic philosophy and its notion of equality under the law. The Jews also played a major role in the creation of the modern world.'

It is absurd to write in praise of the `Jewish invention of ethical monotheism,' because, in Scenario 1, in the scenario where the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob exists, it is blasphemously absurd to speak of the Jews inventing the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And in Scenario 2, where the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does not exist, and thus Judaism is a superstition, it makes no sense to consider the fabrication of a superstition, which is merely a system of falsehoods, as anything which might be construed as ethical or praiseworthy. If the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a myth, then the dreams and delusions and feverish hallucinations of religious zealots are rather worthless when one is seeking the Creator of the Universe. One may have sympathy for the deluded, but, nevertheless, the superstitious fictions of even well-intentioned people can not be considered ethical or praiseworthy. If Judaism is a human fabrication, one must have some conception of the amount of human suffering which has resulted from this fabrication in order to accurately assess Judaism. The Jews suffered frightful persecution, for centuries, in Russia, Poland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain etc. Everyone knows about the millions of European Jews who suffered under the Nazis. But, for centuries filled with truly diabolical forms of torment and misery inflicted on the Jews, there's nothing comparable to the Middle Ages under the sign of the cross.

If the Jews had renounced Judaism many centuries ago - assuming still that Judaism is a human fabrication \- then millions of Jews would not have suffered terribly in the either the Middle Ages - at the hands of cruel Christians and murderous Muslims - or in modern times, at Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Sobibor etc. Mr. Johnson informs us that across the seventh century in Christendom Jews were flogged, executed, dragged to the baptismal font, tortured and murdered. Will Durant told us in The Age of Faith that the Frankish chieftains intermarried with the remnants of the Gallo-Roman senatorial class and produced the aristocracy of France. The same nobles showed amazing contempt for justice: their baptism into Catholicism had no regenerative or redeeming effects upon them. Gibbon wrote of the triumph of barbarism and religion. Assassination, torture, slaughter, treachery, adultery, fornication and incest were the favored expedients by which nobles and peasants relieved the ennui of medieval life. By 600 there were Jewish colonies in all the major cities of the Franks. The Merovingian Catholics persecuted the Jews with pious ferocity. King Chilperic decreed that Jews were to embrace the Catholic Church or have their eyes torn out. The Council of Toledo of 633 ruled that those Jews who had submitted to baptism, and then fell back into Judaism, were to be bereaved of their children and sold into slavery.

Heinrich Graetz told us in his History of the Jews (The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1894) that the Council of Mácon, in 581, ordered all Jews to stand before Catholic priests until they were bidden to sit. Malefactors who violated this decree were to be severely punished. The matricide King Clotaire was considered a model of Catholic piety in his time. His son, Dagobert, another `faithful son of the Church,' gave the Jewish population in his kingdom the ultimatum of either accepting baptism or suffering death. The Council of Narbonne forbade Jews to sing Psalms at funerals. The Council of Carthage made Jewish testimony against Christians inadmissible in court. The Council of Toledo authorized the persecution of forcibly baptized Jews who refused to abandon Jewish practices. Children were to be taken from backsliding parents and raised in monasteries. Salo W. Baron asserted that under Pope Paul IV. It was illegal to address a Jew as "Sir." Peter De Rosa said Pope Paul IV. filled a house full of `state-of-the-art instruments of torture.' Guido Kisch writes in his `The Jews in Medieval Germany' (The University of Chicago Press, 1949):

`It is well known in the history of criminal law that, beginning in the late Middle Ages and up to the seventeenth century, punishments were imposed on the Jews which differed considerably from those fixed by law and applied to Christian delinquents. They intensified the medieval system of penalties, cruel enough as it was. The motives of ridicule and degradation received especial emphasis, when hanged on the gallows, for instance, a Jew was suspended by the feet, instead of the neck. It became customary to string up two vicious dogs by their hind legs beside him, to make the punishment more ignominious and painful...In some provinces a Jewish thief hanged by the neck would have a Jews' hat filled with boiling pitch placed on his head...transgressions of similar prohibitions such as that against appearance in public on Good Friday, reviling the Christian religion, or engaging in conversionist activities, besides subjecting them to the appropriate penalties, deprived them of protection under the penal law which was otherwise guaranteed. As every Christian was bound to sacrifice his life for his faith if it were dishonorably attacked, so would he be acquitted in case he slew a Jew, heretic, or heathen in active defense of his faith. The general principle is thus pointed out in the Regulae juris, J155: "No Jew shall defame our Law. If he did so and were found guilty, he should be burnt." Regulae juris, J164: No Jew shall convert a Christian if he values his life." Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) renewed for medieval Christendom the old prohibition of the Christian Roman Empire against forced baptism of Jews. Once a Jew was baptised, however, even if by force, he had to remain faithful to Christianity, according to canon law...Be it even that they have been compelled to receive baptism, yet they shall remain steadfast in their Christian faith. This is so because no one can be deprived of baptism once received...It was Pope Innocent III who, in his letter to the archbishop of Arles in 1201, clearly stated that even those who under direct or indirect compulsion had accepted baptism had become members of the church and thus were to be compelled to the observance of the Christian faith...In 1267, relapse into Judaism was, in fact, explicitly equated with heresy by Pope Clement IV...This was done only after the foundation of the Papal Inquisition which brought all violations of the faith before its tribunals.'

Benzion Netanyahu tells us in The Origins of the Inquisition (Random House, 1995) that a plot was hatched by the Spanish authorities to slanderously accuse Jews and Marranos (Jewish Christians) of using black magic in a scheme to murder Christians and to destroy the `Holy Office,' the Inquisition, which Pope Sixtus IV. had sanctioned in Spain in 1480. The Spanish plot depicted the Jews uttering satanic incantations over the heart of a kidnapped Christian child, and above a stolen, consecrated host. The Jews, so the slander ran, crucified the child in a Black Mass. Jews were to be arrested and tortured by the Spanish authorities until they confessed to a crime they never committed. These confessions would then be published throughout Spain, and, with the image of Jews torturing a Christian child to enrage all of Spain, mobs could be counted on to be driven into a murderous frenzy against the Jews. Thus the Spanish authorities would be given a pretext to protect the Jews by driving them from Spain, as the Spanish Crown wanted to be seen as the protector of innocent Jews. Such was the plot behind the Holy Child of La Guardia, which indeed was put into action. Jews were arrested and tortured. When the confessions were not forthcoming, more excruciating torturers were applied until the confessions were forthcoming. In Avila (11.14.1491) five Jews and six Jewish Christians were condemned for desecrating the Host and torturing a Christian child to death in an effort to secure the aid of Satan to murder Christians and to put an end to the Inquisition. The Spanish authorities executed these innocent people by tearing the flesh off their bodies with red-hot pincers.

Consider Joseph Boyarsky's `The Life and Suffering of the Jew in Russia' (Los Angeles, 1912),

`In the year 987 A. D. the Russians were a wild and savage tribe, settled along the River Dnieper; the main camp being where the city of Kieff now stands. They were idolaters; in some cases offering up human sacrifice. They worshipped an idol, "Peroon."...Vladimir ordered the idol...cast down. Then Vladimir ordered all the population, men, women and children, to go and bathe in the Dnieper, waist deep, and all were baptised. Thenceforth the Russians became Christians...There was no preaching nor converting; the Russians were ordered to become Christians, and they obeyed...Tartars...In the year 1533 Ivan the Fourth, "The Terrible," became Czar of Russia...At the conquest of Polotsk, Ivan the Fourth ordered that all Jews who declined to adopt Christianity should be drowned in the River Duna...Ivan the Fourth amused himself by letting bears loose outside the gate of his palace, and watching the killing and maiming of pedestrians...Maliuta Skuratov was Ivan's evil genius...Ivan the Terrible...as a result of all his crimes, began to see the ghosts of the men he had ordered to be executed...all the household would be awakened by his screams. He would rush to the church...where he would pray very earnestly...knocking his forehead on the stony floor...The next day more executions - then more prayers...It must be remembered that the Russian Church is more progressive now than it was up to the time of Peter the Great, and Nikkon, the Archbishop, who reformed and elevated the service. Peter the Great was marked for assassination by the Russians that adhered to the old views. Those opposed to Nikkon's teachings are called to the present day "Starobriadzi"...I shall never forget an experience I had with one of these fanatics in Southern Russia. When I was a boy about eight years old, I was sent on an errand by my father to deliver a message to a Starobriadetz. Arriving at the Russian's house, I found the door ajar; I shouted, calling his name, but as there was no response, I waited. It was a sultry summer day and I was thirsty. On the table inside of the room I could see a pitcher filled with water, and a glass at its side. Being too thirsty to wait for a response to my knock, I crossed the threshold into the room, filled the glass with water, and drank. I had no sooner tasted the water than I was seized from behind by the collar, the glass was snatched from me, and I heard it fall and break in the yard. The pitcher followed it, with the same result; then I was wheeled about and looked with fear into the savage face of a big bearded Russian who hissed at me, "Thou anti-Christ! Thou Christ-killer! Thou Christ-seller! Thou accursed Jew." And the next thing I knew I was sent sprawling at length into the yard. My offense, from the Russian's standpoint was this: I had not removed my hat when entering the room where in the right corner, were the ikons (images). As a Jew, I had, according to his religious beliefs, defiled his house by entering therein; had defiled the water, the pitcher and the glass; neither he nor his family could use them any more. He had to burn incense to drive out the evil spirit that I had brought into the house. The very spot where I stood had to be scrubbed with hot water...Jewish parents were always in dread for their boys' safety. A child would be sent to a Jewish school in the morning, - an hour later the teacher would come running to the child's home, informing the parents that their Abe or Aaron had been seized by the "catchers" and hurried away from the town to a military post. The child was lost to his parents forever...Nicolas the First died in March, 1855....Alexander the Second...the serfs were emancipated in 1861...the Russian Jews did not forget the suffering and injustice their forefathers had endured in Poland. They had suffered from the Polish clergy, who accused them of using Christian blood for ritual purposes...the Jew had to bow and to flatter the Polish nobleman...A Polish nobleman, while walking in the street, heard the Russians coming, and in order to hide himself, he entered a Jew's house...The Jew suggested the best place for concealment would be inside a large brick oven. The Russians would not look into the oven for a Polish nobleman. The nobleman crawled into the oven and entered the furthest corner. A few minutes later the Jew heard the Pole calling out "Zydzie Zdym Chapke Bo to jest Pan." (Jew take off your hat, because a nobleman is present.) While crouching in the corner of the oven, with the noise of the Russian soldiers ringing in the Pole's ears, trembling for his life, he still insisted upon his honors as a Polish nobleman. The above...happened in 1863, sixty-eight years after the final partition of Poland...In "Nijni Novgorod," a city on the Volga, a Christian child, a girl of about six years, tried to cross a muddy street in the early Spring, just before the Jewish Passover and Easter Sunday. The child stuck in the mire. The more the little girl tried to extricate herself, the deeper she sank. She cried. A Jewish woman passing by at the time pulled the child out and took her to a nearby Jewish house to wash and clean the dirt from her garments. The child's mother missed her little one, and became alarmed. She inquired of her Christian neighbors if anyone had seen her child. One Russian woman remembered seeing the Jewish woman leading the little girl away. An alarm was raised, the Jews being accused of kidnapping the child with the intention of killing her for ritual purposes. The ignorant and superstitious Russians fell upon the Jewish inhabitants and killed and crippled many of them before the child was restored to its mother, safe and clean. The Metropolitan of Nijni Novgorod delivered a sermon against the outrage of the Christians. His sermon is printed and can be found in many synagogues of Russia...In 1885, I was employed as salesman in a dry goods store in the city of "Rostov on the Don." A few weeks before Easter Sunday and the Jewish Passover two women entered the store, a mother and daughter, leading a child about three years of age by the hand; they were Polish women; they spent considerable time selecting goods; there were a large number of Russian men and women in the store; the two Polish women missed the child and both of them became alarmed; all the clerks, a few Russians among them, and the customers, all Russians, made a thorough search in the store - but of no avail; the child could not be found. Naturally the mother was frantic, running back and forth, and wringing her hands in despair. A terrible suspicion entered her mind. "Oh, the Jews have stolen my child!" she screamed. Some of the Russian customers present became sullen; their jaws set; all the Jewish clerks, myself included, were more dead than alive from fright. The terrible blood accusations loomed up before me. I already imagined the Jewish population being massacred...The mother of the child ran outside into the street, screaming; a crowd gathered in front of the store. At the crucial moment a Russian appeared carrying the tot in his arms; he had picked her up a block away, where he had found her lying on the sidewalk crying and sobbing...That Russian never realized what a calamity to the Jews of that city he had prevented. In the reign of Nicolas the first, in the city of Saratov, there was a small Jewish community. Before the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter Sunday, a Jew was selling small pamphlets for the reading of the Jews during the holidays, in which was described the well known Biblical story of Pharoah's order that all the new-born male Jewish babes be thrown into the Nile. On the cover of the pamphlet was a picture representing the Egyptians taking away a boy baby from his mother, and preparing to throw him into the Nile. Some of the ignorant Russians, seeing this picture, took it to be a representation of a Jew stealing a Christian child for ritual purposes. The Russians fell upon the Jews and began butchering them... The other class of Russians in Rostov-on-the-Don, - the "Katzap," ...was just as ignorant, superstitious and brutal as the Bosiak, but in justice to the Katzap...he generally worked at a trade...the Katzap...Coming from the Northern provinces where Jews are not allowed to live...had no idea what a Jew was until he arrived in Southern Russia, part of which is within the Pale. All he knew about the Jews was that they were Christ-killers, and at home in his village church, when he heard the priest mention the name of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he thought that these three were Russians. He also thought that to abstain from meat for three successive Fridays would redeem him from the sin of Killing a Jew...a Bosiak entered a saloon kept by a Jew and ordered a drink of vodka...he was served. He swallowed the contents, and ordered another drink. The saloonkeeper reminded him that he had not paid for the first; the Bosiak claimed that he had paid, and hit the Jew...the Jew resented it, and hit him; the Bosiak fell onto the floor and lay still, pretending that he was dead. A number of the Bosiaks and Katzaps were standing inside and outside of the saloon...they raised the cry that a Jew had killed a Christian...The Jews tried to defend themselves...but were overpowered and beaten by the mob...armed with clubs and some with iron bars...The Jews fled for their lives. The Russian women and children appeared as if by magic, with a supply of empty sacks, and a systematic looting began...That this looting was premeditated was proven by the fact that the women and children who gathered so quickly were the poorest class of Russians that lived on the far outskirts of the city, and it would ordinarily have taken them a long time to reach the New Market...The riot was at an end. The rioters were bound hand and foot with ropes...The riot was over, but the effects of it had just begun for the Jews. Many of them that were well-to-do less than eight hours before were reduced to beggary. Hundreds of families were left penniless, without a home, food or clothing. The word "Pogrom" means in Russian, an ordinary disorder. The name was substituted for that of "robbery," so as to make it easier for the rioters when arrested. Had the charge been robbery, if convicted, they would have been sent to Siberia, but, convicted of participating in a Pogrom, meant a few months of life in jail without having to work....In the autumn of 1887, a Jewish merchant of Rostov-on-the-Don was convicted by a jury on a felony charge, and sentenced by the court to be exiled to Siberia; it meant instant imprisonment, and to be sent chained with other criminals to the city of Moscow, and in the Spring to be taken by train to Nijni Novgorod, placed in a steamer on the River Volga, packed with other convicts in the hold, and shipped to Irkutsk and turned loose. But it also meant more: the business, a dry goods store owned by the merchant had to be closed, and the merchandise sold at a loss, and having a wife and eight children to have them brought at the expense of the Government to Siberia as prisoners, or their passage to be paid by the merchant himself...It meant ruin...The room to which the jurymen retired to deliberate adjoined a hall where many people passed by; some of them...stood and listened at the door...The foreman, a well-known lumber-dealer, also a well-known Jew-hater, in casting his deciding vote in the jury-room, remarked that it gave him much pleasure to get rid of one Jew by sending him to Siberia. As stated before, the listeners had heard this remark which was reported to the attorneys for this merchant, who appealed to St. Petersburg, asking for a new trial on the ground of prejudice on the part of the foreman. It was very necessary that the decision for the granting of a new trial should come from St. Petersburg before the month of May, because convicts are sent to Siberia that month from Moscow; otherwise, if the decision for a new trial should come after the month of May, the merchant would have to stay, in case of another conviction, another year in the prison, and wait for another party of convicts to be sent with them to Siberia. In order to hasten the decision of the higher authorities at St. Petersburg it was decided to send the merchant's eldest daughter to the capital with a supply of money for presents to some high officials to push the case in the senate so that it should be taken up without delay. This eighteen-year-old girl, daughter of the convicted man, arrived at St. Petersburg, - that is, two stations beyond St. Petersburg, where she alighted from the train and took the next train back to St. Petersburg. The reason for this action is here explained: Whenever the police at the railroad station notice any Jew or Jewess arriving from the south by train, they immediately ask them for passports. If they are not mechanics, merchants of the first gild, physicians or lawyers, they immediately deport them from the city, but the police are not watching those coming from the north, where Jews are not allowed to reside, so it is very easy to enter the city from the other side. Arriving at the station she hired an Izvoschik (a one-horse sleigh), and in the bitter cold of a December night was driven to a hotel. Arriving at the place, her valises were taken inside and she was shown to a room. She made herself comfortable at the fireplace before unpacking her things. Someone knocked at the door..."Your passport, Mademoiselle, please." "Certainly," answered the girl..."Excuse me, you will have to go to some other place. We cannot keep you here." "Why not?" inquired the girl. "You are a Jewess; you have no right to live in St. Petersburg; you will be given notice by the police to leave the city tomorrow; we do not care to let our rooms for one night's lodging." The manager turned on his heel, and in another moment her grips were being carried out by two boys and left on the sidewalk, the girl following them with tears in her eyes...She engaged another Izvoschik and visited about a half dozen other hotels. She received the same treatment...at about 11:30 p.m. she was standing on the sidewalk, half frozen, with her belongings and not knowing what to do next...A man approached her from behind..."What is the matter with this hotel?" inquired the man, pointing at the entrance. "I am a Jewess, and they will not let me it in," answered the girl, sobbing..."Just jump into my sleigh. I will take you to one of my country women. She keeps a lodging house...'...The Pole spoke with such earnestness that she could not distrust him any more...in about a half hour she was sitting at the fireplace where a kind-hearted Polish woman was busying herself to make the poor half-frozen girl comfortable...The girl lived in St. Petersburg for several weeks unmolested; her passport was never presented to the police. The convicted man and all his children are at present loyal and patriotic citizens of the United States of America...The reader has now listened to many facts concerning the persecution of the Jews in Russia, all horrifying in nature, - and it is true that as many more heinous crimes have not been recorded here at all...but it must be known and realized as God's truth that the evils committed in Russia at the present day loom hideously against the background of yesterday's monstrous crimes...Twenty years ago there were what the Russian Government calls: "Pogroms," which are now replaced by massacres. Twenty years ago the name Hooligan, or Black Hundred, was unknown; today these organized bands of murderers and robbers swoop down at certain periods on inoffensive Jews, rob and butcher them and subject the Jewish women to unspeakable and indescribable indignities...Twenty years ago, as described above, a Jew could not name his child with a Russian name, because the authorities would not register the name in the book of births. Today, any Jew or Jewess, whose name is recorded as Abraham or Sarah, if they would dare to call themselves Ivan or Mary, would be imprisoned, or a heavy fine imposed upon them...During the Russo-Japanese War, wives and children of Physicians, who answered their country's call, and were performing their duty on the battlefields in Manchuria, were expelled from the Holy City of Kieff. The police interpreted the law, that wives and children of physicians have a right of residence in Kieff, only when their husbands or fathers are present, but as the physicians were away from Kieff, their families were subjected to deportation. The fact that the physicians were endangering their lives for Russia had no weight...The great power that the Christian clergy, Catholic and Protestant alike, possess, is of far greater force and magnitude than the combined forces of all Nations as represented in their armies and navies. A bloodless battle can be fought, no armies or navies, cannons or bayonets are needed, and it requires very little money as compared with the cost of sending an expedition...Let the pulpit of the Christian churches be the battlefield; the Word of God, of Truth, of Mercy and Righteousness be the ammunition...let the voice of Christendom thunder forth the condemnation of the Russian Government until it rings at the palace on the Neva; let the Russian Government be given to understand by all Christian Nations, that Russia must mend its evil ways if she wishes to be recognized as Christian and civilized. No doubt, if such a crusade should be set afoot against the Russian Government, there would be no more Pogroms and massacres, where men who call themselves Christians drive nails into the skulls of Jewish men, and dishonor daughters in the presence of their mothers before murdering them. Then the Christian people of all nations could point out with pride to their accomplishment and bring about the deliverance and salvation of the Russian Jew.'

Apropos of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, William H. Prescott writes in `The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic',

`Old traditions, as old indeed as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were revived, and charged on the present generation...Christian children were said to be kidnapped in order to be crucified in derision of the Saviour; the host, it was rumored, was exposed to the grossest indignities; and physicians and apothecaries, whose science was particularly cultivated by the Jews in the Middle Ages, were accused of poisoning their Christian patients. No rumor was too absurd for the easy credulity of the people...These various offenses were urged against the Jews with great pertinacity by their enemies...The inquisitors...asserted that the only mode left for the extirpation of the Jewish heresy was to eradicate the seed; and they boldly demanded the immediate and total banishment of every unbaptized Israelite from the land...The edict for the expulsion of the Jews was signed by the Spanish sovereigns at Grenada, March 30th, 1492...It finally decrees that all unbaptized Jews, of whatever age, sex, or condition, should depart from the realm by the end of July next ensuing; prohibiting them from revisiting it, on any pretext whatever, under penalty of death and confiscation of property. It was, moreover, interdicted to every subject to harbour, succor, or minister to the necessities of any Jew, after the expiration of the term limited for his departure...The doom of exile fell like a thunderbolt on the heads of the Israelites...Many had risen to a degree of opulence...Their families were reared in all the elegant refinements of life...They were to go forth as exiles from the land of their birth; the land where all whom they ever loved had lived or died; the land not so much of their adoption as of their inheritance; which had been the home of their ancestors for centuries...They were to be cast out helpless and defenseless, with a brand of infamy set on them, among nations who had always held them in derision and hatred...As they were excluded from the use of gold and silver, the only medium for representing their property was bills of exchange...It was impossible, moreover, to negotiate a sale of their effects under the existing circumstances, since the market was soon glutted with commodities...a chronicler of the day mentions that he had seen a house exchanged for an ass, and a vineyard for a suit of clothes!...They (the Jewish Rabbins) encouraged them to persevere, representing that the present afflictions were intended as a trial of their faith by the Almighty, who designed in this way to guide them to the promised land, by opening a path through the waters, as he had done to their fathers of old...When the period of departure arrived, all the principal routes through the country might be seen swarming with emigrants, old and young, the sick and the helpless, men, women, and children, mingled promiscuously together...The fugitives were distributed along various routes...Much the largest division, amounting according to some estimates to eighty thousand souls, passed into Portugal; whose monarch, John the Second, dispensed with his scruples of conscience so far as to give them free passage through his dominions on their way to Africa, in consideration of a tax of a cruzado a head...A considerable number found their way to the ports of Santa Maria and Cadiz, where, after lingering some time in the vain hope of seeing the waters open for the egress, according to the promise of the Rabbins, they embarked on board a Spanish fleet for the Barbary coast. Having crossed over to Ercilla, a Christian settlement in Africa, whence they proceeded by land toward Fez, where a considerable body of their countrymen resided, they were assaulted on their route by the roving tribes of the desert, in quest of plunder. Notwithstanding the interdict, the Jews had contrived to secrete small sums of money, sewed up in their garments or the linings of their saddles. These did not escape the eyes of their spoilers, who are even said to have ripped open the bodies of their victims in search of gold which they were supposed to have swallowed. The lawless barbarians, mingling lust with avarice, abandoned themselves to still more frightful excesses, violating the wives and daughters of the unresisting Jews, or massacring in cold blood such as offered resistance. But, without pursuing these loathsome details further, it need only be added that the miserable exiles endured such extremity of famine that they were glad to force a nourishment from the grass which grew scantily among the sands of the desert; until at length great numbers of them, wasted by disease and broken in spirit, retraced their steps to Ercilla, and consented to be baptized, in the hope of being permitted to revisit their native land...Many of the emigrants took the direction of Italy. Those who landed at Naples brought with them an infectious disorder, contracted by long confinement in small, crowed, and ill-provided vessels. The disorder was so malignant...as to sweep off more than twenty thousand inhabitants of the city in the course of the year, whence it extended its devastation over the whole Italian peninsula. A graphic picture of these horrors is given by a Genoese historian..."No one," he says, "could behold the sufferings of the Jewish exiles unmoved". A great many perished of hunger, especially those of tender years...Some were murdered...others forced to sell their children for the expenses of the passage...We need look no further for the principle of action, in this case, than the spirit of religious bigotry which led to similar expulsion of the Jews from England, France, and other parts of Europe, as well as from Portugal, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, a few years later...The Portuguese government caused all children of fourteen years of age, or under, to be taken from their parents and retained in the country...How far the banishment of the Jews was conformable to the opinions of the most enlightened contemporaries, may be gathered from the encomiums lavished on its authors from more than one quarter. Spanish writers, without exception, celebrate it as a sublime sacrifice of all temporal interests to religious principle. The best instructed foreigners, in like manner, however they may condemn the details of its execution or commiserate the sufferings of the Jews, commend the act, as evincing the most laudable zeal for the true faith.'

If the `Jewish myth' was never invented, if millions of Jews had never embraced the `delusion of Judaism,' or if they had renounced their `superstition' and assimilated with the masses, then millions of Jews would never have suffered cruelty and terror and mass murder over the centuries at the hands of the Babylonians and the Romans and all of the medieval and modern barbarians brandishing crosses, crescents and swastikas.

We have two scenarios to consider: either, A) the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob exists, or, B) The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob doesn't exist. In scenario A, it was God who invented the Jews. It was not the Jews who invented God. And in scenario B, some ancient Hebrews dreamed up a delusion, a superstition, one which led to inconceivable amounts of human suffering.

In both scenarios it is insane to speak of the Jewish invention of God as something which is praiseworthy. Why does the editor descend into insanity? Because 1) He doesn't want to say that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob exists and must be worshipped, loved, feared and obeyed, and 2) He doesn't want to say that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is as mythological as Apollo and Aphrodite - he doesn't care to announce that the Jews have been deluded for thousands of years in regards to their non-existent Deity. Therefore, not wishing to offend anyone, striving to be a congenial fellow who doesn't hold any controversial doctrines in his head, the editor scribbles his nonsense that the Jewish invention of ethical monotheism is something which we should consider praiseworthy.

Deuteronomy 7. 6-9,

`For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.'

We have two options: 1) God is the inspiration behind those words, or 2) Some human being or some group of human beings provided the inspiration for those words. If God inspired those words then it is idiotic to speak of human beings `inventing' ethical monotheism. And if there is no God, though of course there is, then it is idiotic to think the invention of `ethical monotheism' is something praiseworthy, when what is required is `ethical Atheism'.

We're still on this theme which says that if a person actually had the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on his heart, then he would not preach insane ideas.

For another example of madness consider Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr. Wikipedia has an excellent article on him. After Yale Divinity School, Niebuhr became a pastor at a Protestant church in Detroit. He fought to give factory workers better working conditions. He reproached Protestants for creating and supporting the Ku Klux Klan, and he helped a Catholic defeat a Protestant in a Detroit mayoral race. He angered the pacifists by supporting America in World War II and by supporting the development of nuclear weapons, though he opposed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Early in his career he reproached Christians for not attempting to convert the Jews, but, later, he said it was wrong for Christians to try to convert the Jews to Christianity. He was an ardent Zionist but he did not use theological arguments to support Zionism. As early as 1942 he called for the removal of all Arabs from the Holy Land. He was angry with Joe McCarthy, not because of any trespassing on civil liberties - but because he thought McCarthy was ineffective in rooting out Communists and their sympathizers. He was one of the founders of the ADA - Americans for Democratic Action - which is to Liberals what Christianity is to Christians. It was founded by Liberal anti-Communists at the height of the Cold War who wanted to distinguish themselves from those who leaned far towards Communism, and were known by the term: Fellow Travelers. Barack Obama has said Reinhold Niebuhr is his favorite philosopher and his favorite theologian. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Rev. Niebuhr in his Letters from Birmingham Jail, but Niebuhr distanced himself from the Civil Rights Movement, insisting that segregation must be ended by social change rather than by the imposition of laws.

Again the logic we are pursuing runs as follows: if one preaches insane ideas, then, one can not have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on ones heart. And if one does not have the Divine Law written on ones heart, then one is not a True Christian, and one is divorced from the True Church.

In Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein's `What You Should Know About Jews and Judaism' (Word Books 1994) we're informed that the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr endorsed something called the double covenant theory, which holds that Jesus is a way for the Gentiles to come to God, but the Jews are already with the Father, and don't require Jesus. To take this position Niebuhr must have concluded that the New Testament was untrustworthy, because these scriptures clearly teach the doctrine that one must believe in Jesus in order to be redeemed. The New Testament is quite unambiguous: one must believe in Jesus in order to be saved. There's John 1ii. 16. There's 2 Thess 1. 8 - fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. Galatians 1. 12 tells us St. Paul learned his gospel via a revelation from Christ. In Galatians 1. 8, St. Paul tells us that even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters St. Paul's gospel. Therefore, devout Christians do not contradict St. Paul, and St. Paul did not teach the `double covenant theory.' He wrote in Ephesians 4. 4,

`There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'

John 14: 23-26,

`Jesus answered him and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings...But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'

Again Jesus said in John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

1 John 2. 22-23 is very blunt and clear - `he is antichrist who denies the Father and the son. Whoever denies the son does not have the Father...'

Luke 10. 16,

`he who rejects Me [Jesus, God the Son] rejects Him [God the Father] who sent Me.'

Acts 3. 23-25 is also perfectly clear,

`Every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed'

Rev. Niebuhr was confronted with two clear-cut choices: either, 1) God, that is God the Son - John 1. 1-14, Col 2. 8-10, 1 Tim 3. 16, Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6 etc. - actually suffered and died on a cross, or, 2) God never suffered and died on a cross.

If God did indeed suffer and die on a cross as the New Testament asserts, then, a) it is logical to assume that those who say or imply that Jesus is a fraud - he is no God! - will be damned, and b) the same scriptures which gave us the extraordinary truth that God suffered and died on a cross, also, assert, over and over, that one must believe in this crucified God in order to attain salvation.

If God never suffered and died on a cross, if Jesus is a bogus deity, then it is folly to be any sort of Christian. If Jesus is a bogus deity, then, the True God would consider it blasphemy to say that Jesus is God.

In all cases - in the case where Jesus is God \- and in the case where Jesus is a bogus deity - the Double Covenant theory is madness. Rev. Niebuhr was not the only clergyman in the history of the world to be led by Political Correctness to embrace madness.

By casting doubt on the authority of the New Testament, Niebuhr cast doubt on heaven and hell. He helped to give naïve people the impression that the Christian scriptures are untrustworthy, which is like shoving naïve people in the direction of hell. To cast doubt on the authority of the New Testament is to cast doubt on Matthew 24. 27. If people don't believe Matthew 24. 27 is trustworthy, they will be more susceptible to charlatans, to false messiahs who did not arrive on earth as the lightning which flashes from east to west.

§ 9. You're Damned if You Can't Teach Religion with the Authority of God?

If one accepts the words which Christ announced at the Last Supper, `For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many' then one will accept Jeremiah 31. 31-34. And again, Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

If one has a Divine Law written on ones heart then, it stands to reason, one will be able to teach religion with the authority of God. It's true that it seems very doubtful that human beings could ever teach religion with the authority of God, but we are primarily concerned with avoiding the big mistakes, the mistakes which lead souls to perdition. If a person has the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on his heart, then, though he might make a few minor mistakes now and then, nevertheless he will know how to attain heaven and he will know how to elude hell - and in this sense he can be said to teach religion with the authority of God - or close enough! If one can't teach religion with the authority of God, then one does not have the Divine Law written on ones heart. If one does not have the Divine Law written on ones heart, then one does not understand the gospel. Can one obey the gospel if one doesn't understand it? 2 Thess 1 . 8 says one is damned if one does not obey the gospel. Therefore, or so the logic runs, one is damned if one can not teach religion with the authority of God. Isn't this just a restatement of John 14. 23-26 and Galatians 1. 8? Those who love Christ keep His words. If you keep Christ's words you ought to be able to know how to attain heaven and elude hell. Furthermore, Paul said in Galatians 1 8 even an angel from heaven is accursed if he corrupts Paul's gospel. So, if one can teach religion without corrupting Paul's gospel, and if one keeps Christ's words, one ought to be able to teach religion with the authority of God - or close enough. Recall that the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 can be written on the hearts of even the least of God's people.

Christianity declares that Jesus is the Prophet spoken of in Acts 3. 22-25, which repeats Deuteronomy 18. 15-19,

`Every soul who will not hear that Prophet will be utterly destroyed.'

The New Testament's teaching on hell and perdition might be a little complex. Evidently one can make a multitude of errors and still be forgiven, as I Peter 4. 8 says,

`Love covers a multitude of sins.'

Matthew 6. 33-4,

`But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you...Do not worry about tomorrow.'

To seek the New Law, or to seek the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or to seek the Divine Law, are all the same as seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Ephesians 5. 5,

`For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolator, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Galatians 5. 16-24,

`Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh...adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, Idolatry...drunkenness, revelries...Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God...Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.'

The words `those who are Christ's' recalls John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

Ephesians 6. 11-18,

Put on the whole armor of God, that you maybe able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against...spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places...And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit...The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God', refers to the Bible, recall 2 Tim 3. 16 \- `All Scripture is given by inspiration of God...'

Is it possible to accurately and yet concisely explain Christianity? I guess it depends on how concise one expects the explanation to be. Even if one reads a good epitome of Christianity one will probably always feel confused if one never studies the Bible.

Romans 14. 12 tells us that we live in a world where, eventually, everyone will stand before God, and everyone will have to give an accounting of himself or herself to the Creator of the Universe. You'll want to be at your best for this interview! And what is the upshot of ones interview with the Creator of the Universe? Those people who are rejected are cast into a lake of fire, at something called the Second Death, see Revelation 20. 15. Those people who are accepted are accepted into the Kingdom of God, aka Heaven.

The Christian hellfire scriptures are of course unpopular with non-Christians, and unpopular with many Christians for that matter. John 15. 12 - Christ's commandment to love one another - and Mark 11. 23-26 - if you don't forgive others their trespasses against you then God won't forgive your trespasses \- are popular with non-Christians, because, though non-Christians see Christianity as a myth, nevertheless, it becomes a useful myth, useful in making the world a more beautiful place, when Christians strive to live according to John 15. 12 and Mark 11. 23-26.

Again, Ephesians 5. 5,

`For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolator, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.'

And who are the covetous? Is every rich person a covetous person? The New Testament has many hellfire scriptures directed at rich people. Note for instance Luke 16. 19-31 (the parable of Lazarus and the rich man). Then there's Matthew 25. 35-46, James 1. 9, Luke 3. 7-14, I John 3. 17, I Tim 6. 9-10, Luke 6. 24, Luke 18. 25, Matthew 19. 23-4,

Acts 2. 44-45 and Acts 4. 32-35 tell us there is equal sharing of the wealth in God's Church. St. Paul tells us in 2 Thess 3. 10, in so many words, that if an able-bodied person refuses to work then should not be given alms to buy food. But, all the same, Acts 2. 44-45 and Acts 4. 32-35 say what they say. Matthew 25. 41-46 has Jesus saying,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

1 John 3. 17,

`But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

James 1. 9,

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away.'

Christ says in Luke 6. 24-5: `But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger...'

Everyone knows there are kind, altruistic, sweet-natured, intelligent, charitable and long-suffering people to be found in all of the world's major religions. And from this observation one might be led to conclude that doctrine is unimportant, and led to conclude that one may subscribe to a false religion and still attain heaven and avoid perdition, provided one is charitable, provided one has love in ones heart. It's true that I Peter 4. 8 tells us that love covers a multitude of sins, but it would make no sense for a Christian to elevate that single scripture over every other Christian scripture. If one is a non-Christian, then one rejects John 1. 1-15, Colossians 2. 8-10, I Timothy 3. 16 - these tell us Jesus is God, i.e., God the Son - if one rejects these scriptures, if one believes that Jesus is a bogus deity, then this can't work to ones advantage if Jesus is God! Furthermore, if one doesn't believe in a crucified God, one can have no compassion on the crucified God. And if one has no compassion on the crucified God, how could one expect to go to heaven when one passes away, assuming God was once crucified?

2 Thess 1. 8 tells of some fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This makes no sense if God was never crucified. But it makes sense if indeed God was crucified. Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, Colossians 2. 8-10, John 1. 1-14, I Timothy 3. 16, Matthew 1. 23 (Immanuel = God with us), Matthew 2. 11 (worshipped Him means he's God) are some scriptures pertaining to the Divinity of Jesus.

Romans 8. 13,

`If you live according to the flesh you will die.'

The contention that one must be a True Christian to go to heaven is simply a restatement of Galatians 1. 8, John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8, Revelation 20. 15, Ephesians 5. 5, Matthew 25. 34-46, Luke 16. 19-31, Luke 3. 7-14, Acts 3. 22-25 etc., etc.

If one has the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on ones heart, then one is a temple of God.

1 Corinthians 6. 19,

`Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own.'

Romans 8. 1 - 39,

`THERE is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit...For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace...if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His...But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you...if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live...For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us...And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose...For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord.'

§ 10. Knowing God.

As we know, 2 Thess 1. 8 tells of hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some logic upholding 2 Thess 1. 8 would run as follows: if in fact God suffered and died on a cross, then, it stands to reason that the penalty given to those people who insist that Jesus is a fraud and a bogus deity, and the penalty given to those people who scorn the teachings of the crucified God, will not be pleasant. If indeed God was tortured and executed on a cross, then it would make sense to think He would be angry with those who scorn both Him and His teachings; it would make sense that He is not pleased with people who say or imply He is a fraud and a bogus deity. Of course if God was never crucified then this changes matters! But if God was crucified, then 2 Thess 1. 8 makes perfect sense.

People often believe that, since Protestants, Eastern Orthodox and Catholics all claim to worship the Christian God, then, they must worship the same God.

Different Christian sects have different conceptions of God. Different sects ascribe different attributes to God. The Popes believe that God supports the Roman Catholic, a God who insists that Rome and only Rome is the Bride of Christ, the True Church. The Eastern Orthodox see God as a God who says the Eastern Orthodox Church leads people to heaven, a God who says the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. Episcopalians envision God as a Deity who says the Episcopalian Church leads people to heaven.

The Lutherans, or at least some Lutherans, worship a God who says it was wise for Luther to decamp from the evil, fallen, corrupt Roman Catholic Church, the whore of Babylon. Luther worshipped a God who said Rome is the Devil's church. This Lutheran God is certainly not the god that the Roman Catholics worship! Lutherans and Catholics ascribe different attributes to God, therefore they worship different Gods.

Recall again that the Pharisees sincerely believed that they worshipped the True God, the Creator of the Universe. Christians insist that if one had a hand in crucifying God, Jesus, then, obviously, one might sincerely believe that one worships the True God, but, in truth, one does not worship the True God. Christ stated in Revelation 2. 9,

`I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.'

One might think that one worships the True God, but if one makes a mistake, because one doesn't actually know God, if one makes a mistake and and ascribes evil attributes to the Creator of the Universe, then, when one worships `god', one worships a god with evil attributes, that is, one worships an evil god, not the Creator of the Universe. Yes, one might sincerely think one is worshipping the True God, but, if one ascribes evil attributes to God, which results because one does not know God, though one thinks one does, then one will be worshipping an evil god not the True god. If one worships an evil god, and any false god is evil and beastly, because fale gods lead people away from heaven and straight to perdition, and that's evil. Whenever one falls to one's knees to worship a false god, then it seems plausible to assert thatone is worshipping this beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 1-8,

`THEN I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns...Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion...And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war against him?..It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life...'

2 Thess 1. 8 gives one an excellent reason to know God, as again that scripture mentions hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Owen Chadwick in his `A History of Christianity' (St. Martin's Press, 1995) states that Votaire was referring to totalitarian regimes in general and the Catholic Church in particular when he spoke of crushing `L'Infame'. To the non-Catholic, then, there was no intention on Voltaire's part to crush Christianity, to outlaw the worship of Jesus, to ban preaching, or to prohibit the administration of the sacraments. Voltaire sought only to crush infamous and tyrannical forces within Christendom. He was horrified by the treatment given to the Protestant Calas, who was falsely accused of murdering his son, who sought conversion to Catholicism. The father was broken on the wheel and executed. No confession was ever wrung from him, though he was tortured for a full month by the Catholic authorities. But to the Roman Catholic, when a person says he wants to crush Roman Catholicism, then that person wants to destroy True Christianity, because, to the Roman Catholic, Roman Catholicism is True Christianity.

Charles Dickens informed us of 18th century conditions in Catholic France on the first page of 'A Tale of Two Cities:

'France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and the trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have has hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards.'

So, some or many Roman Catholics in 18th century France envisioned God to be the sort of God who smiled upon this judicial action toward the youth. To non-Catholics, it is a very terrible blasphemy to say that the Creator of the Universe smiled in delight as He watched the youth being tortured to death. To modern Roman Catholics, however, when you say that those 18th century French Catholics and the god of those 18th century French Catholics can all go to hell, then you're telling modern Roman Catholics that you want the Creator of the Universe to go to hell, when that is not your intention, because you don't believe the god of those 18th century French Catholics is the Creator of the Universe. So you see it takes a little abstract thinking ability to keep all of this straight.

Rome says that Luther and his followers didn't know God, because, if they really knew God, then they would not have betrayed and slandered the Bride of Christ, God's True Church, the Roman Catholic Church, by calling the Bride of Christ the whore of Babylon, the church of Satan etc.. 16th century Roman Catholics worshipped a God who said that Luther was a deluded heretic who founded an evil, deluded church. 16th century Rome said that Luther worshipped a false and evil god. Naturally, 21st century Roman Catholics do not always agree with 16th century Roman Catholics, and 21st century Lutherans do not always agree with 16th century Lutherans. The point is, two people can both claim to worship the Creator of the Universe, the True God, two people can even claim to worship the Christian Trinity, and yet these two people can still worship vastly different Deities.

For centuries the Church of Rome taught the doctrine that a Jew should be burned at the stake if he defamed the Catholic Church. The Medieval Catholic Church set the Inquisition on those who defied Rome by reading the Bible after Rome decreed that laymen were forbidden to read the Bible. Rome insists that the Church of Rome has always been the True Church of God, the Bride of Christ. Rome insists that Rome has never fallen away. Rome gives one a take it or leave it proposition here. Lord Acton in his essay, `The Protestant Theory of Persecution', quotes Luther on how true believers ought to act toward misbelievers: `the faithful ought to pursue the evil to its source, and bathe their hands in the blood of the Catholic bishops, and of the Pope, who is a devil in disguise.' So much of the history of Christianity pertains to the question: When do opinions become so unpolpular that it becomes necessary to slaughter the people who hold the unpopular opinions? I suppose most Christians today would say that God is the sort of God who never wants Christians to slaughter people merely because of their opinions. But this was not the attitude of Christians in the Middle Ages! In the Middles Ages, Christians saw God as the sort of God who wanted no end of torture inflicted on various people. The Middle Ages conjure up images of racks and stakes and iron maidens, of persecuted Jews and people loaded with chains and languishing for decade after decade in dudgeons. Christian love and charity are not always the first things that spring to mind when we envision the centuries which span the civilization under the sign of the cross!

Gibbon writes of the 4th century Catholic Emperor Valentinian and his judges,

`They easily discovered, that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of executions that were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained by perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity, but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, was seldom permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures...The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, `Strike off his head;' `Burn him alive;' `Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;'....He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage.'

So you can see how this Catholic Emperor, Valentinian, probably insisted that he worshipped the Creator of the Universe. But, or so the theory runs, Valentinian ascribed false and evil attributes to the Creator of the Universe - he worshipped a god who, he believed, approved his actions, and therefore he worshipped a false and evil god - he worshipped a god who smiled upon Valentinian's conduct, whereas, we can safely assume, the True God is not the sort of God who smiled upon Valentinian's conduct.

Gibbon writes of Constantine, the first `Christian' Roman Emperor:

`The laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since the description of that crime was applied not only to brutal violence which compelled, but even to gentle seduction which might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of her parents. The successful ravisher was punished with death; and as if simple death was inadequate to the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin's declaration that she had been carried away with her own consent, instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves, whether male or female, who were convicted of having been accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity of melted lead.'

It doesn't take too much mental effort to see that Constantine did not know the True God. If he knew God then he would not have been pouring molten lead down people's throats, because, we might assume - the True God hates that sort of thing.

Did Luther know God? Luther wanted Anabaptists executed. Did God want them executed? Is executing Anabaptists an integral part of the Divine Law? Calvin didn't want Servetus burned alive, but Calvin still wanted him executed for the sin of denying the Trinity. Is execution of Anabaptists and Unitarians an integral part of the Divine Law? Paul Johnson in his `History of Christianity' tells us that Theodore Beza, a 16th century Protestant `intellectual' - a Professor of Greek at Lausanne - wanted the most ferocious tortures inflicted on people who were heretics - people, for example, who rejected the Trinity. Evidently the god Beza worshipped delighted in the screams of tortured Unitarians. In `A History of the Christian Church' the authors - Walker, Richardson, Pauck and Handy tell us, p. 357, that Beza was a man of a more conciliatory spirit and gentler ways than Calvin. Who do you trust Johnson or Walker? I suspect that academics whitewash the crimes of people like Beza because if they didn't whitewash the crimes of theologians their books would be filled with endless accounts of atrocities committed by theologians, and writers know that readers will eventually get bored with books filled with endless accounts of atrocities. If Rome fell away from the True Faith, then, if the Protestant reformers were just as cruel and as barbaric as the Catholics, then the cruel and barbaric Protestant reformers also fell away from the Faith established by the Christ and the apostles: they led souls to perdition; Protestant academics will naturally be inclined to whitewash crimes which would lead people to believe that the Protestant reformers led souls to perdition. If Rome was to announce in 2013 that the Inquisition, `Holy Office' was unholy, Rome would only have more problems answering her critics. If Rome declared unholy something which she had declared holy for centuries, then Rome would be admitting she committed sacrilege for centuries. As things now stand Rome continues to admit that she continues to worship a god who sees the `Holy Office' as holy, so, those people who say the Inquisition is evil will observe that the Roman Catholics worship a god who supports the evil Inquisition, and therefore the Roman Catholic god can not be the Creator of the Universe, because the Creator of the Universe does not say the Inquisition is a `Holy Office'. If one knew God one would know what God thinks of the Inquisition. Of course we recall what 2 Thess 1. 8 says about those who do not know God - fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. Your medieval theologian reasoned that since God tortured sinners in hellfire, therefore God's True Church has the right to torture sinners - and worst sort of sinner in the eyes of your medieval theologian was someone who disagreed with him. But we don't read in the New Testement that Christ and the apostles wanted the True Church to torture and murder people; there is lots of advice on loving and praying for your enemies in the New Testement, but the New Testament never advises anyone to torture and murder anyone. So, when you are looking for evidence of a falling away from the True Faith, then you begin your search in the 4th century, because this is when people under the sign of the cross began to torture and murder people because of religious disagreements.

Paul Johnson, a Roman Catholic, doesn't whitewash any Protestant evils. He tells us that George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, supported slavery (presumably the African slave trade) and that John Wesley - the founder of Methodism - supported burning `witches'. The quotation marks are used because `witches' were usually innocent women slandered as witches. Does it make any sense to say Fox and Wesley understood the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34? In former centuries, Catholics and Lutherans subjected the Anabaptists to the most frightful tortures. Therefore, these Catholics and Lutherans envisioned God to be the sort of God who wanted the Anabaptists subjected to the most frightful tortured, which might lead you to believe that these Catholics and Lutherans, though they insisted they worshipped the Creator of the Universe, actually worshipped evil deities, such as the dragon and the beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 1-8.

Protestantism rests on the logic that both Rome and Eastern Orthodox have fallen away from the True Faith, and neither is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. If either Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy was the True Church, then, there would be no reason for any Protestant sect to exist. For century after century, when Christians fell to their knees to worship God, they envisioned God to be a deity who smiled upon the cruel jurisprudence of the Middle Ages, who smiled upon the African slave trade, who threw His full support behind the Inquisition, who approved the oppression of the peasantry by the nobles, who wanted women accused of witchcraft tortured to determine if in fact they were witches etc., etc. Therefore, one would think, that millions of intelligent 21st century Christians ought be able to understand that these barbarous Christians of former centuries worshipped things with evil attributes: they claimed to worship the True God, but, in fact, they worshipped evil things.

Rome says that Jesus is a Roman Catholic Deity. Rome says, that God says, that the Inquisition, the `Holy Office', is indeed holy. Rome says, that God says, that Rome and only Rome is the True Church. Protestants say, that God says, that Rome has fallen away from the True Faith. Protestants say, that God says, the Inquisition was evil not holy.

So, you see, though Protestants and Catholics both claim to worship the Christian God, nevertheless, they don't worship the same God.

It's a paradox but the evils committed by people under the sign of the cross is evidence of fulfilled New Testament prophecies, and hence is evidence in favor of Christianity. The evils committed by people under the sign of the cross are, of course, not conclusive proof that Christianity is true! But these evils do corroborate some Christian prophecies. We've seen above that in 2 Thess 2 St. Paul made a prophecy that there would be a falling away from the True Faith. St. Paul states in Acts 20: 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11: 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

1 Timothy 4. 1-3,

`Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.'

One of Voltaire's complaints against the Christian pastors was that they gave their blessings to the State. And the State was often cruel and evil, and therefore, the State warred against Christ's teachings of love and mercy. The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963 edition) states,

`Capital punishment was once a common penalty throughout the world. It was inflicted for a large number of crimes, especially during the middle ages and the early modern period, and was often aggravated by torture. Burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel and slow strangulation were methods commonly used. The attitude of legislative authorities toward human life is reflected in the frequent application of the penalty to even petty property offenses. In England during the 18th century death was decreed for several hundred specific offenses, mostly against property. The turning point came in that century, when the rise of democratic political philosophy led to political struggles against the old regimes. The writings of Montesquieu and Voltaire and, especially, C. B. Beccaria's Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1764) proved to be a powerful stimulus to reform.'

Christian society, in the beginning, in the first century AD, was a benevolent society. There were always false brethren, Judas, for instance, and St. Paul gives of the names of others, but Christian society was, generally speaking, very benevolent. But as the grains of sand fell through the hour glass, as the centuries passed, the civilization under the sign of the cross became, generally speaking, malevolent. There was a falling away from the True Faith. The reader will recall that the Roman Empire passed from the condition of a pagan empire into the condition of a Christian empire in the fourth century. But we must be careful how we envision that Christian Roman Empire under Constantine and his successors. An empire might be Christian in some sense, and yet it might also be evil, and very far from apostolic purity.

Four centuries after Christ, St. Augustine acknowledged that Christendom had become a den of wolves masquerading as Christians: `so many wolves within, so many sheep outside.'

Will Durant told us that the pagan laws of Rome condemned to slavery a free woman who married a slave. Under the first Christian Emperor, Constantine ordered the same woman executed, and the slave burned alive.

The Catholic Emperor Gratian decreed that a slave who accused his master of any offense save high treason was to be immediately burned alive, without any inquiry to determine the truth of his accusation.

The Catholic Justinian Code punished homosexual vice with prolonged torture and slow death. That Code authorized the legal precept that guilt could be determined on the testimony of a single child, but the testimony of an entire synagogue of Jews could not be used against a single Catholic.

At the beginning of the 4th century the Christians were a persecuted sect. But later in the 4th century, the Roman Empire ceased to be pagan and become, in some sense, `Christian.' But it embraced a new and tyrannical form of Christianity. Catholic Emperors, with the support or acquiescence of the bishops, had become tyrannical. As we saw earlier, Gibbon described for us the nature of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Catholics,

`They protected all persons of illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards the prince or republic, all privileges were suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of malicious information, which might select them as accomplices, or even as witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.'

Apropos of evidence saying the Eastern Orthodox Church fell away from the True Faith, the Eastern Orthodox clergy, for century after century, was notorious for supporting evil monarchs and their evil henchmen. And, for century after century, Eastern Orthodox laymen murdered the Jews with terrible ferocity. The Eastern Orthodoxy Church did not excommunicate the murderers of Jews.

Again, St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11. 27 that it is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. St. Paul is quite clear in stating that good Christians are not to celebrate the Eucharist with Christians who aren't behaving themselves the way Christians are supposed to behave. The contention that Christ and the apostles wanted Christians to always obey monarchs is preposterous. Christians were never ordered to do obey a monarch when he issued anti-Christian orders: such as murdering people on a king's orders, worshipping the image of a king etc.

§ 11. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

One doesn't want to crush anyones hopes for heaven by convincing them they have committed an unforgiveable sin in blaspheming the Holy Spirit, when they have not quite committed an unforgiveable sin, though they are perilously close to doing so. But, nevertheless, one must explain to people why one must not say or imply the Holy Spirit guides churches which perpetrate evil for century after century. It is a very simple matter to present evidence which proves the Roman Catholic Church has perpetrated evil for century after century. Rome claims to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Isn't it blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to say the Holy Spirit guides a church which has perpetrated evil for century after century?

We're also looking into some questions asked earlier, 1) Are the evils perpetrated by people carrying crosses reflected in the sign of the cross? And 2) Did the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2 happen centuries ago under the sign of the cross? Again, one might want to suspect that the Roman Catholic Church has fallen away from the True Faith when she burns people for reading Bibles. Paul Johnson writes in `A History of Christianity', p. 273,

`In the West, the clergy had begun to assert an exclusive interpretive, indeed custodial, right to the Bible as early as the ninth century; and from about 1080 there had been frequent instances of the Pope, councils and bishops forbidding not only vernacular translations but any reading at all, by laymen, of the Bible taken as a whole...attempts to scrutinize the Bible became proof presumptive of heresy - a man or woman might burn [at the stake] for it alone.'

Charles Dickens once tarried in Avignon and wrote of what he saw in his 'Sketches of Italy.' He described to us one of the torture chambers in the Palace of the Popes. There was a painting of the Good Samaritan on the wall hard by the iron spikes, once heated red-hot, and upon which the victims of the Inquisition were formerly impaled.

Major Griffiths wrote the following in his In Old French Prisons (Dorset Press, 1992):

`We are familiar enough with the "rack," the "wheel," the thumb screw" and the "boot." Other less known forms of torture were the "veglia" introduced into France by the popes when the Holy See came to Avignon. The "veglia" consisted of a small wooden stool so constructed that when the accused sat upon it his whole weight rested on the extremity of his spine. His sufferings soon became acute. He groaned, he shrieked and then fainted, whereupon the punishment ceased until he came to and was again placed on the stool. It was usual to hold a looking glass before his eyes that his distorted features might frighten him into confession.'

Dr. Milman wrote in `History of Latin Christianity',

`James, Cardinal of Porto, was proclaimed Pope, and assumed the name of John XXII....He was born in Cahors, of the humblest parentage, his father a cobbler. This, if true, was anything but dishonorable to the Pope, still less to the Church. During an age when all without was stern and inflexible aristocracy, all functions and dignities held by feudal inheritance, in the Church alone a man of extraordinary talents could rise to eminence...But the profound learning of John XXII., though reputed to embrace not only theology, but both branches of the law, the canon and the civil, was but the melancholy ignorance of his age...A dark conspiracy was formed, or supposed to be formed, in which many of the Cardinals were involved, against the life of the Pope...The full vengeance of the Pope fell on...Gerold, Bishop of the Pope's native city, Cahors...he was now degraded, stripped of his episcopal attire, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment. But the wrath of the Pope was not satiated. He was actually flayed alive and torn asunder by four horses...A fierce and merciless Inquisition was set up; tortures, executions multiplied...those that perished at the stake were but few out of the appalling numbers. The prisons of Narbonne and of Carcassonne were crowded with those who were spared the last penalty. Among these was the Friar Deliciosus of Montpellier, a Franciscan, who had boldly withstood the Inquisition, and was immured for life in a dungeon. He it was who declared that if St. Peter and St. Paul should return to earth, the Inquisition would lay hands on them as damnable heretics...Men who could not be argued into belief must be burned. The corollary of a Christian sermon was a holocaust at the stake...All those who declared that Christ and His apostles had no property, only the use of things necessary, were pronounced guilty of damnable heresy.'

Richard Mackenney of the University of Edinburgh states in his book `Sixteenth Century Europe',

`There can be fewer darker corners of European history than that in which the conquistadores indulged their distaste for manual labor with a ruthless and inefficient exploitation of the Indians, which appears to have sent the native population of Mexico plunging from 27 million in 1500 to 1 million in 1600...When we read of the silver that poured into Seville in the latter part of the century, we should remember that Indians dug it out of the mountains, placed it in sacks which weighed 23 kilograms when full and hauled it out of shafts often 250 meters deep, onto mountainsides where the thin air of the Andes brought further exhaustion. And then the Indians carried the silver from the mountains to the sea. The native population is said to have fallen from 7 million in 1500 to 500,000 in 1620. As the Indian population collapsed under the strain, some of the silver had to be paid to the Portuguese to supply black slaves: 50,000 went from Africa via Portugal to Spanish America in the sixteenth century, and similar numbers were transported to the sugar plantations which the Portuguese ran for themselves in Brazil, which they had taken from the French in 1563. The Portuguese had fewer qualms about slavery, and the Church sanctified `AS conquistas' in terms such as those of Padre Jose da Anchieta in Brazil in 1563: `for this kind of people, there is no better kind of preaching than with the sword and the rod of iron.'"

Guido Kisch writes in his `The Jews in Medieval Germany' (The University of Chicago Press, 1949):

`It is well known in the history of criminal law that, beginning in the late Middle Ages and up to the seventeenth century, punishments were imposed on the Jews which differed considerably from those fixed by law and applied to Christian delinquents. They intensified the medieval system of penalties, cruel enough as it was. The motives of ridicule and degradation received especial emphasis, when hanged on the gallows, for instance, a Jew was suspended by the feet, instead of the neck. It became customary to string up two vicious dogs by their hind legs beside him, to make the punishment more ignominious and painful...In some provinces a Jewish thief hanged by the neck would have a Jews' hat filled with boiling pitch placed on his head...transgressions of similar prohibitions such as that against appearance in public on Good Friday, reviling the Christian religion, or engaging in conversionist activities, besides subjecting them to the appropriate penalties, deprived them of protection under the penal law which was otherwise guaranteed. As every Christian was bound to sacrifice his life for his faith if it were dishonorably attacked, so would he be acquitted in case he slew a Jew, heretic, or heathen in active defense of his faith. The general principle is thus pointed out in the Regulae juris, J155: "No Jew shall defame our Law. If he did so and were found guilty, he should be burnt." Regulae juris, J164: No Jew shall convert a Christian if he values his life." Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) renewed for medieval Christendom the old prohibition of the Christian Roman Empire against forced baptism of Jews. Once a Jew was baptised, however, even if by force, he had to remain faithful to Christianity, according to canon law...Be it even that they have been compelled to receive baptism, yet they shall remain steadfast in their Christian faith. This is so because no one can be deprived of baptism once received...It was Pope Innocent III who, in his letter to the archbishop of Arles in 1201, clearly stated that even those who under direct or indirect compulsion had accepted baptism had become members of the church and thus were to be compelled to the observance of the Christian faith...In 1267, relapse into Judaism was, in fact, explicitly equated with heresy by Pope Clement IV...This was done only after the foundation of the Papal Inquisition which brought all violations of the faith before its tribunals.'

Pope Sixtus IV., for whom the Sixtine Chapel is named, gave the Papal blessing to the Spanish sovereigns to establish the Inquisition in Spain. J. A. Symonds writes in `Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction' (Smith, Elder & Co, London):

"If he escaped burning or perpetual incarceration, he was almost certainly exposed to the public ceremony of penitence...dressed up in a San Benito...This costume was a sort of sack, travestying a monk's frock, made of coarse yellow stuff, and worked over with crosses, flames, and devils, in glaring red It differed in details according to the destination of the victim: for some ornaments symbolized eternal hell, and others the milder fires of purgatory...To make these holocausts of human beings more ghastly, the pageant was enhanced by processions of exhumed corpses and heretics in effigy. Artificial dolls and decomposed bodies, with grinning lips and mouldy foreheads, were hauled to the huge bonfire, side by side with living men, women and children. All of them alike - fantoccini, skeletons, and quick folk \- were enveloped in the same grotesquely ghastly San Benito, with the same hideous yellow mitres on their paste-board, worm-eaten, or palpitating foreheads. The procession presented an ingeniously picturesque discord of ugly shapes, an artistically loathsome dissonance of red and yellow hues, as it defiled, to the infernal music of growled psalms and screams and moanings, beneath the torrid blaze of Spanish sunlight...Spaniards - such is the barbarism of the Latinised Iberian nature - delighted in these shows as they did and do in bull-fights. Butcheries of heretics formed the choicest spectacles at royal christenings and bridals....The Holy Office grew every year in pride, pretensions and exactions...It depopulated Spain by the extermination and banishment of at least three million industrious subjects during the first 139 years of its existence...It filled every city in the kingdom, the convents of the religions, and the palaces of the nobility, with spies...Ignorant and bloodthirsty monks composed its provincial tribunals, who, like the horrible Lucero el Tenebroso, at Cordova, paralysed whole provinces with a veritable reign of terror. Hated and worshipped its officers swept through the realm in the guise of powerful condottieri. The Grand Inquisitor maintained a bodyguard of fifty mounted Familiars and two hundred infantry...Spain gradually fell beneath the charm of their dark fascination. A brave though cruel nation drank delirium from the poison-cup of these vile medicine-men, whose Moloch-worship would have disgusted cannibals. Torquemada was the genius of evil who presided over this foul instrument of human crime and folly...Sometimes, while reading the history of the Holy Office in Spain, we are tempted to imagine that the whole is but a grim unwholesome nightmare, or the fable of malignant calumny. That such is not the case, however, is proved by a jubilant inscription on the palace of the Holy Office at Seville, which records the triumphs of Torquemada. Of late years, too, the earth herself has disgorged some secrets of the Inquisition. `A most curious discovery,' writes Lord Malmesbury in his Memoirs, `has been made at Madrid. Just at the time when the question of religious liberty was being discussed in the Cortes, Serrano had ordered a piece of ground to be levelled, in order to build on it, and the workmen came upon large quantities of human bones, skulls, lumps of blackening flesh, pieces of chains, and braids of hair. It was recollected that the autos da fe used to take place at the spot in former days. Crowds of people rushed to the place, and the investigation was continued. They found layer upon layer of human remains, showing that hundreds had been inhumanely sacrificed. The excitement and indignation this produced among the people was tremendous, and the party for religious freedom taking advantage of it, a Bill on the subject was passed by an enormous majority. Let modern Spain remember that a similar Aceldama lies hidden in the precincts of each of her chief towns.'

Charles Mackay wrote in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (London, 1841),

`John Baptist Cibo, elected to the papacy in 1485, under the designation Innocent VIII., was sincerely alarmed at the number of witches, and launched forth his terrible manifesto against them. In his celebrated bull of 1488, he called the nations of Europe to the rescue of the Church of Christ upon earth, imperilled by the arts of Satan, and set forth the horrors that had reached his ears; how that numbers of both sexes had intercourse with the infernal fiends; how by their sorceries they afflicted both man and beast; how they blighted the marriage-bed, destroyed the births of women and the increase of cattle: and how they blasted the corn on the ground, the grapes of the vineyard, the fruits of the trees, and the herbs of the field. In order that criminals so atrocious might no longer pollute the earth, he appointed inquisitors in every country, armed with apostolic power to convict and punish. It was now that the Witch Mania properly so called, may be said to have commenced. Immediately a class of men sprang up in Europe, who made it the sole business of their lives to discover and burn witches. Sprenger, in Germany, was the most celebrated of these national scourges. In his notorious work, the Malleus Maleficarum, he laid down a regular form of trial, and appointed a course of examination by which the inquisitors in other countries might best discover the guilty. The questions, which were always enforced by torture, were of the most absurd and disgusting nature...Cumanus, in Italy, burned forty-one poor women in one province alone; and Sprenger, in Germany, burned a number which can never be ascertained correctly, but which, it is agreed on all hands, amounted to more than five hundred in a year...For fear the zeal of the enemies of Satan should cool, successive popes appointed new commissions. One was appointed by Alexander VI. in 1494, another by Leo X. in 1521, and a third by Adrian VI. in 1522. They were all armed with the same powers to hunt out and destroy, and executed their fearful functions but too rigidly. In Geneva alone five hundred persons were burned in the years 1515 and 1516, under the title of Protestant witches...in the year 1524 no less than a thousand persons suffered death for witchcraft in the district of Como...Henri Boguet, a witch-finder, who styled himself "The Grand Judge of Witches for the Territory of St. Claude," drew up a code for the guidance of all persons engaged in the witch-trials, consisting of seventy articles, quite as cruel as the code of Bodinus. In this document he affirms, that a mere suspicion of witchcraft justifies the immediate arrest and torture of the suspected person...Who, when he hears that this diabolical doctrine was the universally received opinion of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities can wonder that thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons should be brought to the stake? that Cologne should for many years burn its three hundred witches annually? district of Bamberg its four hundred? Nuremberg, Geneva, Paris, Toulouse, Lyons, and other cities, their two hundred?...In 1595, an old woman residing in a village near Constance, angry at not being invited to share the sports of the country people on a day of public rejoicing, was heard to mutter something to herself, and was afterwards seen to proceed through the fields toward a hill, where she was lost sight of. A violent thunder-storm arose about two hours afterwards, which wet the dancers to the skin, and did considerable damage to the plantations. This woman, suspected before of witchcraft, was seized and imprisoned, and accused of having raised the storm, by filling a hole with wine, and stirring it about with a stick. She was tortured till she confessed, and was burned alive the next evening...They never burned anybody till he confessed; and if one course of torture would not suffice, their patience was not exhausted, and they tried him again and again, even to the twentieth time.'

We read on pp. 118-123 of H. R. Trevor-Roper's The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and Other Essays (Harper, 1956) that with the crime of witchcraft being declared a crimen exceptum by Pope Innocent VIII. in 1468, the use of torture had papal sanction to be employed against those accused of witchcraft. Torture was deemed necessary to obtain convictions, and very feeble suspicion was enough to initiate the use of torture. As it was highly unlikely that an investigator would find a written pact with the devil, or a pot of human limbs, or a supply of toads, etc., less incriminating evidence, such as an inability to shed tears, or the inability to sink in water, or the presence of a wart, or a calloused part of skin which wouldn't bleed when pricked, became evidence sufficient to initiate torture, so as to secure confessions and testimony against `accomplices.' Trevor-Roper lists the various instruments of suffering: various devices which crushed the fingers and toes; the Spanish Boot which broke shin-bones; the self-explanatory `Bed of Nails.' There was also much driving of needles under finger-nails.

The Protestant participation in these sorts of evils must be of concern to modern Protestants, because it is perfectly logical to make the assumption that any person - regardless if he calls himself Catholic or Protestant or Eastern Orthodox - who advocates torturing women to make them confess their involvement in witchcraft, especially on such worthless evidence as having a wart on their finger or nose, must be considered an enemy of the benevolent religion which Christ founded on earth. And we've been through the logic which says one blasphemes the Holy Spirit when one says the Holy Spirit guides churches which perpetrate such evils.

We read in `A History of Italian Law' by Carlo Calisse, tr. by Layton B. Register (Little, Brown, and Company, 1928),

`The voluntary union, for example, of a free woman and a slave was by ancient custom and law a very grave crime and punished with the greatest severity...The relations between Church and State assumed a new aspect under the Carlovingians...the number of crimes classified as religious increased; their repression became severer...but death, inflicted by decapitation, the gallows, burning, the wheel, quartering, starvation, poison, boiling, or the mallet, was accompanied by other punishments which preceded it, such as dragging the condemned to execution bound to the tail of a horse, tearing the flesh with red hot pincers...Since the example was intended to inspire fear, executions always took place in public and were surrounded by awful solemnities. The gallows was always erected on grounds especially set apart; corpses were left to hang until they fell from putrefaction...the remaining corporal punishments were not considered capital...amputation of the members: hands, feet, nose, ears, tongue...the crimes punishable by the loss of some member were enumerated by Albertus of Gandino...a fugitive slave or a deserter by the loss of a foot...Farinacius...declared that...the prisons of Florence...and those of the fortress of Ostia and Civita Vecchia in the States of the Church...worse than death, for the result was as certain but slower and crueler...Aside from the horrible conditions intentionally imposed, by which they lacked air, light, space and cleanliness...starvation, irons upon the hands and feet, solitude and darkness...There was a time when prisons were not an expense, but a source of public revenue...Prisoners were made to pay for everything...Violation of Church Precepts...work on days of festival, failure to perform required religious offices, to eat on fast days...were punished mostly by fine, but sometimes even by outlawry and imprisonment...In the case, however, of "coitus damnatus", that is, of sexual union with a nun, with ones female employer or ones ward...between a Christian and Jew, the temporal judge...might impose even a capital penalty...lese majesty - To honor the prince, seeing in him an authority derived from God, was an ecclesiastical precept, but offenses against it acquired a prevailingly civil character...As to the persons, a crime was qualified as lese majesty not only when it aimed against the sovereign, but also against the pope, emperor, feudal lord, commune, cardinals, royal counselors, and also public officials, when their office was the reason for the attack...It was common to quarter the culprit alive and to hang the pieces in the most frequented places...After death followed infamy and confiscation, involving also the children, who, even thus punished could not always escape the further vengeance of one whose power was limitless...vague proof and weak suspicions sufficed to initiate the prosecution, and then these were then completed by torture and false informers; attempt was punished no less seriously than the accomplished crime; simple words no less than acts; the absent, who could not defend themselves, were the object of prosecution as also the dead, whose memory was accused and upon whose family were unloaded all the consequences of a penalty which the guilty should have supported...offenses against military discipline were declared lese majesty..Adultery...the canon law required excommunication and in addition placed the woman in a convent, from which she might not withdraw until her husband pardoned her and took her back...Germanic law allowed the husband against the adulteress and her accomplice, according to which he might slay them if caught in their guilt...The Roman rule...the husband might kill the adulterers only if the man was of plebian rank...From the Roman law, therefore, was borrowed the penalty for adultery, namely, death. But practice altered this. For the woman...death was changed to a discretionary penalty of flogging and exile; for the man, capital punishment continued as a threat, sometimes made effective; but in actual practice it was for the most part changed to a pecuniary penalty...Beccaria - No book, indeed, upon penal law created a greater stir in Europe, was more read, or brought greater fame to its author than "Crime and Penalties" ("Dei delitti e delle pene"), published in 1764 by Beccaria...Toward the Roman law as then studied, and its learned followers, he was therefore implacable. "A few remnants," as he described it in his preface, "of the laws of an ancient conquering people, compiled at the command of a prince who reigned twelve centuries ago in Constantinople, later mingled with Lombard rites and collected into jumbled volumes by private and obscure interpreters, form the tradition which, in a large part of Europe, still enjoys the name of law. It is sad, though a common thing today, than an opinion of Carpzov, and antiquated practice referred to by Clarus, a torture suggested with cruel complacency by Farinacius, should constitute the law, followed with confidence by those who use fear to rule the lives and fortunes of men."...He proscribes secret accusations, which encourage men to false and covert action...Above all he condemns torture, the destroyer of truth, the sure means of absolving the courageous criminal and condemning the weak and innocent. Credible witnesses and secure facts are the road to determination of crime...In the Kingdom of Italy...Romagnosi was in 1806 called to Milan from Parma, where he was teaching public law. The illustrious philosopher, though not without powerful opposition, succeeded in introducing many of his own ideas concerning punishment, criminality, rehabilitation and numerous other questions of great interest. But the compilers had before them the French laws, whose severity they were not allowed to ignore. In consequence the Italian draft retained the death penalty, aggravated by the mode of execution; deportation, internment, branding, gallows, confiscation...were retained; crimes of lese majesty, enumerated at length and severely punished, also found a place...Somewhat greater results were obtained in the Kingdom of Naples...In the Lombard and Venetian provinces, the Austrian Penal Code of 1803 was promulgated...punishments were severe...death and the harshest form of imprisonment...the Two Sicilies were governed by the Code of 1819...An unfailingly humane spirit inspired it, if we except the crimes freshly enumerated under the title of lese majesty, offenses against God and those relating to political interests...The States of the Church long remained loyal to the laws inspired by the old system...Leo XII favored the reaction; Gregory XVI...was also faithful to the reaction, preserving inquisitorial and secret procedure, ecclesiastical courts with jurisdiction determined by reason of the parties and the matter, loss of family rights for political crimes, judicial discretion, the death penalty, aggravated for its admonitory value, higher courts presided over by prelates, the Court of the Cardinal Vicar for crimes against morals, and for the Holy Office for offenses against religion.'

Pope Innocent III. is credited with ending trial by ordeal. But this only means that the Popes who preceeded him were content to live with it as a means of dealing out `justice'. Munroe Smith wrote in `The Development of European Law' (Columbia University, 1928):

`The slave, who is not a person but a thing, who cannot have a wife in the eye of the law or be recognized as the father of his children, has, in the eye of the law, no kin...to slave labor no limits are set except by the arbitrary will of the master. The freedman...may marry, with the consent always of the former master, and he is legally father of the children born of his wife...the slave, as already noted, is a thing, not a person...If he is killed, no wergild is paid to his master. The master has the power of life and death over the slave...slavery...is established by capture in war; by sale of ones self, or ones wife, or children; by inability to pay debt...slavery is inherited from the mother...with the conversion of the continental Germans to Christianity...the Church apparently made no effort at Rome to interfere with the numerous and often cruel death penalties inflicted in the latter empire...ordeals of fire and water do not seem to have been imposed upon freedmen but only upon slaves...Visigothic code...Torture was freely used in criminal proceedings, as in the late Roman Empire...the Frank Empire...All ordeals were surrounded with Christian ceremonies. For a time a specifically Christian ordeal was introduced (the so-called cross proof). This ordeal was conducted by placing the complainant and the defendant face to face with laterally extended arms, and the person who could longest maintain this position was regarded as having triumphed in the ordeal.'

Again, G. G. Coulton and Paul Johnson gave us a date of 1080 AD as the time when the Catholic Church, with the approval of popes and councils, first commenced the policy, which was to persist for centuries, of forbidding the laity to read the Bible. Violation of this decree was taken as proof of heresy by the Inquisition. Will Durant devoted some energy in The Renaissance (Simon & Schuster, 1953) to describing the ferocity with which Pope Clement V. and his inquisitors dealt with Dolcino of Novara and his sister Margherita. Dolcino had rejected the authority of the popes and preached doctrines similar to those of the Patarines, the Waldenses, and the Spiritual Franciscans. Clement V. directed the Inquisition to move against these head-strong siblings. Dolcino and Margherita refused to appear before their priestly judges. The inquisitors then led an army against them, such that, Durant asserts, thousands of their co-religionists were burned to death in 1304. Durant tells us that Margherita, when she was led to the stake, was still so wondrously beautiful and that, despite her emaciated condition, men of rank offered her marriage if she would only abjure her infernal doctrines. She held firm to her faith and was slowly burned to death at the stake. Dolcino and a friend, Longino, were mounted on a cart and paraded through the streets of Vercelli, where their flesh was torn from their bodies bit by bit with hot pincers. Only after their limbs and genitals had been wrenched from their quivering bodies did they finally die.

Sismondi writes in `History of the Italian Republics',

Urban V., on his arrival in Italy, endeavoured also to oppose the usurpations of the Viscontis...Urban had recourse to a bull of excommunication, and sent two legates to bear it to him [Barnabas Visconti]; but Barnabas forced these two legates to eat, in his presence, the parchment on which the bull was written, together with the leaden seals and silken strings. The pope, frightened at the thought of combating men who seemed to hold religion in no respect...was glad to return to the repose of Avignon, where he arrived in the month of September, 1370; and died the November following. Gregory XI., who succeeded him, was ambitious, covetous and false...He signed a truce with Barnabas Visconti...and, before the Florentines could recall their soldiers, sent John Hawkwood with a formidable army to surprise Florence. The Florentines, indignant at such shameless want of good faith on the part of the church, whose most faithful allies they had always been, vowed vengeance on the see of Rome...John Hawkwood, the 29th of March, 1376, delivered up Faenza to a frightful military execution: 4,000 persons were put to death, property pillaged, women violated. The pope, not satisfied with such rigour, sent Robert of Geneva, another cardinal legate, into Italy, with a Breton company of adventurers, considered as the most ferocious of all those trained to plunder by the wars of France. The new legate treated Cesena, on the 1st of February, 1377, with still greater barbarity. He was heard to call out, during the massacre, "I will have more blood! - Kill all! - blood, blood!" Gregory XI. at last felt the necessity of returning to Italy, to appease the universal revolt...Barnabas Visconti carried on with the holy see secret negotiations, in which he offered to sacrifice to the church his ally, the republic of Florence...the unexpected news arrived of the death of Gregory XI., on the 27th of March, 1378...The pontifical chair had been transferred to France since the year 1305. Its exile from Italy lasted seventy-three years. The Christian world, France excepted, had considered it a scandal; but the French kings hoped by it to retain the popes in their dependence; and the French cardinals, who formed three fourths of the sacred college, seemed determined to preserve the pontifical power in their nation. They were, however, thwarted in this intention by the death of Gregory XI. at Rome; - for the conclave must always assemble where the last pope dies...the conclave...elected...an Italian, - Bartolomeo Prignani...He was considered learned and pious. The cardinals had not, however, calculated on the development of the passions which a sudden elevation sometimes gives; or the degree of impatience, arrogance, and irritability of which man is capable, in his unexpected capacity of master, though in an inferior situation he had appeared gentle and modest. The new pope, who took the name of Urban VI., became so violent and despotic, so confident in himself, and so contemptuous of others, that he soon quarreled with all of his cardinals. They left him; assembled again at Fondi; and on the 9th of August, declared the holy see vacant; asserting that their previous election was null...they elected another pope. Their choice, no better than the former, fell on Robert, cardinal of Geneva, who had presided at the massacre of Cesena: he took the name of Clement VII...Urban VI., meanwhile, deposed, as schismatics, all cardinals who had elected Clement, and replaced them by a new and more numerous college; but he agreed no better with these than with their predecessors. He accused them of conspiracy against him; he caused many to be put to the torture in his presence, and while he recited his breviary; he ordered others to be thrown into the sea in sacks, and drowned...he paraded his incapacity and rage through all Italy; and finally took refuge at Genoa, where he died, on the 9th of November, 1389. The cardinals who acknowledged him named a successor on his death, as the French cardinals did afterwards on the death of Clement VII...The church thus found itself divided between two popes and two colleges of cardinals, who reciprocally anathematized each other.'

One should understand that the early medieval popes were hostile to the ideology of the Inquisition. William Stearns Davis, in his `Life on a Mediaeval Barony' (Harper & Brothers, 1923) told us that the great ninth century champion of the pontifical monarchy, Pope Nicholas I., was also a great enemy of the use of torture in judicial proceedings.

1) The Church of Rome claims she has always been guided by the Holy Spirit. 2) It is easy to prove that the Roman Catholic Church has perpetrated evil for centuries. 3) It is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to say the Holy Spirit guides a church which perpetrates evil. 3) Rome blasphemes the Holy Spirit, therefore, Rome can not be the True Church, because the True Church doesn't blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

It is no proof that a church is the True Church if that church performs exorcisms. Matthew 7. 7-9 has Jesus saying,

`"Many will say to Me in that day, `Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in your name?' And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

Revelation 20. 15,

`And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.'

People are generally disinclined to examine evidence which might contradict their most cherished beliefs. The Irish historian William Lecky got it right when he wrote in `History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne',

`In most men, the love of truth is so languid, and the reluctance to encounter mental suffering is so great, that they yield their judgments without an effort to the current, withdraw their minds from all opinions or arguments opposed to their own, and thus speedily convince themselves of the truth of what they wish to believe.'

H. R. Trevor-Roper told us in 'The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries' (Harper & Row) that in 1468 Pope Innocent VIII. declared witchcraft to be a crimen exceptum. This removed, in effect, all legal limits on the application of torture. Therefore, in the absence of a `grave indicium', such as a pot full of human limbs or a written pact with the Devil etc., circumstantial evidence was sufficient to subject the accused to torment. And the circumstantial evidence needn't be very persuasive - a wart was sufficient evidence to begin the interrogation, helped along with torture. The lighter indicia, such as a tendency for a woman to look down when she was accused, or showing signs of fear, trembling, was enough. Any of these indicia \- `evidence' - could establish a prima facie case which justified the use of torture to obtain a confession. The refusal to confess, which was seen as even stronger proof of guilt, justified the application of more ferocious tortures and a crueler death. Fingers and toes were crushed in a vice. The Spanish boot, much used in Germany and Scotland, squeezed the calf and broke the shin-bone. There was the `ram' or `witch-chair,' which was a chair of iron spikes, heated from below. There was the `Bed of Nails.' In Scotland women were grilled on the caschielawis. Once a woman confessed her own guilt, the next stage was to secure from her, again under torture, the names of all her associates at the witches' sabbat. Thus a new set of indicia was supplied, and more torture was applied.

Jacob Burckhardt wrote of Roderigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander VI., and his Cardinal son, Cesar, in 'The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,'

`Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal list of proscribed persons, or that the murders were resolved upon one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent on the secret destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they coveted. Of this money and movable goods formed the smallest part; it was a much greater source of profit for the pope that the incomes of the clerical dignitaries in question were suspended by their death, and that he received the revenues of their offices while vacant, and the price of these offices when they were filled by the successors of the murdered men. The Venetian ambassador Paolo Capello announces in the year 1500: "Every night four or five murdered men are discovered -bishops, prelates and others- so that all Rome is trembling for fear of being destroyed by the duke (Cesar)." He used to wander about Rome in the night-time with his guards, and there is every reason to believe that he did so not only because, like Tiberius, he shrank from showing his now repulsive features by daylight, but also to gratify his insane thirst for blood, perhaps even on the persons of those unknown to him. As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that many of the papal guards were waylaid and put to death. But those whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence fell victims to their poison. For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion seemed requisite, a white powder of an agreeable taste was made use of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which could be mixed without notice in any dish or goblet...The official epitomizer of the history of the popes, Onofrio Panvinio, mentions three cardinals, Orsini, Ferrerio and Michiel, whom Alexander caused to be poisoned, and hints at a fourth, Giovanni Borgia, whom Cesar took into his own charge - though probably wealthy prelates seldom died in Rome at that time without giving rise to suspicions of this sort..."He would," says Panvinio elsewhere, "have put all the other rich cardinals and prelates out of the way, to get their property, had he not, in the midst of his great plans for his son, been struck down by death." And what might not Cesar have achieved if, at the moment when his father died, he had not been laid upon a sickbed! What a conclave would that have been, in which, armed with all his weapons, he had extorted his election from a college whose numbers he had judiciously reduced by poison - and this at a time when there was no French army at hand! In pursuing such a hypothesis the imagination loses itself in an abyss.'

Pope Alexander VI. has never been declared an anti-pope. It is still Roman Catholic doctrine that he was the Vicar of Christ - the true leader on earth of the True Church, the true leader on earth of the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. To this day, Rome insists that even if a pope is a murderer, he is still God's supreme priest on earth, because, Rome insists, the Bishop of Rome will always to the true leader of the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock.

Pope St. Gregory the Great declared that infants who died unbaptized suffered in hell forever. William Lecky wrote in History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne,

`That a little child who lives but a few moments after birth and dies before it has been sprinkled with the sacred water is in such a sense responsible for its ancestors having 6,000 years before eaten some forbidden fruit, that it may with perfect justice be resuscitated and cast into an abyss of eternal fire in expiation of this ancestral crime, that an all-righteous and all-merciful Creator in the full exercise of those attributes...has from eternity irrevocably destined to endless, unspeakable, unmitigated torture...Such teaching is in fact simply daemonism, and daemonism in its most extreme form...Those who embrace these doctrines do so only because they believe that some inspired Church or writer has taught them...They accordingly esteem it a matter of duty, and a commendable exercise of humility, to stifle the moral feelings of their nature, and they at last succeed in persuading themselves that their Divinity would be extremely offended if they hesitated to ascribe to him the attributes of a fiend.'

In the Dark Ages, Catholic priests and bishops asserted that God had to punish the unbaptized infants and toddlers, because, though God is merciful, God is also just, and justice demands that babies who die unbaptized must suffer in hell! Were these priests and bishops guided by the Holy Spirit? Pope St. Gregory the Great was declared a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, and Rome teaches the doctrine which says a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church can never teach heresy. What do you think? Do you think God is the sort of God who tortures babies who were unfortunate enough to die before they could be splashed with some baptismal water? Don't forget 2 Thess 1. 8, and the importance of knowing God! Roman Catholic doctrine is conflicted on this matter, because, though today Rome says the souls of infants who die unbaptized go to Limbo, nevertheless, like Thomas Aquinas, Pope St. Gregory the Great has been declared a Doctor of the Church, and according to Rome a Doctor of the Church can never teach heresy, thus, Rome is saying it is not a heresy to declare that God is the sort of God who tortures unbaptized infants in hell. The whole matter could be cleared up if Rome just admitted that Pope St. Gregory the Great is no longer a Doctor of the Church, because he did teach a heresy, but Rome doesn't like to admit she is wrong about these sorts of things. She's stubborn. Again, we come back to the same old logic. If Rome has never fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome has always been the Church which God founded upon a rock, then you should agree with every official Roman Catholic Doctrine. But if Rome has fallen away, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then renounce the Church of Rome.

§ 12. Some Controversial Roman Catholic Saints.

We might consider three especially controversial men whom the Church of Rome has canonized: St. John of Capistrano, St. Charles Borromeo and Pope St. Pius V. When the Church of Rome canonizes someone, Rome orders all True Christians to venerate them. And Rome declares one to be a blasphemer if one directs abusive language at anyone whom Rome has canonized.

Will Durant wrote in `The Reformation' (p. 731):

"In 1451 Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, one of the most enlightened men of the fifteenth century, enforced the wearing of badges by the Jews under his jurisdiction. Two years later John of Capistrano began his missions, as legate of Pope Nicholas V, in Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland. His powerful sermons accused the Jews of killing children and desecrating the Host -charges which popes had branded as murderous superstitions. Urged on by this "scourge of the Jews," the dukes of Bavaria drove all Hebrews from their duchy. Bishop Godfrey of Wurzburg, who had given them full privileges in Franconia, now banished them, and in town after town Jews were arrested, and debts due them were annulled. At Breslau several Jews were jailed on Capistrano's demand; he himself supervised the tortures that wrung from some of them whatever he bade them confess; on the basis of these confessions forty Jews were burned at the stake (June 2, 1453). The remaining Jews were banished, but their children were taken from them and baptized by force. Capistrano was canonized in 1690."

Whether John of Capistrano is a saint or not, if one determines that Rome is the True Church, if one determines that the Church that Christ founded upon a rock, then, why would one disobey Rome's teaching on Capistrano? And if one determines that Rome is not the True Church, that Rome is not the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, then...

To this day, Rome insists that all True Christians must venerate John of Capistrano as a true saint. Paragraph 2148 of the Catechism informs us that one commits blasphemy if one directs abusive language towards Capistrano or any other canonized person. Paragraph 2148 also says it is a blasphemy of God to torture and execute people in the name of God. Not to imply that the Eastern Orthodox or the Protestants were never ferocious, but, nevertheless, the Church of Rome tortured and executed people in the name of God for over six centuries via the Inquisition. What is there left to say? If Rome is the True Church, then obey rome and venerate John of Capistrano. If Rome is not the True Church, then decamp from the Church of Rome and find the True Church.

Abram Leon Sachar, a former president of Brandeis University, wrote in A History of the Jews (Knopf, 1960):

`This time the villain of the piece is the papal legate John of Capistrano, a Franciscan monk whose persecuting zeal earne him the unenviable title of "Scourge of the Jews."...Wherever he went, thousands...were carried away by his immense sincerity, his ferocious energy. Riots were common in Germany and Slavic lands after his tongue had lashed heretics and Jews...In Breslau a Bernadine chapel was built with Jewish money after nearly the whole community had been burnt alive for blasphemy...So went the tale of woe decade after decade, endlessly. Four hundred years had now passed since the hideous nightmare had begun. Hounded by successions of crusaders...Even sunny Spain was beginning to use the thumb-screw and the torch...Jews turned to their Bibles and prayer-books, scanning the tear-stained pages in vain for the consolation which the living world denied them...While France and England, Germany and Austria ransacked chambers of horror to discover new torments...In Seville several thousand were butchered...The riots spread like a plague...About seventy cities of Old Castile were thus devastated and a trail of broken homes and broken hearts was left in the wake of the bloody hooligans...The fertile province of Valencia, the prosperous seaport of Barcelona, even the islands off the coast of Spain, were all swept by the ferocity of the persecutors. After three months the orgy ended, with thousands of Jewish lives snuffed out and tens of thousands of forced baptisms.'

Again, Rome insists that one is a blasphemer if one directs abusive language at anyone that Rome has canonized. Consider St. Charles Borromeo. Rome insists that all True Christians must venerate Borromeo as a saint. Apropos of the former Archbishop of Milan, Mrs. H. M. Vernon informed us in her book `Italy From 1494 to 1790' (Cambridge at the University Press, 1909):

`Carlo Borromeo conducted a campaign against witchcraft no less terrible than his campaign against heresy, and hundreds of wretched women were burned...The horrors of the Plague were doubled by the persecution of the `Untori'...who were supposed to spread it.'

In `Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction,' J. A. Symonds reported:

`The pestilences of the Middle Ages, notably the Black Death of 1348...exceeded in virulence those which depopulated Italian cities during the period of my history...At Venice in 1575-77, a total of about 50,000 persons perished...in 1630-31, 46,490 were carried off...Milan was devastated at the same periods by plagues...At Naples, in the year 1656, more than 50,000 perished...Savoy was scourged by a fearful pestilence...In Val Moriana, forty thousand expired...In May 1599, the inhabitants of Turin were reduced by flight and death to four thousand...The streets were encumbered with unburied corpses, the houses infested by robbers and marauders...The infected were treated with inhuman barbarity, and retorted with savage fury...To miseries of pestilence and its attendant famine were added lawlessness and license, raging fires, and, what was worst of all, the dark suspicion that the sickness had been introduced by malefactors...The name given to the unfortunate creatures accused of this diabolical conspiracy was Untori, or the Smearers...They were popularly supposed to go about the city daubing walls, doors, furniture, choir-stalls, flowers, and articles of food with plague stuff...Hundreds of such Untori were condemned to the most cruel deaths by justice firmly persuaded of their criminality. Exposed to prolonged tortures, the majority confessed palpable absurdities. One woman at Milan said she had killed four thousand people. But, says Pier Antonio Marioni, the Venetian envoy, although tormented to the utmost, none of them were capable of revealing the prime instigators of the plot...The rack-stretched wretches could not reveal their instigators, because there were none...As in cases of witchcraft, the first accusation was founded upon gossip and delation. The judicial proceedings were ruled by prejudice and cruelty. Fear and physical pain extorted confessions and complicated accusations of their neighbors from multitudes of innocent people."

David Christie-Murray told us in `A History of Heresy' (Oxford, 1976) that Charles Borromeo burned at least eleven elderly women at the stake.

Pope St. Pius V., a great champion of the Inquisition, is another man that the Church of Rome orders people to venerate as a saint. Dr. Lea wrote in his `A History of the Inquisition in Spain' (Macmillan, 1906):

`The Inquisition, however, regarded the conviction of a heretic as only the preliminary to forcing him to denounce his associates; the earliest papal utterance, in 1252, authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to discover accomplices and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be tortured for this purpose...It was, in reality, the torture of witnesses, for the criminal's fate had been decided, and he was thus used only to give testimony against others. The Spanish Inquisition was, therefore, only following a general practice when it tortured in capu alienum, those who had confessed their guilt. No confession was accepted as complete unless it revealed the names of those whom the penitent knew to be guilty of heretical acts, if there was reason to suspect that he was not fully discharging his conscience in this respect, torture was the natural resort. Even the impenitent or the relapsed, who was doomed to relaxation, was thus to be tortured and was to be given clearly to understand that it was as a witness and not as a party, and that his endurance of torture would not save him from the stake. The Instructions of 1561, however warn inquisitors that in these cases much consideration should be exercised and torture in caput alienum was rather the exception in Spain, than the rule as in Rome. In the case of the negativo, against whom conclusive evidence was had, and who thus was to be condemned without torture, the device of torturing him against his presumable accomplices afforded an opportunity of endeavoring to secure his own confession and conversion. We have seen this fail, in 1596, in the Mexican case of Manuel Diaz, nor was it more successful in Lima, in 1639, with Enrique de Paz y Mello, although the final outcome was different...He was sentenced to relaxation and torture in caput alienum; it was administered with great severity without overcoming his fortitude, and he persisted through five other publications as fresh evidence was gathered. Yet at midnight before the auto da fe, in which he was to be burnt, he weakened. He confessed as to himself and others and his sentence was modified to reconciliation and the galleys, while good use was made of his revelations against thirty of his accomplices...At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-eight, who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far, and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted and was revived with difficulty. In 1607 at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla, aged seventy-six, after confessing certain matters, was accused by a new witness of being an alfaqui; this he denied and was duly tortured...Isabel Madalena, a girl of thirteen, who was vaguely accused of Moorish practices, was tortured, overcame the torture and was penanced with a hundred lashes.'

§ 13. Islam.

Teaching history in adequate fashion is all about giving adequate paraphrases of influential books. The Koran is perfectly clear and perfectly emphatic in stating that non-Muslims - those people who reject Allah and Islam - and hypocritical Muslims - will both burn in hell. If this is true, then, Jihad should be waged against non-Muslims, because, the people who oppose Jihad will burn in hell - this is true provided the Koran is trustworthy - and you want to go to heaven not to hell! Now if the Koran is untrustworthy, then that changes matters! Is the Koran a work of fiction? Consider some verses from the Koran:

Surah 4. 14: Those who disobey Allah and His Apostle will abide in fire.

Surah 5. 33: Crucify, murder and mutilate those who war against Allah and His Apostle

Surah 5. 36-9: Fire for unbelievers. Chop off the hands of thieves.

Surah 5. 51: Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends.

Surah 5.86 Disbelievers are the companions of fire.

Surah 7. 40-1: Those who reject the Koran will suffer in a bed of hell-fire.

Surah 9. 68: The hypocrites and the unbelievers will burn in hell.

Surah 17. 8: There is a hell for unbelievers.

Surah 22. 19-21: Boiling water, garments of fire and whips of iron will torment the unbelievers.

Surah 24, 2: Whip the fornicatress and the fornicator, give them each a hundred stripes.

Surah 32. 20: Fire for transgressors. Chastisement of fire for those who doubt the Islamic fire.

Surah 33. 64-6: Allah has cursed the unbelievers and has prepared flaming fire for them.

Surah 37. 55-74: The bottom of hell and serpents await unbelievers who were warned.

Surah 40. 70-2: Boiling water and fire for those who reject the Book and the Apostle.

Surah 41. 26-28: Those who reject the Koran will burn.

Surah 45. 20: These are clear proofs and a guide and a mercy for the people who are sure.
Surah 56. 92-5: Scoffers are given an ordeal of boiling water and will burn in hell.

Surah 76. 4: Chains and fetters and cruel fire await unbelievers.

Surah 88. 2-5: Unbelievers are thrust into burning fire and forced to drink boiling water.

If the above Surahs are true, then, obviously, it is hateful to not try to bring the whole world under Islamic Law, that is, it is hateful to not wage Jihad: it is hateful to not try to convert people to Islam. How could it be altruistic to let non-Muslims burn in hell without trying to save them by trying to convert them to Islam? The Koran does not endorse torture as a means to convert people, but it teaches that both non-Muslims and Muslims are to be subjugated under Islamic law, and the former must pay a tribute tax. The Koran and the life of Muhammed teach that lethal force may be used to subjugate the world under Islamic law. Jihad makes perfect sense if the Koran is trustworthy when it says all non-Muslims will burn in hell. Jihad is just a way to help people avoid hellfire, assuming the Koran is trustworthy.

And of course if the above Surahs are fictions, then what in the Koran isn't fiction?

§ 14. Gay Marriage and Sacrilege.

We recall that there is a very close connection between Christ's words at the Last Supper - `this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many' with Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Isaiah 59. 20-21. Recall that Isaiah 59. 20-21 says,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

What are the chances that the descendants of these descendants will forever extol the wisdom of supporting Gay Marriage? What does the gospel say about Gay Marriage?

We know what St. Paul said in I Cor 6. 9-10,

`Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God.'

But this does not tell us whether or not it is a sin to support the State when the State supports gay marriage.

Christianity of course teaches that sodomy is sinful, but the religious controversy surrounding gay marriage is a controversy over the question: is it sinful to support the State when the State supports gay marriage? To get our terms straight, when a State supports Gay Marriage it gives its blessing to it - for example - by letting gays get married in court houses, with State employees presiding at the ceremonies. When a State tolerates Gay Marriage it does not support it but it does not outlaw it either. Some people today say it is sinful for the State to tolerate fornication and adultery, that is, some people today say it is sinful for the State to not use laws and cops and prisons to punish fornicators and adulterers. Islamic Law prescribes 100 lashes to punish fornicators, but modern Western Countries reject Islamic Law, or at least the West hasn't capitulated to Islam just yet. Will one go to perdition if one teaches the doctrine that the State should support gay marriage? Do churches such as the ELCA - the Evangelican Lutheran Church in America - and the Episcopalian church - which both support Gay Marriage - lead souls to perdition?

To examine the question we should first observe that there is a distinction to be made between gay men who partake in the most uninhibited varieties of sodomy, and gay men whose most passionate embraces involve only some hugging and hand holding. And Christianity is of course hostile to bullies who persecute gays and lesbians. But the key question which Christians want answered is: is it a violation of the New Law to petition a church, or to petition the State to support marriage between homosexuals? Is it a sin which leads to perdition if one supports a Church or a State in its action of supporting Gay Marriage?

The State is wise to tolerate certain sins (cursing, lust, pride, gluttony etc) and wise to not tolerate others sins (rape, murder, extortion, theft etc). Very few modern Christians want the State to imprison fornicators, drunkards, sodomites, adulterers and non-believers. Coitus damnatus - fornicating with a nun - was once a capital crime in Christendom, but, today, most Christians do not want either the Church or the State to execute those guilty of coitus damnatus.

As the State tolerates fornication and adultery, that is, as the State does not support or give its blessing to these sins, but at the same time the State does not fine or imprison those who commit these sins, one might argue there is no sin for the State to tolerate gay marriage - there is no sin for the State to neither support nor outlaw gay marriage. But is it sinful when the State supports Gay Marriage, by permitting gays and lesbians to be married by State officials on State property?

The marriage rite has some curious supernatural idiosyncrasies which have to be understood. For instance, though Protestants do not always call marriage a sacrament, as do Roman Catholics, still, marriage is a de facto sacrament in Protestantism, as well as in most other religions. It is the rite which transforms that which is sinful - fornication - into that which is undefiled in the eyes of God: lawful marital relations. Recall Hebrews 13. 4.

`Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.'

The Roman Catholic does not tell the Jewish person: `Because you were married in a false and heretical synagogue, your marriage vows are invalid, therefore, you and your wife are fornicators, and your little ones are illegitimate.'

The Protestant does not say to the Buddhist, the Muslim, or the Hindu: `Because you were married in a creed which rejects the True God - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and because your creed is simply a superstition, therefore, your marriage vows are worthless in the eyes of the True God.'

Roman Catholics and Protestants don't say those sorts of things because Roman Catholics and Protestants truly believe that God respects the marriage vows of people in all the major world religions: Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc., etc. The marriage rite transcends the Faiths.

The rite of baptism cuts no ice with the Muslims. The rite of Jihad is anathema in the eyes of the Hindus. The Marxist-Leninist does not care to see male children bleed in the Jewish rite of circumcision. But all of the world's major religions respect the marriage rite between one man and one woman. And the USA might want to hesitate before trampling on something which is revered in all of the major world religions.

Marriage is a rite which takes a sinful act - sex outside of marriage - and transforms it into an action which is not sinful, which does not lead souls to perdition. But Gay Marriage does not transform sinful sodomy between two unmarried guys into sinless sex between two married gentlemen. Again, St. Paul said in I Corinthians 6. 9-10,

`Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God.'

Gay Marriage is not True Marriage because Gay Marriage can not transform sinful sodomy into something sinless, whereas, True Marriage accomplishes this astonishing supernatural transformation, by turning sinful, unholy, unlawful, licentious, pre-marital sex into honorable, respectable, upstanding, clean and legal post-marital sex.

Gay Marriage leads souls to perdition, because, gay sex - sodomy - even under the cover of Gay Marriage - is just as sinful as gay sex outside of Gay Marriage. A sodomite with a marriage license from the State of New York is sunk in mortal sin. A sodomite who got his marriage license out of a cereal box is sunk in mortal sin. A sodomite with no marriage license is sunk in mortal sin. A sodomite with a marriage license from Church 666 is sunk in mortal sin. A sodomite with a marriage license from the Episcopalian Church or the ELCA is sunk in mortal sin. It is wrong for the State to persecute Gays and Lesbians, but, at the same time, if we assume that Christianity is true - and I make that assumption - then it is sinful for a church or a State to sanction or support anything which is anti-Christian. A church or a State is not anti-Christian if it tolerates various sins, but if a church or a State actively supports something which is sinful and anti-Christian, then that church or State is anti-Christian.

Christians should of course not support a church or a State which leads souls to perdition. When Christians give their blessing to a rite, Gay Marriage, a rite which leads souls to perdition, then Christians are indeed giving their blessing to something which leads people to perdition. And - as you might imagine - this is not something Christians should be doing.

Barack Obama, who formerly opposed gay marriage, said he was evolving on the issue. And then he capitulated. Perhaps `evolving' meant he was slowly cracking under the pressure. If the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender community screams incessantly: `Hater! Homophobe! Neanderthal!' at those who oppose Gay Marriage, then, one has to ask, is the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender community offering up slanders? Or are they serving up truthful accusations?

Marriage is a de jure sacrament in Roman Catholicism. It is stated in official Roman Catholic doctrine to be a rite which confers grace. But it is a de facto sacrament in the Protestant sects. It is seen as a rite which confers grace, because, it takes the sinful act of sexual relations outside of marriage - fornication - an act which leads souls to perdition - I Cor 6. 9 - and it transforms it into something which does not lead souls to hell - therefore marriage confers grace.

Therefore, as marriage confers grace, it is a de facto sacrament in Protestantism. When a sacrament is defiled - such as marriage is defiled when a church or the State or a person gives its / his blessing to sodomy and gay marriage - then a sacrilege is committed. It seems rather insane to think that a church which commits sacrilege is the True Church. And it seems rather insane to think that a person who endorses sacrilege has the Divine Law written on his heart. And it seems rather insane to think that a Christian who supports something which leads souls to perdition - Gay Marriage - is a True Christian.

§ 15. St. Paul and Slavery.

There is an issue with I Timothy 6. 1-3, where St. Paul writes,

`Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed. And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things.'

It's true that St. Paul did not rebel against the institution of slavery, and therefore he defended some form of slavery, and, therefore, some sort of explanation is required. One has to understand a few things when comparing slavery in the Roman Empire of St. Paul's day with African servitude in the New World. St. Paul never advised Christians to launch raids to capture and enslave human beings. St. Paul was confronted with a world where slaves in Pagan Rome had no where to escape. There were no honest jobs to be had if the slaves ran away and won their freedom. If St. Paul had advised the slaves to rise up and throw off their chains, he would have been advising them to slaughter their masters. If they slaughtered their masters, the armies of Pagan Rome would have intervened and the slaves would have been tortured to death by the armies of Pagan Rome. If the only option for the women who escaped from slavery was prostitution, and if the only option for men who escaped from servitude was the gladiatorial games, then, it would not have been an act of Christian mercy on St. Paul's part to encourage people to escape slavery, so that they could become prostitutes or gladiators. St. Paul had to advise the slaves to be content with enduring their chains while they looked to a blessed afterlife. In Ephesians 6. 9, St. Paul tells masters to not threaten their bondservants. The capture and enslavement of Africans in the 15th century and after was perpetrated by Catholics, Protestants and Muslims. The Catholic and Protestant clergy justified their evil by quoting St. Paul and I Tim 6. 1-3. The African slave trade which began in the 15th century was certainly evil. It was not in St. Paul's power to forbid Roman pagans from creating an Empire founded upon slave labor. He might have advised Christian slave masters to release their slaves, but there were no honest jobs to be had for these released slaves. There was the prostitution option, the gladiatorial option, and there was employment in the pagan Roman Army or Navy, hardly fit employment options for a Christian. I don't think it taxes ones intelligence too strenuously to understand that slavery is evil, but, nevertheless, St. Paul had to tell Christian slaves to patiently endure their servitude. St. Paul never advised Christians to go hunting for human beings. He never advised Christians to take their captives and turn them into slaves, so that the Christian masters could live in ease and comfort while their captives toiled as slaves. St. Paul never advised Christians to hunt for human beings so that they could make a handsome profit by selling their captives in the slave-markets. So, it is quite easy to see the evil perpetrated by those Popes and Protestants who tried to use St. Paul's words to justify the African slave trade. And it is easy to see that St. Paul had to take the line that he took in dealing with slavery in the ancient Roman Empire.

§ 16. The True Rulers of the World?

We're still asking the questions: Is the Church of Rome the Church which Christ founded upon a rock? Or has the Church of Rome fallen away? And are the evils perpetrated by people under the sign of the cross reflected in the cross? God is sacred but material images of God are violations of the 2nd commandment - Exodus 20. 4-6. So, the spiritual cross of Christ mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 is sacred, but what about material crosses? Are they evil? If indeed Rome is the True Church, the Church which God founded upon a rock, then how could it ever be rational to rebel against Rome? If Rome has fallen away, if rome leads souls to perdition, how could it ever be sane to remain in the Roman Catholic Church?

Sir Arthur Helps writes in 'The Great Events by Famous Historians' (The National Alumni),

`Prince Henry applied to Pope Martin V, praying that his holiness would grant to the Portuguese crown all that it could conquer, from Cape Bojador to the Indies, together with plenary indulgences for those who should die while engaged in such conquests. The Pope granted these requests...In 1442 the Moors...captured in the previous year promised to give black slaves in ransom for themselves if he would take them back to their own country...Returning to the course of Portuguese affairs, a historian of that nation informs us that the gold...`awakened, as it always does, covetousness'; and there is no doubt that it proved an important stimulus to further discoveries. The next year...Tristam went further down the African coast...In 1444 a company was formed at Lagos, who received permission from the Prince to undertake discovery along the coast of Africa...The only thing of any moment, however, which the company accomplished was to attack successfully the inhabitants of the islands of Nar and Tider, and to bring back about two hundred slaves...We have an account from an eye-witness of the partition of the slaves...It is to be found in The Chronicle, before referred to, of Azurara..."O thou heavenly Father...who, with thy powerful hand, without movement of thy divine essence, governest all the infinite company of thy holy city, and who drawest together all the axles of the upper worlds, divided into nine spheres, moving the times of their long and short periods as it pleases thee! I implore thee that my tears may not condemn my conscience, for not its law, but our common humanity, constrains my humanity to lament piteously the sufferings of these people (slaves). And if brute animals, with their mere bestial sentiments, by a natural instinct, recognize the misfortunes of their like, what must this by human nature do, seeing thus before my eyes this wretched company, remembering that I myself am of the generation of the sons of Adam! The other day, which was the eighth of August, very early in the morning, by reason of the heat, the mariners began to bring to their vessels, and, as they had been commanded, to draw forth those captives to take them out of the vessel: whom, placed together on that plain, it was a marvelous sight to behold; for among them there were some of a reasonable degree of whiteness, handsome and well made; others less white, resembling leopards in their color; others as black as Ethiopians, and so ill-formed, as well in their faces as their bodies, that it seemed to the beholders as if they saw the forms of a lower hemisphere. But what heart was that... which was not pierced with arrows, seeing that company: for some had sunken cheeks, and their faces bathed in tears, looking at each other; others were groaning very dolorously, looking at the heights of the heavens, fixing their eyes upon them, crying out loudly, as if they were asking succor from the Father of nature; others struck their faces with their hands, throwing themselves on the earth; others made lamentations in songs, according to the customs of their country, which, altogether we could not understand their language, we saw correspond well to the height of their sorrow. But now, for the increase of their grief, came those who had charge of the distribution, and they began to put them apart one from the other, in order to equalize the portions, wherefore it was necessary to part children and parents, husbands and wives, and brethren from each other. Neither in the partition of friends and relations was any law kept, only each fell where the lot took him. O powerful Fortune! who goest hither and thither with thy wheels, compassing the things of the world as it pleaseth thee, if thou canst, place before the eyes of the miserable nations some knowledge of the things that are to come after them, that they may receive some consolation in the midst of their great sadness! and you others who have the business of this partition, look with pity on such great misery, and consider how can those be parted whom you cannot disunite! Who will be able to make this partition without great difficulty? For while they were placing in one part the children that saw their parents in another, the children sprang up perseveringly and fled to them; the mothers enclosed their children in their arms and threw themselves with them on the ground, receiving wounds with little pity for their own flesh, so that their offspring might not be torn from them! And so, with labor and difficulty, they concluded the partition, for, besides the trouble they had with the captives, the plain was full of people, as well of the place as the villages and neighborhood around, who in that day gave rest to their hands, the mainstay of their livelihood, only to see this novelty. And as they looked on upon these things, some deploring, some reasoning upon them, they made such a riotous noise as greatly to disturb those who had management of this distribution."

`The good Azurara wished that these captives might have some foresight of the things to happen after their death. I do not think, however, that it would have proved much consolation to them to have foreseen that they were almost the first of many millions to be dealt with as they had been; for, in this year 1444, Europe may be said to have made a distinct beginning in the slave trade, henceforth to spread on all sides, like the waves upon stirred waters, and not, like them, to become fainter and fainter as the circles widen.'

We're exploring this logic which says that if the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven and she leads no one to perdition, then, since Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition, since Rome is God's True Church, it is evil to rebel against God's True Church - and it is stupid - because one might burn in hell if one rebels against God's True Church. Of course if Rome has fallen away - recall 2 Thess 2 - if Rome leads souls to perdition, then the Pope is obviously not the true ruler of the world. But if the Church of Rome is God's True Church...

§ 17. Bush v. McCain

When one writes a Constitutional History, as opposed to a Military History or an Art History, one concentrates on Divine and human laws. Sir Winston Churchill, in The Birth of Britain, described Henry V.'s fiery execution of a Lollard - an early type of Protestant. Christians in positions of high authority in Church and State, from the 4th century to the 19th, executed other Christians (A Christian being defined as one who believes Jesus is Divine) because of disagreements over religious doctrines. These high authorities executed dissidents because they were firmly convinced that God wanted those people dead. To many academics a paraphrase of Judaism, Christianity and Islam seems misplaced in a volume entitled Constitutional History of the Western World. Academics might prefer to see more information in this volume about the laws of Solon, or the Roman Council of Ten, or the English Constitution under the Normans and the Plantagenets, or hear the latest news about the Spanish Constitution of 1812. There are an infinite number of ways to write a volume on Western Civilization, but ultimately one will be dealing with Education and Essential Lore. Not too many years ago one had to know Greek and Latin to be considered educated. One is considered an ignoramus in America if one has never heard of Auschwitz, but how many people have heard of Kolyma? Robert Conquest told us in Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps that Stalin and his minions murdered 3,000,000 people in that obscure region of Siberia. School children in America are told that Jamestown was the first permanent English colony founded in America, and are told about the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock, but the first wave of European colonists to arrive in what is now the USA - French Huguenots in the 16th century who settled in what is now Florida - have been forgotten. They were all murdered by the Spaniards.

We are looking for a creed which can be written on the hearts of even the least of God's people. Perhaps something like: Don't ever contract the Roman Catholic Church, or Don't ever contradict the New Testament, or Don't ever contradict the Church of England, might work.

John McCain once took George W. Bush to task for visiting Bob Jones University, because Bob Jones had stated that the Roman Catholic Church is a cult. This is especially interesting because a) John McCain was tortured for years in a North Vietnamese POW camp, and b) it is still to this day official Roman Catholic doctrine that the Church of Rome is God's True Church; the Church of Rome is still the Church which Christ founded on a rock. And if God's True Church determines that it is right to use torture - the rack and the stake - on her enemies for six centuries via the Inquisition - then who dares to contradict God's True Church?

But if you say that Rome is not God's True Church, if you say that Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then you are saying the Church of Rome is a cult.

Gibbon remarked in a famous passage that the philosophers of ancient Rome saw the various creeds of ancient Rome as equally false; the people saw them as equally true; and the magistrates saw them as equally useful. Sen. McCain evidently thought it was useful to use Bob Jones University and Catholicism to make political capital by painting Gov. Bush as a narrow-minded religious bigot. Common decency says that if a soldier is beaten for years in a POW camp, then his countrymen should have some compassion on him and not beat him up any more. But, still, we have to try to avoid the insane asylum. Senator McCain was beaten repeatedly over his 6 years in a North Vietnamese POW camp. Does it make any sense to say the North Vietnamese who tortured John McCain for 6 years are God's True Church? The Church of Rome tortured people for 6 centuries via an institution she called the `Holy Office'. To this day Rome insists that God is the sort of God who sees the Inquisition as holy. To this day Rome insists the Dogma of Papal Infallibility is infallible. That Dogma specifically anathematizes - curses - damns to hell - all those who reject that Dogma. To reject that Dogma, or to declare that Rome is a false religion, or to declare that the Church of Rome is not God's True Church and is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, are all the same things as saying the Church of Rome is a cult.

Making the decision to not be a Roman Catholic, the decision to reject the Church of Rome, is more or less the same thing as making the decision that the Church of Rome is a false religion, a superstition, a cult. To get huffy in the way McCain got huffy, and to paint George Bush as bigot, because he visited Bob Jones University, is about is rational as denouncing Martin Luther and all modern Lutherans, because Luther called the Church of Rome the whore of Babylon; it is akin to seeking to remove every copy of Dante's `Inferno' from every college campus, on the basis that Dante was an intolerant, anti-Politically Correct bigot, because he put various popes into hell, and because he put Muhammad and Ali into hell as well. These latter two were eternally slashed by devils wielding axes, because, in Dante's logic, those who caused schisms deserved to be eternally slashed by devils.

The Political Correctness cops in the USA will let you publish no end of evidence which drop no end of hints which say that the Church of Rome, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of England etc., are cults which lead souls to perdition - but if you actually say Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy or the Church of England is a cult which lead souls to perdition - then the Political Correctness cops will bust you by calling you a fool and an insensitive narrow-minded bigot. One is usually more persuasive when one tries to be polite by simply presenting the evidence while keeping the strident editorializing to a minimum. As we know, it is anti-Christian to reject the scriptures which tell us there is a True Church and a True Faith: John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Matthew 16. 13-19, Ephesians 4. 4, Galatians 1. 8-12, 2 Thess 2, 2 Thess 1. 8, Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-36, Luke 13. 5, Revelation 20. 15 etc. So, it is anti-Christian to say there is no True Church and no True Faith. And the Political Correctness cops embrace the anti-Christian doctrine that there is no True Church and no True Faith. Christianity sends anti-Christian people to perdition. But the anti-Christian people mustn't say that Christianity, the religion which ships them off to hell, is a cult. That would be insensitive and hurtful. That would be narrow-minded bigoted thinking!

Recall again the earlier words on the Church of England. There is simply no reason for the Church of England to exist if either the Church of Rome or the Eastern Orthodox Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. But if both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have fallen away from the True Faith, if both lead souls to perdition, if neither is the True Church, then the Church of England might be the True Church. Many people hate the doctrine which says that some kindly missionary in the Church of England, a man who has devoted his life to bringing Christianity to pagans, must be damned because he is not in the Church which Christ founded on a rock - assuming the Church of England is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. But Christianity has some ambiguities which are impossible to clarify. God might have mercy on some people even though they are not in the True Church. If the Church of England is not the True Church, if the Church of England leads souls to perdition, then God might nevertheless have mercy on some people in the Church of England, I mean mercy in regards to Revelation 20. 15. Revelation 20. 15 deals with the Last Judgment. Here, ones name is either written in the Book of Life or it isn't. If it is then one is rewarded with eternal life in heaven. If it isn't one is tossed into a lake of fire. Revelation 20. 15 is also ambiguous because it doesn't tell us if those tossed into this lake of fire are instantly annihilated or if there is prolonged torment. In any event, suppose the Church of England is not the True Church - suppose it is not the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, then you can see why people would be angry with the justice of God if some kindly Anglican who spent his life as a missionary got tossed into a lake of fire, because, though he was a kindly missionary, he wasn't a missionary for the True Church. But, again, Christianity is a little ambiguous because we don't know who God will have mercy on. Despite this ambiguity surrounding Christianity, one can still make some unambiguous observations: 1) The scriptures are perfectly clear there is one True Church and one True Faith, 2) It stands to reason that you will have a much better chance to attain heaven and avoid hell if you accept True Church and the True Faith rather than if you reject the True Church and the True Faith, 3) Both secular and religious governments which oppose the True Church and the True Faith make no sense - if Church X is the Church which Christ founded on a rock - God's True Church - if Church X souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition, then everyone should obey Church X in all matters pertaining to faith and morals, and in all matters concerning justice. These matters concerning justice encompass political matters. It is always irrational to rebel against God's True Church, because one might go to hell if one rebels against God's True Church, but one can't possibly go to hell if one simply obeys God's True Church. This is not really controversial because it is just common sense. Of course many insist there is no True Church - and again it is anti-Christian to say there is no True Church, because it is anti-Christian to reject the scriptures which insist there is a True Church. How could it not be anti-Christian to reject John 14. 23-26, john 15. 6, Matthew 16. 13-19, Ephesians 4. 4 etc? But matters get very controversial when one says that everyone must obey the Church of Rome, or when one says everyone must obey the Eastern Orthodox Church, or everyone must obey the Church of England, or everyone must obey the Mormon Church etc., etc.

§ 18. True Christianity vs. False Christianity.

John Buchan writes in `The Free Fishers',

`Another had gone into the Arctic among the great whales, and stammered a tale - he had some defect in his speech - of waters red like a battlefield, of creatures large as a hill rolling and sighing in their death-throes, and of blood rising in forty-foot spouts and drenching the decks like rain.'

From this one can argue that whale hunting is an abomination, and therefore whale hunting is hostile to the New Law, to the Gospel, to Christianity. And, therefore, the community of the Christian faithful should have come to the aid of families who relied on whale hunting for their subsistence, and should have supported them while they learned new trades which were better trades than the vile whale-hunting trade. It's easy to imagine one being shouted down in a 19th century church if one argued that whale-hunting was a violation of Divine Law and that money had to be given to the familes of whalers while their menfolk learned new trades. No doubt many would have insisted there is nothing wrong with the whale-hunting trade; many would then quote St. Paul's words in 2 Thess 2. 10, saying that able-bodied whalers who refuse to hunt whales should be left to starve before they are given alms. It will be difficult for a church to be the True Church when it is filled with selfish people who put money and Business Interests above the humane treatment of humans and animals.

John D. Rockefeller, a rich person, gave a lot of money to black colleges and to various charities in the USA. And via his petroleum business, by replacing whale oil with kerosene in millions of lamps over the world, he was able to save thousands of whales from the harpoon. So this is all very wonderful and benevolent. Still, the New Testament hammers the rich - Acts 2. 44, Acts 4. 32, Luke 18. 24-27, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16. 19-31 and Matthew 25. 34-46 etc. - which leads one to ask: 1) What is True Christianity and what is False Christianity, and 2) Are there any rich Christians in True Christianity, as opposed to False Christianity?

In Sir Martin Gilbert's `Israel' (William Morrow, 1998), p. 538-42, we see a synopsis of the strife between Israelis and Arabs in the year 1989. On 6.22.89 Professor Menachem Stern, as he was strolling through the valley of the Monastery of the Cross in West Jerusalem, was stabbed to death by two Arab teenagers. The killers said they murdered Professor Stern as part of an initiation rite which would admit them into Yasir Arafat's Fatah. On 7.6.89, an Arab grabbed the wheel of a bus and forced it off the road 5 miles west of Jerusalem. The bus burst into flames. Many people were burned and 16 people died. Also in July of 1989, 30 ultra-Orthodox students at a Yeshiva near Nablus went on a rampage, and a 13-year-old Palestinian girl was killed. At the trial of the students, the head of their school, Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzberg, told the court, `The people of Israel must rise and declare in public that a Jew and a goy are not, God forbid, the same. Any trial that assumes that Jews and goyim are equal is a travesty of justice.'

In the next paragraph, Sir Martin injects some of editorializing,

`Had Rabbi Ginzburg cared to read Judge Haim Cohn's study `Human Rights in the Bible and the Talmud', he would have seen just how mistaken he was with regard to both Jewish law and ethics.'

If Rabbi Ginzburg had read Judge Cohn's study, how likely is it that Rabbi Ginzburg would have seen he was mistaken in his religious beliefs? We must attempt to write coherently about the question: what is True Judaism? Sir Martin is of the opinion that Judge Cohn and Sir Martin understand True Judaism, whereas Rabbi Ginzburg does not. Sir Martin is certainly entitled to his opinion about what exactly True Judaism is, but does he really expect Rabbi Ginzburg to see the error of his ways if only he would read Judge Cohn's study?

Jews disagree but Christians insist that True Christianity and True Judaism are the same thing.

When one speaks of True Christianity, True Judaism, True Islam, True Buddhism etc., etc. there are a few nuances to be comprehended. Those who believe Islam is a delusion, those who believe that Allah is a fictional being, might still say that in True Islam Allah is God, and, furthermore, one might say that True Muslims are to wage jihad against those who resist Islamic law; whereas, even if one believes that all versions of Islam are delusional, one might, for instance, insist that a false version of Islam teaches that Muhammad is God, even though one believes that all versions of Islam are fictions. Similarly, those who see Buddhism as a delusion might say that in True Buddhism, that is, in the true version of the Buddhist delusion, as opposed to one of the false versions of the Buddhist delusion, if one is virtuous, one will be rewarded in ones next life with a happier and more elevated existence. By an analogous line of logic, those who believe that all versions of Christianity are delusional might still be able to grasp the concept that it is evil in True Christianity to pour molten lead down people's throats. Recall that Gibbon told us that the Catholic Emperor Constantine had molten lead poured down the throats of chaperons who aided young women to elope - such as 24-year-old women - who lacked their fathers' permission to marry If we say that Lenin, Stalin and Mao practiced True Atheism, and that, under True Atheism, one must be willing to murder millions of people should they prove to be Enemies of the People, then, the Atheists in the USA do not practice True Atheism, as the Atheists in the USA are generally not mass murders. Even if all versions of Atheism are delusional, one might still, somehow, be able to speak coherently about True Atheism and False Atheism. We have true versions of delusions and false versions of delusions, and no doubt some might find all of this a little confusing.

What is True Christianity? You get different answers from different people.

Scripture indicates there ought to be equal sharing of the wealth in the True Church, that is, among those who work. The True Church is a Voluntary Association of saints, whereas the State uses force to collect taxes. The True Church is a collection of people who know a few things about Justice and Equity \- the perfect sort of people to run an Equitable and Voluntary Association. Not every Christian agrees that the doctrine of the equal sharing of the wealth is as integral to the Divine Law and the True Church as is the Divinity of Jesus. One might care to reread Acts 2. 44, Acts 4. 32, Luke 18. 24-27, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16. 19-31 and Matthew 25. 34-46 etc.

We know that the New Testament rails against the rich. And we know that if a rich person gives money to everyone who needs help, he will soon be destitute and in need of alms himself. Therefore, to reconcile reality with the New Testament teachings - Acts 2. 44, Acts 4. 32, Luke 18. 24-27, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16. 19-31 and Matthew 25. 34-46 etc. - the sensible solution is to have equally sharing of the wealth, among those who work, in the True Church. The orphans, the widows, the blind or wounded veterans, and all of the other needy people get what they need, and no one is left destitute in this True Church.

Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Recall Matthew 25. 34-46.

We know that money is required to survive: one needs some savings, in case one loses ones job, in case one needs to pay the medical bills. As we saw in Chapter I, one of the proverbs in the Book of Proverbs says: a good man provides a patrimony to his grand children. One will have to save a good deal of money, especially if one has several children, given what it costs to raise children, to send them to decent universities, to help them out financially when they need a little help etc. Recall that Salo W. Baron, who wrote a multi-volume history of the Jewish people, stated that not a single Jew was known to have starved to death during the Middle Ages, as the wealthy Jews, emulating Joseph in Egypt, would help the poor Jews during the lean years. But Christian peasants were forever dying in famines, as the kings and nobles, and the prelates who blessed their regimes, had other things to worry about than starving peasants. They had to concern themselves with their infallibility, their divine right to rule, their majestic royalty and their high nobility. Lord Acton wrote in `The History of Freedom in Christianity',

`The classic land of absolute monarchy was France. Richelieu held that it would be impossible to keep the people down if they were suffered to be well off. The Chancellor affirmed that France could not be governed without the arbitrary arrest and exile; and that in case of danger to the State it may be well that a hundred innocent men should perish. The Minister of Finance called it sedition to demand that the Crown should keep faith. One who lived on intimate terms with Louis XIV says that even the slightest disobedience to the royal will is a crime to be punished with death...when Marshal Vauban, appalled by the misery of the people, proposed that all existing imposts should be repealed for a single tax that would be less onerous, the King took his advice, but retained all the old taxes whilst he imposed the new. With half the present population, he maintained an army of 450,000 men...Meanwhile the people starved on grass. France, said Fenelon, is one enormous hospital. French historians believe that in a single generation six millions of people died of want. It would be easy to find tyrants more violent, more malignant, more odious than Louis XIV, but there was not one who ever used his power to inflict greater suffering or greater wrong; and the admiration with which he inspired the most illustrious men of his time denotes the lowest depth to which the turpitude of absolutism has ever degraded the conscience of Europe.'

One can imagine no end of administrative nightmares in a Church which attempted to practice the equal sharing of the wealth. Some people are capable of working hard for long hours. Others can work neither long nor hard even when they are trying their best. Naturally the people who work hard will feel cheated by the people who can't work hard. But it would be insane to think that the New Testament is a document which encourages people to hoard up riches. And yet if one is always giving ones money away to help poor suffering people, one will soon be destitute and suffering oneself. Therefore the argument which says that there is equal sharing of the wealth in the True Church looks sound, because it conforms with scripture: one can be both generous and reasonably secure and comfortable: one will not be destitute, because the True Church will help one, at least as best that she can. And then there's an added benefit: since one is in the True Church, ones soul will inherit the infinite riches of heaven, and one will not go to perdition, after ones life on earth comes to an end.

Acts 2. 44, Acts 4. 32, Luke 18. 24-27, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16. 19-31 and Matthew 25. 34-46 say what they say, and there's no sense saying these scriptures are anti-Christian! Apropos of people who probably claimed they embraced True Christianity not False Christianity, Rev. Milman writes in `History of Latin Christianity',

`On the death of Liberius, the factions, which had smouldered in secret, broke out again with fatal fury. The Pontificate of Damasus displays Christianity now not merely the dominant, it might seem the sole religion of Rome...The election to the Christian bishopric arrays the people in adverse factions...churches become citadels...they are defiled with blood. Men fall in murderous warfare before the altar of the Prince of Peace. In one sense it might seem the reanimation of Rome to new Life; ancient Rome is resuming her wonted but long-lost liberties...The great offices, which still perpetuated in name the ancient Republic, the Senatorship, Quaestorship, Consulate, are quietly transmitted according to the Imperial mandates, excite no popular commotion, nor even interest; for they are honorary titles, which confer neither influence, nor authority, nor wealth...But the election to the bishopric is now not merely an affair of importance \- the affair of paramount importance it might seem - in Rome; it is an event in the annals of the world. The heathen historian [Ammianus]...assigns the same place to the contested promotion of Damasus which Livy might to one of the great consuls, tribunes, or dictators. He interprets, as well as relates, the event: - "No wonder that for so magnificent a prize as the Bishopric of Rome, men should contest with the utmost eagerness and obstinacy. To be enriched by the lavish donations of the principal females of the city; to ride, splendidly attired, in a stately chariot; to sit at a profuse, luxuriant, more than imperial, table - these are the rewards of successful ambition."...Damaus, at the head of a gang of gladiators, charioteers, and laborers, with axes, swords, and clubs, stormed the church [S Maria Maggiore]: a hundred and sixty of both sexes were barbarously killed...But that scenes occurred of frightful atrocity is beyond all doubt...Church were garrisoned, churches besieged, churches stormed and deluged with blood. In one day, relates Ammianus, above one hundred and thirty dead bodies were counted in the basilica of Sisinnius.'

Henri Pirenne describes for us, p. 68, vol 1, of his `A History of Europe', Pope Leo III. prostrating himself before Charlemagne. Imagine St. Peter or St. Paul doing such a thing, bowing down before a human being! Ardent Roman Catholics aren't happy about a Pope worshipping an Emperor - imagine Innocent III. or Boniface VIII. doing such a thing! Pope St. Gregory VII. made the Emperor Henry IV. wait in the ice and snow, pleading for mercy, for three days, out-of-doors in Canossa, before Pope Gregory permitted the Emperor Henry back into the good graces of the Roman Catholic Church. And Gregory didn't bow down and worship Henry after he forgave him! Princes must kiss the feet of Popes according to Gregory VII., Innocent III., Boniface VIII. etc., etc.

In Kings 1. 16 we read of Bathsheba bowing before king David, then in Kings 2. 19 we read about king Solomon bowing before his mother, Bathsheba. There's no admonition from any priest or prophet saying all of this bowing is a violation against the 1st commandment - the commandment saying one must worship only God. But one must be careful in assuming that even the best people in the Old Testament obeyed the New Law. Revelation 22. 8 seems perfectly clear: under the New Law one must not bow down before anyone who is not God.

For century after century under the sign of the cross there was conflict between those who insisted the Divine Right of kings superceded the authority of the popes and those who insited the Divine Right of popes superceded the authority of kings. One might insist that neither popes nor kings had any Divine authority if they fall away from the True Faith. My reading of the New Testament tells me the non-Divine members of the True Church are supposed to form a one class society. Peter and Paul didn't set themselves up as Princes of the Church. They didn't live in luxurious palaces and lord over any peasants. Paul and Peter had to tell the slaves to not rebel against their masters, because, if they rebelled, they would either be tortured and slaughtered by the armies of Rome, or they would win their freedom and would then find themselves unemployed, and in the position where they would have to earn money to survive by pursuing some sort of anti-Christian profession. In the True Version of Christianity, the non-Divine members of the True Church form a single class society. It is not divided into Patricians and Plebians. It is not divided into a nobility of a few Illustrious Ones who oppress a huge mass of lowly peasants; it is not divided between a few people you must address as `your Majesty', and your `Holiness', and your `Eminence' and a huge mass of plebs. For century after century under the sign of the cross, the penalty for the crime of `lese majesty' - showing disrespect to a king or pope - was execution, and the method of execution was aggravated with torture. Does one understand True Christianity if one thinks the True Church tortures people to death? You get different answers from different Christians.

§ 19. Old News about Judaism and Christianity

This volume requires some abstract thinking ability on the part of the reader. One has to be able to understand the logic which says that when one falls to ones knees to worship God, one must have a clear conception in ones mind as to who God is, because, if one ascribes false or evil attributes to the god that one is worshipping, then one worships a false or evil god. For instance, if a medieval monk claims to worship the Christian Trinity, but, if, the medieval monk also envisions the Christian Trinity to be in favor of torturing women to determine if they are witches, or if he envisions the Christian Trinity to be in favor of tearing the eyes out any Jew who denounces the Catholic faith as a falsehood, then the monk doesn't actually worship the Christian God, but, rather, the monk worships an evil deity, because he worships something with evil attributes. Though he claims to worship the Christian God, he is deluded, and he instead worships an evil deity. All this pertains to Revelation 13. 1-8, which, in symbolic language, tells of people worshipping a dragon and a beast. Whenever a person falls to his knees and worships a god with evil attributes, then he can be said to worship the dragon and the beast.

Have Christians ascribed evil attributes to God? Have they done it often? The Inquisition endured for over 6 centuries. If the Inquisition was evil - hardly a preposterous assumption - then one mustn't say God is a fan of the evil Inquisition. To this day the Church of Rome insists the Inquisition is `the Holy Office'. To this day Rome says that God says the Inquisition is holy. Recall that 2 Thess 1. 8 tells of fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Christians have some advantages over Jews in recognizing the authority of scripture. Christians can easily see many prophecies in the Old Testament which point to Jesus being the Messiah, and these prophecies increase a Christian's confidence in the Divine authority of the Old Testament. There's Isaiah 53. There are Psalms 2 and 22. There's Daniel 9. 24 -27 and the words `Messiah shall be cut off.' Daniel 9. 24-27 tells Christians that the Messiah, the Christ, will be executed before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Christians have no difficulty seeing that Zechariah 12. 10 refers to Jesus. Zechariah 12. 10 says,

`And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have pierced; they will mourn for Him as one who mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.'

Many Jews however are shaken in their belief in these ancient scriptures - for the Messiah should have arrived ages ago, and yet, as the Jews see things, he has certainly failed to arrive, and thus their confidence in the scriptures has been shaken.

Christians see Isaiah 9. 6 as referring to Jesus. Isaiah 9. 6 says,

`For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.'

The doctrine that the Son, the Messiah, will be a conquering Messiah, finds its supreme articulation in Psalm 2. 5-9,

`Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.'"'

Psalm 2 also supports the contention that both the Father and the Son are God, on the logic that when a father begets a son or daughter, then the son or daughter are the same species as the father. Thus when God begets a Son, the Son is Divine because the Father is Divine.

The Jews of course are angered by the contention which says the Jews must worship Jesus as God the Son, the Second Person in a Divine Trinity, because 1) religious Jews believe the surest road to hell consists in worshipping any Deity other than the God of the Old Testament, and this God is not a Trinity, 2) while the Jews can read Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Daniel 9. 24-27 and Zechariah 12. 10, they certainly do not accept the New Testament scriptures which assert that Jesus is God: John 1. 1-14, Col 2. 8-10, 1 Tim 3. 16 etc. And 3) the Jews still assert that Jesus can not be the Messiah, because, Jesus does not rule the world with a rod of iron, and the Son is clearly stated in Psalm 2 to rule the world with a rod of iron.

Christians insist there will be a Second Coming. Christ resembles Moses in this way. Moses first appeared to the Hebrews with little power, then he fled into the wilderness, then he returned with great power to lead the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Christ appeared at first with little power. He went away, but will return with great power.

Judaism, as that religion is presently understood, tells us Jesus is a false messiah. The Old Testament informs us God will make a new covenant, a new law, with the houses of Judah and Israel - Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Judaism, as of 2013, has not announced what this new law is, though Judaism does tell us that this new law is not Christianity: it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, by the logic of the Jews, or so one might assume, since no new law has been given, Judaism is still under the Old Law, the Mosaic Law.

Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us God gave the children of Israel bad laws because they were forever angering God with their incessant rebellions. Anyone can inspect the Mosaic Law and see that it is full of bad laws. Aside from all the slaughtering of animals, it demands that Sabbath violators, sorcerers, enchantresses, adulterers, adulteresses, homosexuals and rebellious children be executed; it demands that the harlot daughter of a Levitical priest be burned alive; it demands that rebellious children be executed, that Sabbath violators be given the death penalty. Needless to say Jews are not enthusiastic about enforcing such laws in 2013, thus the need for a new law. But where is the new law? When will the Messiah arrive? When will the new law be given?

Acts 13. 47 and Isaiah 40. 6 have God saying to the Jews,

`I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.'

As we've seen the Mosaic Law, the Old Law, is a rather primitive light. Ezekiel 20. 25 says what it says. And who is going to actually enforce the Mosaic Law? Who wants to enforce the execution of rebellious children? Since the Old Law contains bad laws, how, then, could it be a light to the Gentiles? The Jews could be a light to the Gentiles for salvation if there was a Jewish Messiah and a Jewish New Law. Christians insist Jesus is the Messiah, but the Jews don't see it this way, and the disagreement between Christians and Jews has endured for nearly 2,000 years.

§ 20. Regarding Miracles.

Perhaps Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Lutherans have all performed valid miracles and bona fide exorcisms. If this is true, then, does this invalidate the doctrine there is one True Church? One interpretation of Matthew 7. 21-23 is that even the damned - that is people in false churches, churches which are not the True Church, churches which lead souls to perdition - can perform miracles and exorcisms in the name of Christ. That is one interpretation of Matthew 7. 21-23. And of course Revelation 13. 13 tells us the damned can work impressive wonders. Matthew 7. 21-23 has Jesus saying,

`Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!"'

Revelation 13. 13 tells us about an evil beast performing miracles,

`He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on earth in sight of men.'

§ 21. The New Testament Hammers the Rich

We've been over the obvious problem with Cafeteria Catholicism. There's also a conspicuous problem with people who claim to be Protestant Fundamentalists - a Protestant Fundamentalist being someone who lives according to the New Testament. We're supposed to live according to the New Testament, but can anyone honestly say he lives according to the New Testament? The New Testament hammers the rich. Aren't there many rich Protestant Fundamentalists? Jesus says in Luke 16. 19-31,

`There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with crmbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom...'

Malachi 3. 5, though found in the Old Testament, is part of the New Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 because it is consistent with the New Testament. Malachi 3. 5,

`And I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and the fatherless, against those who turn away an alien - because they do not fear Me," says the LORD of Hosts.'

Aren't we always hearing about `Protestant Fundamentalists' in the USA who love to turn away aliens, that is Mexican aliens?

Matthew 25. 41-46 has Jesus saying,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

1 John 3. 17,

`But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?'

James 1. 9,

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away.'

The Sermon on the Mount contains curses as well as blessings: Luke 6. 24-5: `But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger...'

Again, the New Testament presents the True Church as one which has equal sharing of wealth between believers. Acts 4. 32 states,

`Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.'

Acts 2. 44-7,

`Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And God added to the church daily those who were being saved.'

St. Paul teaches in 2 Thess 2. 10 that those who refuse to work shouldn't be given alms to allow him to eat. It's true that we don't read in the New Testament that equal sharing of the wealth is absolutely mandatory in the Church. But scriptures such as Mark 12. 41-44 - the widow's two mites - James 1. 9 - the rich man passes away - I Timothy 6. 10 - the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil - Matthew 19. 23 - easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God - Luke 16. 19-31 - parable of Lazarus and the rich man - Luke 3. 11 - John the Baptists likens the rich to a brood of vipers - I Corinthians 13 - one has nothing if one lacks charity - I John 3. 17 - Matthew 25. 31-46 - I John 4. 12 etc, don't extend much hope to rich people seeking salvation.

§ 22. Abortion, Liberal Christians, Born-Agains etc.

One of the advantages which Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have over no end of other churches is that millions of people in the world do not think it is absurd to say that Rome is the True Church, or say that Eastern Orthodoxy is the True Church. To say that only the Methodists are in the True Church, or to say that only the Episcopalians, or to say that only the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, is the True Church, the church which Christ founded upon a rock does not resonate as sound and rational with billions of people. What is a member of a small Protestant sect to do? If he says there is no True Church, then he tramples on John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Matthew 16. 13-19, Galatians 1. 8, Ephesians 4. 1-6, Jeremiah 31. 31-34 etc., etc. And if one tramples on these scriptures one tramples on Christianity.

Protestants are indeed confronted with some problems. A Congregationalist minister knows that it sounds ludicrous to say that the Congregational Church and only the Congregational Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. A Presbyterian minister knows it sounds insane to say that only the members of the Presbyterian Church have their names written in the Book of Life, and that all those outside the raft of the Presbyterian Church, are like those outside Noah's Ark: they are destined for destruction. The reason the above statements sound ludicrous is not because these denominations are relatively small, and it is not because they did not exist when Christ was founding his Church on a rock - there was no church in Rome at the time either, and Constantinople didn't exist. It is ludicrous, for instance, to say that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, because the ELCA doesn't preach the same creed as the creed that Christ preached. The ELCA is Liberal, and Liberals reject various scriptures, and they disobey other scriptures that they accept - though one can say the same things about Conservatives. The ELCA is comfortable with the pro-choice philosophy. The ELCA supports Gay marriage. Therefore it is ludicrous to say the ELCA preaches the same creed that Christ preached.

In David Limbaugh's `Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity' we find, p. 257, that Rev. Mark Bigelow, the clergy advisor for Planned Parenthood, says that Jesus is pro-choice. Unlike the mainline Protestant sects, Rome and the Conservative Evangelicals are clear in stating that the pro-choice philosophy is evil.

As we saw earlier, George Will, in a column he wrote in 1995, gave us the following account of a partial-birth abortion as witnessed by a Dayton Ohio nurse:

`The mother was six months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms - everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby's head just inside the uterus. The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby's brains out.'

A partial-birth abortion is actually an example of one of the more humane varieties of the various abortion procedures. A stab to the back of a baby's skull is indeed brutal, and evil, but at least death arrives quite swiftly and there is less pain for the aborted child in a partial birth abortion than in some other types of abortion, types which the Supreme Court has not outlawed, abortions which the American medical profession performs every day with the blessing of the American government.

If the reader is interested in the New Law of Jeremiah 31: 31-34 he might also be interested in some other verses from the Book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 1: 5 has God saying,

`Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.'

Jeremiah 2. 33-34 has God saying,

``Why do you beautify your way to seek love? Therefore you have also taught the wicked women your ways. Also on your skirts is found the blood of the poor innocents. I have not found it by secret search, but plainly on all these things.'

To the pro-life Roman Catholic, nothing is more obvious than the fact that it insane to say that some small pro-choice Protestant sect, and only that small pro-choice Protestant sect, is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock.

Protestant clergymen make their livings from their sects, and they would naturally be hesitant to attack the rationality of their sects, because, they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. A Protestant minister is caught in a trap. On the one hand he probably knows it sounds idiotic to say that some small Protestant denomination and only that small Protestant denomination is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. And yet he knows that scripture is clear there is a True Church. Protestant clergymen know their respective denominations are putting food on their tables and are paying their mortgages; they are paying for their retirement plans, buying little luxuries for their wives and putting their kids through expensive colleges; they are paying for their kids' orthodontia and private schools and summer camps; these denominations are paying for all the paraphernalia a minister insists he must have to give his family a comfortable lifestyle.

Born-Again Christians are a sect within Protestantism. They are self-proclaimed saints in that they claim they are saved, and the saved are the saints. If a Born-Again Christian actually obeyed the Gospel, then he would have an excellent claim to be a saint. But most Born-Again Christians do not obey the Gospel. Our immigration laws in the USA oppress aliens, and these laws have great support from Born Again Christians in the USA. Malachi 3. 5 is in the Old Testament but it is part of the New Law, and Born-Again Christians usually violate Malachi 3. 5 because they usually support laws which oppress aliens. Malachi 3. 5 has God saying,

`And I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and the fatherless, against those who turn away an alien - because they do not fear Me," says the LORD of Hosts.'

Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox can't find any scriptural evidence for either Official Catholicism or Cafeteria Catholicism. The term: Bishop of Rome is never mention in the New Testament. The famous text of Matthew 16. 13-19 mentions St. Peter's authority, and it mentions, in so many words, a True Church, but it says nothing about the authority of any Bishops of Rome. It certainly does not say that Rome and only Rome is the True Church. Yet Rome insists that Rome and only Rome is God's True Church - the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. And Rome insists that Satan and the evil angels will never prevail against the Church of Rome.

Rome is something of an easy target because she takes such strong and unambiguous stands on so many issues. Conservative Protestants applaud Rome's stand against abortion. But Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox are less than thrilled with Rome's assertion that Rome and only Rome is the True Church, all others are from Satan!

Philosophy says it is wiser to embrace a creed which gives you a 1 in 10 chance of salvation and eternal paradise, provided its yoke is just and bearable, than it is to embrace a creed which gives you no chance of salvation, such as Atheism. This logic dates back to something called Pascal's Wager. An Atheist might convert to Christianity, not because he is convinced that Christianity is the True Faith, but because he believes there is a 90% chance that Atheism is true, whereas he believes there is a 10% chance that Christianity is true, and yet, the prize for winning on the long shot - immortality in heaven - is too tempting to pass up. If one believes that God probably does not exist, then, one would not be insisting that one has a Divine Law inscribed on ones heart.

§ 23. Defense of Christianity.

The defense of Christianity begins with the defense of Judaism. And the defense of Judaism begins with Ezekiel 20. 25. Ezekiel 20. 25 says that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because of their sins in the wilderness, because of the hardness of their hearts, and the reader will recall that the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, contained some bad laws, some rites incompatible with anything which might be called enlightened. And if the Old Law was wonderful there would be no need for a New Law. To intelligently defend Judaism and Christianity one can not argue that every law in the Mosaic Law is a good law - on the logic that they must all be good since they all came from God. There are some bad laws, and Ezekiel 20. 25 gives us the explanation for the existence of the bad laws in the Mosaic Law. But note how far into the Old Testament the explanation comes. It arrives on page 532 of my copy of the New King James version of the Bible.

There were no end of evils in Christendom and yet these evils corroborate various prophecies given in the New Testament. These evils are certainly not conclusive evidence in favor Christianity! But they do corroborate a few prophecies.

St. Paul stated in Acts 20: 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

St. Paul is shown here to be an antitype of Elisha, for both were men who gazed into the future and wept. For a quick review of types and antitypes – types are in the Old Testament, antitypes in the New, e.g. Jonah is a type of Christ, Jonah 3 days inside the whale, Christ 3 days in hell. Mary is an antitype of Sarah as both gave birth via Divine miracle. We read in 2 Kings 8. 12,

`And Hazael said, "Why is my lord weeping?" And he [Elisha] answered, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword; and you will dash their children, and rip open their women with child."'

In 2 Peter 2: 1-3, St. Peter prophesies that many in Christendom will follow after damnable heresies. The Epistle of Jude speaks of ungodly men preordained to enter the Church. St. Paul states in 2 Corinthians 11: 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

Matthew 7: 21-23 states many who profess to follow Jesus will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but will be given over to the flames because they are practitioners of lawlessness. I Timothy 4: 1-3 reads:

`Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.'

Christ's parable of the wheat and the tares would be another scripture pertinent to the idea that evil men will enter the Church. 2 Thess 2 mentions a falling away. If one can find wolves who call themselves Christians, well, St. Paul prophesied that this would happen in Acts 20: 28-31.

God admitted in Ezekiel 20. 25 that the He gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their continual disobedience. Christ said He came to fulfill the Old Law not to abolish it. And the Old Testament is very clear in saying the Mosaic Law is an eternal law. How does one describe this delicate legal situation? The Old Law still exists, it is eternal, but it is largely unobserved. Even if one is Jewish and one rejects the New Testament, there are Old Testament scriptures which say very clearly that God is no longer a fan of the Mosaic Law. Again Ezekiel 20. 25 has god saying He gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their disobedience. There's also Isaiah 1. 11-18,

`"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?" says the LORD. "I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats...Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me...Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates...Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean...Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow...though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."'

To give evidence in favor of Christianity, the New Law, one must explain why the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, should not be enforced, even though it is an eternal law. If we were to enforce the Mosaic Law, we would have to agitate for the destruction of the Islamic Dome of the Rock, and then agitate for the construction of a new Temple, and then we would have to agitate for resumption of ritual sacrifice of bulls and goats, and we would have to execute homosexual, execute adulterers, execute enchantresses etc., etc. If a Christian was to live by the Old Law, he would have to renounce Christianity - renounce the doctrine that Christ's blood was shed for the remission of sins - and begin again with the animal sacrifices.

Jude 3,

`Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.'

The phrase, `the faith which was once delivered to the faith' implies a faith which will not be amended over the centuries, with innovations such as: forbidding bishops to marry; commanding the faithful to abstain from eating meat; the Dogma of Papal Infallibility; the Dogma of the Assumption of Mary etc. One can defend Transubstantiation via scripture note John 6. 44-58.

Who would ever believe in Transubstantiation if it could not be supported by scripture?

Jude 3 tells us the faith will not be amended over the centuries with innovations contrary to the New Testament, e.g. by relic-worship, venerating saints, Inquisitions, Mormonism etc.

The Bible is filled with verses which preach Repent or Perish. This is the theme of Luke 13. 3-5. This is one of the themes of Daniel 9. 24-27, which is also a very important prophetic scripture as it tells us the Messiah will be cut off before the destruction of the 2nd Temple, and Jesus was crucified prior to the destruction of the 2nd Temple. Hebrews 12. 14 tells us that one must be holy in order to see the Lord. This reinforces the verse from the Beatitudes - Matthew 5. 8 - `blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.' Mark 9. 47 and Matthew 18. 9 tell of hellfire for those who don't repent - if your eye causes you to sin, then cut out your eye - better to do this than be thrown into hell.

Even after one has repented, one will, inevitably, fall back into sin from time to time. Such is the frailty of human flesh: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. But, to rescue us from our weakness, Proverbs 10. 12, I Peter 4. 8 and I Corinthians 13 tell us that love covers a multitude of sins.

Look how harsh the New Testament is toward certain people! Matthew 25. 41-46, which has Jesus saying,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

Luke 16. 19-31,

`There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom...'

Matthew 7. 21-27,

`Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?" And I will declare to them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!...Now everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand: and the rains descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.'

Apropos of the First Pillar of Protestantism \- which says that neither Roman Catholicism nor Eastern Orthodoxy is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock - and Protestantism has to have this as its First Pillar, because if one of these Churches is the True Church, then Protestantism would have to be a falsehood, as we know scripture is clear there is only one True Church. Knowing which version of Protestantism is the True Faith is certainly problematical, but a Protestant has to understand the significance of St. Paul's words about the falling away in II Thessalonians ii. Protestantism's only chance of making any sense is if neither Rome nor Eastern Orthodoxy is the True Church.

The second Pillar of Protestantism - which says the Bible is the supreme religious authority on earth - is derived from John 14: 23-26, Galatians 1. 8-12 and 2 Tim 3. 16. 2 Tim 3. 16 does not say that every scripture must be taken as literal truth, for Jesus taught in parables, and perhaps other parables exist in scripture. Protestant Fundamentalists do not insist that one must either profess that God created the world in 6 literal days, sometime around 4004 BC, or else one is as damned as the most hell-bound devil-worshipper.

Protestants interpret the words, 'the faith which was once delivered to the saints,' in Jude 1: 3 to mean that the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 was given to the saints of the Apostolic Age in its entirety, and that this New Law will not be amended over the centuries, such as by forbidding bishops and priests to marry, by ordering the faithful to venerate people such as John of Capistrano, by ordering people to profess the Dogma of Papal Infallibility etc., etc.

Before the rupture between Rome and Constantinople in the 11th century one referred to most Christians as simply Catholics. A Roman Catholic is one who believes that the Bishop of Rome is the supreme leader on earth of the True Christian Church. Catholics such as St. Augustine, Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose, St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom etc., did not believe that the Bishop of Rome was protected by the Holy Spirit, and therefore could not fall into heresy. These men were Catholics but they were not Roman Catholics. A Roman Catholic is someone who says: to locate the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, you must look to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Rome and only to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Rome, because he is always the leader on earth of the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. The early Church Fathers didn't teach this. Christ and the apostles certainly didn't teach it. Pope Liberius was widely censured by leading churchmen for opposing Athanasius, Athanasius being the main defender of the Divinity of Jesus against the Arians in the early 4th century, before 325 AD and the Council of I. Nicaea. Pope Honorius was anathematized as a heretic by the Council of III. Constantinople. Pope Leo II. confirmed the condemnation. The Council of II. Nicaea (787 AD) also ratified the anathema against Honorius.

Apropos of the contention that Eastern Orthodoxy has, like Rome, fallen away from the True Faith, one finds in the history of Eastern Orthodoxy a good deal of barbarism: blinding was a common means to prevent someone from assuming the throne of Constantinople, mutilation and torture as part of criminal proceedings, nobles oppressing peasants etc., etc. Having unexcommunicated tyrants on the throne of Constantinople, with all their evil henchmen, for century after century, seems to be the most damning accusation against the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Eastern Orthodox also bow before images - which is idolatry - at least in Protestant eyes.

To this day, Rome insists that all True Christians must venerate John of Capistrano, Charles Borrome and Pope Pius V as true saints. Paragraph 2148 of the Catechism informs us that one commits blasphemy if one directs abusive language towards Capistrano or any other canonized person. Paragraph 2148 also says it is a blasphemy of God to torture and execute people in the name of God. Not to imply that the Protestants were never ferocious, but, nevertheless, the criminal jurisprudence under Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox regimes, regimes which made use of torture and execution against those holding dissenting religious opinions, persisted for century after century. There was barbarism in the laws of Christendom ever since the 4th century, ever since the Age of Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian. And then the Church of Rome used her own priests to torture people in the name of God for over six centuries via the Inquisitions.

We're trying to find an interpretation of 2 Thess 2, which says there will be a `falling away', such as a falling away from the Faith of Christ and the apostles.

Dr. Lea,

`On secular jurisprudence the example of the Inquisition worked even more deplorably. It came at a time when the old order of things was giving way to the new - when the ancient customs of the barbarians, the ordeal, the wager of law, the wer-gild, were growing obsolete in the increasing intelligence of the age, when a new system was springing to life under the revived study of the Roman law, and when the administration of justice by the local feudal lord was becoming swallowed up in the widening jurisdiction of the crown. The whole judicial system of the European monarchies was undergoing reconstruction, and the happiness of future generations depended on the character of the new institutions. That in this reorganization the worst features of the imperial jurisprudence - the use of torture and the inquisitorial process - should be eagerly, nay, almost exclusively adopted, should be divested of the safeguards which in Rome restricted their abuse, should be exaggerated in all their evil tendencies, and should, for five centuries, become the prominent characteristic of the criminal jurisprudence of Europe, may safely be ascribed to the fact that they received the sanction of the Church. Thus recommended, they penetrated everywhere along the Inquisition; while most of the nations to whom the Holy Office was unknown maintained their ancestral customs, developing into various forms of criminal practice, harsh enough, indeed, to modern eyes, but wholly divested of the more hideous atrocities which characterized the habitual investigation into crime in other regions. Of all the curses which the Inquisition brought in its train this, perhaps, was the greatest - that, until the closing years of the eighteenth century, throughout the greater part of Europe, the inquisitorial process, as developed for the destruction of heresy, became the customary method of dealing with all who were under accusation; that the accused was treated as one having no rights, whose guilt was assumed in advance, and from whom confession was to be extorted by guile or force. Even witnesses were treated in the same fashion; and the prisoner who acknowledged guilt under torture was tortured again to obtain information about any other evil-doers of whom he perchance might have knowledge. So, also the crime of `suspicion' was imported from the Inquisition into ordinary practice, and the accused who could not be convicted of the crime laid to his door could be punished for being suspected of it, not with the penalty legally provided for the offence, but with some other, at the fancy and discretion of the judge. It would be impossible to compute the amount of misery and wrong, inflicted on the defenseless up to the present century, which may be directly traced to the arbitrary and unrestricted methods introduced by the Inquisition and adopted by the jurists who fashioned the criminal jurisprudence of the Continent. It was a system which might well seem the invention of demons, and was fitly characterized by Sir John Fortescue as the Road to Hell.'

It has always boggled the minds of Christians to observe the Jews fail to recognize Jesus as Messiah when the Old Testament scriptures pointing to Jesus are so clear: Daniel 9. 24-27, Isaiah 9. 6, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Zechariah 9. 9, Zechariah 12. 10, Isaiah 53 etc.

And it has always boggled the minds of Jews to observe Christians insisting that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob loves these murderous, evil, vicious Gentiles, especially as the New Testament is clear in preaching love and mercy: love God, love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemies, forgive those who trespass against you so that God will forgive your trespasses, turn the other cheek etc. No doubt centuries of murderous persecution from people carrying crosses has influenced Jewish thinking.

§ 24. You are Damned if You Reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility?

Roman Catholicism teaches that those who reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility are anathema, that is, accursed, damned. The following is found in Documents of the Christian Church by Henry Bettenson (2nd edition, 1970, Oxford), pp. 273-4:

`We (i.e. Pope Pius IX), adhering faithfully to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith with a view to the glory of our Divine Saviour, the exaltation of the Catholic religion, and the safety of Christian peoples (the sacred Council approving), teach and define as a dogma divinely revealed: That the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra (that is, when fulfilling the office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians on his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church), through the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, is endowed with that infallibility, with which the Divine Redeemer has willed that His Church in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals should be equipped: And therefore, that such definitions of the Roman Pontiff of themselves and not by virtue of the consent of the Church are irreformable. If any one shall presume (which God forbid!) to contradict this our definition; let him be anathema.'

This Dogma has certainly never been amended. And one might need to wait a very long time before a pope admits there is an error in the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. Thus, the Roman Catholic Church holds that one is anathema if one rejects the Dogma of Papal Infallibility.

Paragraph 89 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that if you are leading an upright life you will be able to see the truth of the Catholic dogmas.

There is some debate as to what is the strongest evidence against the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. Popes gave their blessing to Inquisitional torments for 6 centuries. Indeed they called it the `Holy Office.' Charles Dickens, in Pictures from Italy, wrote about his visit to the torture chamber in the Palace of the Popes in Avignon. Hard by the iron spikes on which heretics were formerly impaled was a scene painted on the wall portraying the Good Samaritan. Rome has made St. Thomas Aquinas not only a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, but also a Doctor. A Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church is someone, according to Rome, who is incapable of teaching heresy. Aquinas taught a doctrine which said: since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, the Church may take their property. Aquinas said one must worship the sign of the cross just as one worshipped God.

William Manchester told us in 'A World Lit only by Fire,' p. 291, that 28 consecutive popes damned as absurd and heretical the doctrine that the earth moves round the sun. Everyone knows today that the earth moves round the sun. Rome either tortured Galileo or threatened Galileo with torture and death if he didn't retract and conform to Rome's doctrine: the sun revolves round the earth.

What is the strongest evidence which says the Dogma of Papal Infallibility is false? Some insist the Galileo affair best proves it false - he was threatened with tortures, and some authorities insist he actually was tortured by the Inquisition. The conflict was basically one where Rome said to Galileo: either obey Rome, the True Church, and obey her teaching that the sun revolves round the earth, or else! Others insist it is best shown to be an error by those popes who said that the souls of infants who perished as unbaptized infants were sent by God to hell, where God tortured them, because, Rome said God was the sort of God who tortured little infants if they died before they were baptized. We certainly know the Inquisition was a terrible evil, and the popes supported the Inquisition for over 6 centuries.

Again, consider 2 Thessalonians ii. 3-4,

`Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God...'

Did people under the sign of the cross fall away from the True Faith a long time ago? Lord Acton told us in his essay 'Human Sacrifice:

`And yet, long after the last victim had fallen in honour of the sun-god of the Aztecs, the civilised nations of Christian Europe continued to wage wholesale destruction...Protestants and Catholics, clergy and laity, vied with each other for two hundred years to provide victims, and every refinement of legal ingenuity and torture was used in order to increase their number. In 1591... a girl was tortured twenty-three times before she confessed...Three years later... a woman suffered torture fifty-six times without confessing she was a witch...In the north of Italy, the great jurist Alciatus saw 100 witches burnt on one day...In England alone, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, the victims of this superstition amounted to 30,000. Yet, from the appearance of Spee's Cautio in 1631 to the burning of the last witch in 1783, all sensible men were persuaded that the victims were innocent of the crime for which they suffered intolerable torments and an agonizing death. But those who hunted them out with cunning perseverance, and the inflexible judges who never spared their lives, firmly believed that their execution was pleasing in the sight of God, and that their sin could not be forgiven by men.'

Protestantism only makes sense provided both the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church have have fallen away from the True Faith, such that neither is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. But if Protestantism embraced evil - `all sensible men were persuaded that the victims were innocent of the crime for which they suffered intolerable torments and an agonizing death' - it was the Catholic and Protestant clergy and the Catholic and Protestant secular authorities who were responsible for this evil - then, obviously, it is natural to conclude that Protestantism had also fallen away, along with Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy, though one doesn't read about much woman-burning in Eastern Orthodoxy. The most conspicuous sins of Eastern Orthodoxy are persecuting Jews for century after century, and supporting evil monarchs and their evil henchmen for century after century. Voltaire described of the abysmal state of Russian spirituality and the Orthodox Church during and before the age of Peter the Great. There had been a sanguinary rebellion which arose over the momentous issue of whether laymen should make the sign of the cross with two fingers or with three. In this Russia of old, all murderers were granted absolution provided they confessed their sin to the priest. Their religion held that they were purified in the eyes of God as soon as the priest gave his benediction, which had to be given, to all who confessed, even to those who committed the most despicable crimes. Russians were forbidden to leave their Christian homeland on pain of death unless they first received permission from the Patriarch.

And again there is also a colossal problem with the contention which says that the Holy Spirit guides churches which perpetrate evil for century after century, because, when one says the Holy Spirit guides churches which perpetrate evil....In centuries past, popes inflicted torture and death on people for owning Bibles, for eating meat during Lent, for saying that Rome is not God's True Church. Popes told the peasants that they could pay money to the Popes, and the Popes would release the souls of their departed relatives who were suffering in Purgatory. The money made via the sale of these indulgences was used to build St. Peter's Basilica. Paul Johnson told us in his A History of the Jews that in 1858, a six-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, was living with his family in Bologna. He was seized by the papal police and never returned to his parents. A Christian servant said that, five years before, believing the child was about to die, she had baptized him. There was world-wide protest, not merely from Jews but from Christian clerics and statesmen, but Pope Pius IX ignored these and kept the boy in Roman Catholic hands. It was Pius IX. who articulated the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, which, again, says that you are anathema - accursed - damned - if you reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility.

Ephesians 4. 4-5 is one of the supreme binding forces upon Christians, because Ephesians 4: 4-5 inspires Christians to seek the unity of the faith, because, as there is, `one body', [one True Church] and one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, it follows that Christians should have only one Christian Church, and we should not have this multiplicity of sects which presently rend Christendom. Matthew 16. 13-19 is of course a powerful binding force, as it certainly implies that the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, is one Church, one Church with one set of coherent doctrines: it is not a multiplicity of Christian Churches with conflicting creeds.

Just as Matthew 16. 13-19 and Ephesians 4: 4-5 are two of the more powerful binding forces upon Christendom, Galatians 1: 8 and 2 Corinthians 11: 13-15 are two of the more powerful rending forces. These scriptures inspire Christians to separate themselves from those Christians who corrupt the True Church.

In Galatians 1: 8, St. Paul states:

`But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.'

Again, St. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11: 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

Matthew 7. 7-9 has Jesus saying,

`"Many will say to Me in that day, `Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in your name?' And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

Matthew 7. 13-16,

`Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits...'

The Protestant Reformation is another one of these towering monuments in Western Civilization. People often get lost in a fog of details surrounding the lives and doctrines of Luther, Knox, Calvin, Zwingli etc. The essence of the Protestant Reformation revolves round one basic question: was it right to rebel against Rome? If Rome and only Rome is the True Church, then one must certainly not rebel against Rome. But if Rome had fallen away from the True Faith, then, obviously, the Protestant reformers had cause to break away from Rome.

I Timothy 4: 1-3 is a standard scripture Protestants use against Rome:

`Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.'

In the 6th Chapter of the 19th Book of City of God, St. Augustine reviews for us the wretched state of jurisprudence in the Roman Empire. Witnesses are tortured, on the flimsiest of evidence, to force them to give evidence. Innocent men and women are tortured to obtain confessions of guilt. This malevolent system was transferred from the pagan Roman Empire and incorporated into the Christian Roman Empire in the 4th century, and it survived there in the criminal jurisprudence of Europe and Latin America for centuries under Christian rulers.

If Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy fell away, because they were too evil to be the True Church, perhaps Protestantism has also fallen away, because, there was simply too much evil in Protestantism for it to be the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. Recall that it was Protestants who enslaved millions in the southern states of the USA. Ken Burns reminded us in his documentary on the American Civil War of the diabolical nature of slavery: slaves were worked from sunrise to sunset; and if there was a full-moon they were also forced to work at night; they were whipped if they refused to work; when they were permitted to sleep they were crowded into huts where they were quickly infected with worms, infected with cholera, with dysentery etc. Apropos of Protestant and Catholic evils, Sir Winston Church informed us that,

`All the horrors of all the ages were brought together...neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them to win...Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals - often of a greater scale and of longer duration...The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered into the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas...Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex. Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery. Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers. Liquid fire was projected on their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered often slowly in the dark recesses of the sea...Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and they were of doubtful utility.'

§ 25. The High Ambitions of the Church of Rome

The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963) gives us the following:

`Innocent III (Lotario de' Conti di Segni), pope from 1198 to 1216, son of Trasimund, count of Segni, and of Claricia, a Roman lady of the noble family of Scotti...As he wrote to the Tuscan rectors, in Christian society the sacerdotium stood to the regnum as did the sun to the moon. Likewise to the patriarch of Constantinople he wrote: "The Lord has left to Peter the governance not of the Church only but of the whole world."...Other popes before Innocent - notably Gregory VII - had maintained the doctrine that the pope had eminent dominion over secular princes; but it was reserved for Innocent to make it a reality...by a bull of Oct. 12, 1204, Innocent permitted crusaders to fulfil their vows by assisting the Knights of the Sword in the conquest of Livonia for the church...Innocent IV (Sinibaldo Fieschi), pope from 1243 to 1254, belonged to the noble Genoese family of the counts of Lavagna...Innocent went beyond his predecessors in claiming for the papacy a direct temporal sovereignty over all earthly kingdoms.'

Paragraphs 881, 882, 883, 884, 936, 937, 2034 in the Catechism don't phrase matters in quite such explicit terms, but, nevertheless, those Paragraphs essentially state that the authority of the Roman Catholic Church surpasses the authority of every other institution on earth - Republics, Kingdoms, Parliaments, Universities - rather as the luminosity of the sun surpasses a lump of lead. If Rome is the True Church, the Bride of Christ, then Rome would far outshine all those inferior institutions and false churches which stumble in darkness and which reject the Roman Catholic Church. But if Rome is not the church which Christ founded on a rock...

Sir Nicolas Cheetham in his Keepers of the Keys: A History of the Popes from St. Peter to John Paul II (Charles Scribner's Sons 1983) writes of St. Peter: scholars seem to agree that in 48 AD the former Galilean fisherman, St. Peter, was arrested by Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem; he escaped from prison; he conducted his own missions in Asia; he and St. Paul had a famous dispute over the Gentiles and the New Law, in Jerusalem, perhaps in 49 AD; St. Peter then disappears into mystery; many scholars, such as Marsilius of Padua (1326), doubt he was in Rome at all.

Geoffrey Barraclough tells us in his book The Medieval Papacy that the first lists of the bishops of Rome date from AD 160-85. These make Peter and Paul the co-founders of the Roman church. None of these lists assert that St. Peter himself was bishop. In about AD 220, during the time of pope Callistus, we find the beginning of the practice of honoring St. Peter as the first pope.

Peter De Rosa is the author of Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy. Aside from a misguided Prologue Mr. De Rosa is quite lucid and scholarly, and at one point he gives a very eloquent dissertation in favor of the pro-life philosophy. To paraphrase Mr. De Rosa: in about the year 58 AD St. Paul wrote his famous epistle to the Romans. He greeted entire households and mentioned twenty-nine individuals by name. Paul did not address or mention Peter, a curious omission indeed if Peter was Bishop of Rome. Mr. De Rosa reminds us that Eusebius of Caesaria, in History of the Church, circa 300 AD, stated: `Peter is reported to have preached to the Jews throughout Pontius, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia and, about the end of his days, tarrying at Rome, was crucified.' St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons from 178-200, was a disciple of St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was a disciple of John the apostle, and Polycarp enumerated all the Roman bishops up to the twelfth, Eleutherius. According to St. Irenaeus, the first bishop of Rome was neither Peter nor Paul but Linus. The Apostolic Constitution, in the year 270, also named Linus as first bishop of Rome, having been appointed by St Paul. After Linus came Clement, chosen by Peter. Eusebius never spoke of Peter as Bishop of Rome. Yhe letters are five feet high, running round the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, the English translation being: `Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.' None of the Early Fathers saw any connection between these words from Christ to the Bishops of Rome. Cyprian, Origen, Cyril, Hilary, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine etc., all analysized the scripture. They all rejected the papal claim that the Bishops of Rome are the successors of St. Peter. Augustine calls on synods to settle disputes. Pope Stephen attempted to settle a baptismal controversy for the African church. Stephen's opinion was rejected. St. Augustine said it was right his opinion was rejected. St. Vincent of Lerins, in 434, laid down the canons of Catholic doctrine. He made no mention of the Bishop of Rome. Pope Honorius was condemned by a General Council for heresy. Pope Liberius (352-66) had been forced into exile. He was allowed to return on the condition that he condemn St. Athanasius. Liberius cursed Athanasius, and he cursed Athanasius' doctrine: the Son is equal to the Father. St. Hilary of Poitiers then cursed Pope Liberius. "Anathema to thee, Liberius," were Hilary's words. Every orthodox bishop repeated them. Pope St. Gregory the Great said that unbaptized babies who perish unbaptized go straight to hell and suffer there for all eternity. The Spanish Inquisition was authorized in Spain by Pope Sixtus IV., in 1480. During the reign of King Philip II. of Spain, who we recall was the husband of Queen Mary I. of England -Bloody Mary- the victims of the Inquisition may well have exceeded by many thousands all of the Christians who had suffered under the Roman emperors. Napoleon conquered Spain in 1808. A Polish officer in his army, a Colonel Lemanouski, discovered that the Dominicans had blockaded themselves in their monastery in Madrid. Lemanouski's troops forced an entry; the monks inside denied the existence of any torture-chambers. But the soldiers persisted in their search and soon discovered them beneath the floors. Crammed with naked prisoners, many of them insane, the French rescued the tortured souls and then proceed to lay charges of gunpowder about the monastery, to destroy it from the face of the earth. The Roman Inquisition was established by Pope Paul III., July 21, 1542. Carafa, later known as Paul IV., elected pope in May of 1555, is generally seen as the most ferocious of the Inquisitor-Popes. Mr. De Rosa informs us that he was an ascetic like Torquemada, and that he detested Jews. The Roman Inquisition continued well into the nineteenth century. Until 1870 political offenders were tried by the Santa Consulta. As the armies of the new Italy liberated the prisons in the Papal States, the wretchedness and misery of prisoners inside them could no longer be hidden. Mr. De Rosa concludes: for more than six centuries without an interruption the papacy was the avowed enemy of justice. Eighty straight popes, from the thirteenth century on, approved the theology and apparatus of Inquisition.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition, 2000, Imprimi Potest, Libreria Editrice Vaticana) gives us the official teachings of Catholicism. John Paul II. assured us that it is sound and authoritative in teaching the Catholic faith, p. xv. Paragraph 411 of the Catechism says Mary was and is sinless: she was conceived free of original sin and she never sinned, not even once, during her life on earth. Protestants of course see this as heresy, holding that Jesus and only Jesus lived a sinless life on earth. Paragraph 881 of the Catechism tells us the Popes and the other Catholic Bishops have inherited the power to bind and loose which Christ gave to St. Peter and to the other apostles. Paragraph 882 informs us the Pope has supreme power over the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, a power which he may exercise unhindered at any time. Paragraph 883 asserts that the Bishops have no authority unless they are united with the Pope. Paragraph 888 assured us that the Pope and the Bishops in communion with the Pope are authentic teachers endowed with the authority of Christ. Paragraph 936 affirms the Pope to be the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth. Paragraph 937 asserts that the Pope wields, by divine institution, universal power in the care of souls.

Again, G. G. Coulton and Paul Johnson gave us a date of 1080 AD as the time when the Catholic Church, with the approval of popes and councils, first commenced the policy, which was to persist for centuries, of forbidding the laity to read the Bible. Violation of this decree was taken as proof of heresy by the Inquisition.

Innocent VIII. issued the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus in December 1484, asserting that witches had supernatural powers to destroy crops, make people infertile etc. The infliction of torture on people accused of witchcraft, on the evidence of a wart, was given papal sanction. As it was unlikely that an investigator would find any cauldrons containing the remains of sacrificed children, even a tendency to cast her gaze downwards became sufficient cause to put a woman to the torture, to determine if she was a witch, i. e., to extort a confession out of her.

The Protestant participation in these sorts of evils must be of concern to modern Protestants, because it is perfectly natural to make the assumption that any person - regardless if he calls himself Catholic or Protestant or Eastern Orthodox - who advocates torturing women to make them confess their involvement in witchcraft, especially on such worthless evidence as having a wart on their finger or nose, must be considered an enemy of the benevolent religion which Christ founded on earth.

Will Durant devoted some energy in `The Renaissance' to describing the ferocity with which Pope Clement V. and his inquisitors dealt with Dolcino of Novara and his sister Margherita. Dolcino had rejected the authority of the popes and preached doctrines similar to those of the Patarines, the Waldenses, and the Spiritual Franciscans. Clement V. directed the Inquisition to move against these head-strong siblings. Dolcino and Margherita refused to appear before their priestly judges. The inquisitors then led an army against them, such that, Durant asserts, thousands of their co-religionists were burned to death in 1304. Durant tells us that Margherita, when she was led to the stake, was still so wondrously beautiful and that, despite her emaciated condition, men of rank offered her marriage if she would only abjure her infernal doctrines. She held firm to her faith and was slowly burned to death at the stake. Dolcino and a friend, Longino, were mounted on a cart and paraded through the streets of Vercelli, where their flesh was torn from their bodies bit by bit with hot pincers. Only after their limbs and genitals had been wrenched from their quivering bodies did they finally die.

The stresses within the souls of Roman Catholics who refuse to believe some or much that Rome teaches, and yet who refuse to renounce Rome completely, give rise to Cafeteria Catholicism. As we've seen, Cafeteria Catholicism is essentially a conglomeration of creeds unified by a general rule: if one has been baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, and if one has not been excommunicated, and yet if one rejects one or more official doctrines of the Church of Rome, then one rejects Rome's authority, at least to some degree. And rejection of Rome's authority is the essence of heresy in the eyes of Rome. The Cafeteria Catholic, generally speaking, knows that it is madness to contend that the popes have not, from time to time over the last two millennia, descended into error and evil. Cafeteria Catholics will concede that the popes can not always be trusted to teach perfect doctrine. But the Cafeteria Catholic will not concede that papal crimes and errors have caused God to reject the Roman Catholic Church. The Cafeteria Catholic will not concede that Rome leads souls to hell. The Cafeteria Catholic says Rome only leads souls to heaven, and the Cafeteria Catholic thinks it is quite rational to sometimes rebel against a Church which only leads souls to heaven.

A key doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church states that whenever one wants to find the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, one must look to the Pope, to the Bishop of Rome, because there where the Pope is you will find God's True Church. The Bishop of Rome is said to be the Vicar of Christ, and Rome teaches the doctrine that the Pope and the Bishops in communion with the Pope teach with the authority of God - see Paragraph 888 of `Catechism of the Catholic Church' - that is they are said to be authentic teachers endowed with the authority of Christ - God the Son. If one has the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on ones heart it would follow that one would teach religion with the authority of God. One might attempt to use all of ones creativity to attempt to reconcile Paragraph 888 with the facts of history. For instance, if a Pope is a murderer, or if he tortures people in Inquisitional torture chambers for the crime of reading the Bible, does he still teach religion with the authority of God? If the Roman Catholic Church can never fall away \- recall the sense that term `falling away' is used in 2 Thess 2 - if Rome will always be the True Church, then why would anyone ever rebel against Rome? But if Rome has fallen away, why would anyone remain in the Roman Catholic Church?

Again, apropos of the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2, Bury states in History of the Later Roman Empire (vol. i. p. 12) that the Catholic emperors in Constantinople, following the example of the pagan Emperors, took the epithets `sacred' and `divine' and insisted that these be applied to themselves. Bury writes, p. 15:

`The oriental conception of divine royalty is now formally expressed in the diadem; and it affects all that pertains to the Emperor. His person is divine; all that belongs to him is "sacred." Those who come into his presence perform the act of adoration; they kneel down and kiss the purple.'

Bury states, p. 14, that the Patriarch refused to crown the Emperor Anastasius unless he signed a written oath that he would introduce no novelty into the Church.

Might there be an evil absurdity lurking somewhere in the spectacle of Christian Emperors claiming to be sacred and divine, and demanding that their subjects adore them, and demanding these subjects prostrate themselves before them, while also promising to bring no innovations into the Christian religion?

Still on the theme of 2 Thess 2 and the falling away from the True Faith, it is always rather shocking to recall that many millions of people united under the sign of the cross were simply evil barbarians. H. G. Wells stated in his History of the World that in the nearly 300 years from the Thirty Years War in the 17th century until the beginning of World War I, German soldiers, who would be primarily Catholics and Protestants, took it for granted that they were free to rape with impunity while in enemy territory. Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror was a great best-seller which told us of the treatment which the peasants received at the hands of the nobles. The Middle Ages saw peasants crucified, peasants boiled in oil, peasants racked, peasants hung up by their thumbs by their fellow Christians. The medieval nobleman was terribly adept at playing the brigand and the fiend, at torturing peasants to learn where their stash of gold could be found. Henry Thomas Buckle wrote in History of Civilization in England,
`Now and then a great man arose [in the Middle Ages]...who thought that astrology might be a cheat, and necromancy a bubble; and who went so far as to raise a question respecting the propriety of drowning every witch and burning every heretic. A few such men there undoubtedly were; but they were despised as mere theorists, idle visionaries... until the latter part of the sixteenth century, there was no country in which a man was not in great personal peril if he expressed open doubts respecting the beliefs of his contemporaries...men who are perfectly satisfied with their own knowledge will never attempt to increase it. Men who are perfectly convinced of the accuracy of their opinions, will never take the pains of examining the basis on which they are built. They always look with wonder, and often with horror, on views contrary to those they have inherited from their fathers; and while they are in this state of mind, it is impossible that they should receive any new truth which interferes with their foregone conclusions.'

Gibbon narrates:

`Ninety thousand Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism; the fortunes of the obstinate infidels were confiscated; their bodies were tortured...Their frequent relapses provoked one of the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his dominions...But the tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they delighted to torture...The Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition.'

Regarding Anglican evils, one of Lord Byron's first speeches in Parliament was a diatribe against the Nottingham Lace Industry, an industry which drove children to work in factories for 16 or even 20 hours every day. The children would, often enough, fall asleep at their tasks, and would then tumble into the iron rotors of the machines, which of course either killed them outright or mangled them horribly. Lord Shaftsbury devoted his life to fighting those factory owners who were forcing youngsters, through frequent beatings, to work 100 hours a week in dingy factories.

We might look at `Renaissance in Italy' by John Addington Symonds (The Modern Library):

`The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy may be called the Age of the Despots in Italian history...It will be observed in this classification of Italian tyrants that the tenure of their power was almost uniformly forcible. They generally acquired it through the people in the first instance, and maintained it by the exercise of violence. Rank had nothing to do with their claims. The bastards of Popes, who like Sixtus IV. had no pedigree, merchants like the Medici, the son of a peasant like Francesco Sforza, a rich usurer like Pepoli, had almost equal chances with nobles of the ancient houses of Este, Visconti, or Malatesta...Despotism in Italy as in ancient Greece was democratic. It recruited its ranks from all classes and erected its thrones upon the sovereignty of the people it oppressed. The impulse to the free play of ambitious individuality which this state of things communicated was enormous. Capacity might raise the meanest monk to the chair of St. Peter's, the meanest soldier to the duchy of Milan. Audacity, vigour, unscrupulous crime were the chief requisites for success...They lived habitually in an atmosphere of peril which taxed all their energies...About such men there could be nothing on a small or mediocre scale. When a weakling was born in a despotic family, his brothers murdered him, or he was deposed by a watchful rival. Thus only gladiators of tried capacity and iron nerve, superior to religious and moral scruples, dead to national affection, perfected in perfidy, scientific in the use of cruelty and terror, employing first-rate faculties of brain and will and bodily powers in the service of transcendent egoism, only the virtuosi of political craft as theorised by Machiavelli, could survive and hold their own upon in this perilous arena. The life of the Despot was usually one of prolonged terror. Immured in strong places on high rocks, or confined to gloomy fortresses like the Milanese Castello, he surrounded his person with foreign troops, protected his bedchamber with a picked guard...His timidity verged on monomania. Like Alfonso II. of Naples, he was tortured with the ghosts of starved or strangled victims; like Ezzelino, he felt the mysterious fascination of astrology; like Filippo Maria Visconti, he trembled at the sound of thunder, and set one band of body-guards to watch another next his person...Fisiraga burned the chief members of the ruling house of Vistarini...Fondulo slaughtered seventy of the Cavalcabo family...The Varani were massacred to a man in the church...the Trinci at Foligno...Chaiavelli of Fabriano in church...This wholesale extirpation of three reigning families introduces one of the most romantic episodes in the history of Italian despotism. From the slaughter of the Varani one only child, Giulio Caesar, a boy of two years old, was saved by his aunt Tora. She concealed him in a truss of hay and carried him to the Trinci at Foligno. Hardly had she gained this refuge, when the Trinci were destroyed, and she had to fly with her burden to the Chiavelli at Fabriano. There the same scenes of bloodshed awaited her. A third time she took flight, and now concealed her precious charge in a nunnery. The boy was afterwards stolen from the town on horseback by a soldier of fortune. After surviving three massacres of kith and kin, he returned as despot at the age of twelve to Camerino, and became a general of distinction. But he was not destined to end his life in peace. Caesar Borgia finally murdered him, together with three of his sons, when he had reached the age of sixty...Corrado then butchered the men, women and children of the Rasiglia clan, to the number of three hundred persons, accomplishing his vengeance with details of atrocity too infernal to be dwelt on in these pages. It is recorded that thirty-three asses laden with their mangled limbs paraded the streets of Foligno as a terror-stricken spectacle for the inhabitants...a huge book might be compiled containing nothing but the episodes in this grim history of despotism; now tragic and pathetic, now terror-moving in sublimity of passion, now despicable by the baseness of the motives brought to light, at one time revolting through excess of physical horrors...Even a princely house so well based in its dynasty and so splendid in its parade of culture as that of the Estensi offers a long list of tragedies. One princess is executed for adultery with her stepson; a bastard tries to seize the throne, and is put to death with all his kin; a wife is poisoned by her husband to prevent her poisoning him...Such was the labyrinth of plot and counterplot, of force repelled by violence, in which the princes praised by Ariosto and by Tasso lived...The actual details of Milanese history, the innumerable tragedies of Lombardy, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona, during the ascendancy of the despotic families, are far more terrible than any fiction...Their unbridled lust is never satiated, but their subjects have to suffer such outrages and insults as their fancy may from time to time suggest...Bernabo displayed all the worst vices of the Visconti...Having saddled his subjects with the keep of 5,000 boarhounds, he appointed officers to go round to see whether these brutes were either too lean or too well-fed to be in good condition for the chase. If anything appeared defective in their management, the peasants on whom they were quartered had to suffer in their persons and their property. This Bernabo was also remarkable for his cold-blooded cruelty. Together with his brother, he devised and caused to be publicly announced by edict that State criminals would be subjected to a series of tortures extending over a period of forty days. In this infernal programme every variety of torment found a place, and days of respite were so calculated as to prolong the lives of the victims for further suffering, till at last there was little left of them that had not been hacked and hewn and flayed away. To such extremes of terrorism were the Despots driven in the maintenance of their illegal power...Murders, poisoning, rapes, and treasons were common incidents of private as of public life. In cities like Naples bloodguilt could be atoned for at an inconceivably low price. A man's life was worth scarcely more than that of a horse. The palaces of the nobles swarmed with professional cut-throats, and the great ecclesiastics claimed for their abodes the right of sanctuary. Popes sold absolution for the most horrible excesses, and granted indulgences beforehand for the commission of crimes of lust and violence. Success was the standard by which acts were judged; and the man who could help his friends, intimidate his enemies, and carve a way to fortune for himself by any means he chose, was regarded as a hero...during this period the art and culture of the Renaissance were culminating. Filelfo was receiving the gold of Filippo Maria Visconti...Lionardo was delighting Milan with his music and his magic world of painting...Pico della Mirandola was dreaming of a reconciliation of the Hebrew, Pagan, and Christian traditions...This was the age in which even the wildest and most perfidious of tyrants felt the ennobling influences and the sacred thirst of knowledge. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the Lord of Rimini, might be selected as a true type of the princes who united a romantic zeal for culture with the vices of the barbarians. The coins which bear the portraits of this man...show a narrow forehead...The whole face seems ready to flash with sudden violence, to merge its self-control in a spasm of fury. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta killed three wives in succession, violated his daughter, and attempted the chastity of his own son."

§ 26. Simple Creeds are for Simple Minds?

The late Norm Cantor, formerly a professor at NYU, told us in his `Inventing the Middle Ages' (William Morrow, p. 411) that simple creeds carry no weight with educated people. It is a simple matter to refute Cantor because it is easy enough to find educated people who embrace simple creeds. Are there no educated Christians in the world? Is every Christian an ignoramus? Islam, Atheistic Materialism and Agnosticism are simple creeds. Is every Muslim, Atheist and Agnostic an uneducated lout? Cantor was evidently arguing for the existence of a Deity who cloaks himself in complexity or inscrutability, and it will indeed be difficult to comprehend a Creator who cloaks Himself in complexity or inscrutability. Cantor was berating Protestant Fundamentalism and that brand of Catholicism as practiced by the late John Cardinal O'Connor, which would be Official Catholicism, as opposed to Cafeteria Catholicism. As we know, Cafeteria Catholicism is essentially a conglomeration of creeds, but it is unified by the general rule that it is practiced by people who have been baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, and who have not been excommunicated, and who rebel against Rome by rejecting one or more official doctrines of the Church of Rome.

Jeremiah 31. 31-34 tells Christians that Christianity is a simple creed, because, these scriptures say that a Divine Law will be written on the hearts of God's people. We read in Jeremiah 31. 34 - `They shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest, says the LORD.'

If even the least of God's people can understand the Divine Law, then it must be a rather simple creed.

Those who wish to embrace Jeremiah 31. 31-34 will quite naturally rely on their hearts - one their emotions - when they define their religious beliefs, though we know the human heart is often a rather deceitful instrument. Balzac wrote of one of his characters in `Lost Illusions', `He found any number of reasons for his sudden flight, for there is no such Jesuit as the desire of your heart.'

The question of what is heresy and what is orthodoxy has torn Christendom for many centuries. In the apostolic age Christians preferred to be devoured by lions, to endure the most excruciating tortures, rather than renounce various doctrines. Christians say that these precious doctrines comprise the New Law. Millions of modern Christians hold to the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandments, and yet, as Christendom is rent into a multiplicity of sects, there is indeed confusion in Christendom over the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34.

2 Tim 3. 16 doesn't say that every scripture must be taken as literal truth, for Jesus taught in parables, and perhaps the Old Testament contains parables though we are not told they are parables. Nevertheless, 2 Tim 3. 16 says that all scripture is trustworthy in defining doctrine. Protestant Fundamentalists interpret the words, `the faith which was once delivered to the saints,' in Jude 1. 3 to mean that the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 - the Gospel of Jesus Christ - was given to the saints of the apostolic age in its entirety, and that this New Law will not be amended over the centuries, such as via The Dogma of Papal Infallibility, The Dogma of the Assumption of Mary, The doctrine of Purgatory, compulsory auricular confession, Indulgences, abstaining from meat during Lent, priests forbidden to marry, laymen forbidden to read the Bible etc., etc. When one wishes to assess the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of such doctrines as Monophysitism, Dyophysitism, Monothelitism, Dyothelitism, Transubstantiation, Annihilationism, Premillennialism, Postmillennialism etc., etc., one must ask: what is the Supreme Religious Authority on earth? One might hold that Scripture alone, or the Church of Rome alone, or the Eastern Orthodox Church alone, or the Church of England alone, is the highest and most trustworthy guide in finding religious truth.

As thousands of Christian theologians have inundated the world with millions of sermons, tracts and tomes pertaining to the New Law, it would not be wise to drown oneself in this flood of words and forget the most important laws of Christianity. And just as there are snares if one attempts to comprehend too much information, snares await those who understand too little. The neophyte who encounters Jeremiah 31. 31-34 for the first time might think that no effort is required of him. When he reads that God will write His Law on human hearts he might believe that he is a purely passive participant in the whole operation, and that no effort is required of him, since God does all of the labor of inscribing laws on hearts. The Protestant holds that God writes His laws on human hearts when human beings listen to sermons based on scripture, and when they read the scriptures themselves, recall Deuteronomy 8. 3

`Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.'

First there was the Crucifixion, then the Resurrection, then Pentecost and then the New Testament was written. Those of us who were not on the scene when Pentecost occurred get the Divine Law written on our hearts when we read scripture, or listen to sermons dealing with scripture, or read books dealing with scripture.

The Roman Catholic Church insists the True Faith is very simple: Profess and Obey the official doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church: don't rebel against any of these. The Eastern Orthodox Church insists the canons of the Seven Ecumenical Councils are infallible. In `The Faith of our Fathers: The Eastern Orthodox Religion', p. 123, the authors, under SOME RULES FOR CHRISTIAN LIVING, inform us that one should: work hard and shun idleness; always speak the truth; know when to speak and when not to speak; one should neither affirm nor deny matters which one knows nothing about; respect your elders; don't be proud or covetous; don't hesitate to make amends to those you've offended; be kind to others and they will be kind to you; be neat and clean.

If we inspect these simple rules we might note that the precept: know when to speak and when not to speak requires more intellectual sophistication than does knowing how to stay neat and clean. The precept to avoid idleness requires that we define the word `idleness'. The Chinese poet Li Po was a member of a coterie called The Six Idlers by the Bamboo Stream, and some might assert that the poems of the frequent idler, Li Po, are rather more valuable contributions to world civilization than are the works of many who labored, for instance, as foot soldiers in the armies of William the Conqueror or Cesare Borgia. Perhaps a great poet never idles, for, during those moments when he appears to be idling he is making preparations for his next masterpiece.

The precept which says `don't affirm nor deny that which you know nothing about' leads to other questions, such as the one posed by the American poet, Don Rumsfeld: how do we know that we know what we know? Will Durant, in the first volume of his `The Story of Civilization', p. 326, citing `The Cambridge Ancient History', said that modern research does not regard the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 to be a prophetic reference to Jesus. Durant was a fine historian but the fact is modern research is split into factions over Isaiah 53. Christian scholars believe that the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is a prophecy referring to Jesus. Non-Christian scholars do not believe that this scripture refers to Jesus. Therefore it is a blunder to imply that modern research is of one mind on this matter. Durant renounced Catholicism in favor of Atheism but he certainly believed that Christians could be great scholars. One would have to be clueless to think Christians couldn't be great scholars: Augustine, Bede, Muratori, De Tillemont, Tocqueville, Guizot, Michelet, Macaulay, Milman, Lord Acton, Lord Tweedsmuir, Lea, Buckle, Prescott, Toynbee etc., etc. Durant simply made a slip-up. He made another slip-up when he stated in `Our Oriental Heritage' (1935, p. 3) that given like material conditions different races will produce the same results, and thus `Japan reproduces in the 20th century the history of England in the 19th.' One might want to see more of the 20th century than merely the first 35 years before writing such words.

Getting back to the idea that the True Faith is a simple creed, Luke 6. 46-49 tells us that folks will be damned if they listen to the words of Jesus but don't do what He tells us to do.

And who could forget Luke 13. 5? It has Jesus saying,

`I tell you...unless you repent you will all likewise perish.'

§ 27. The Holy Faith.

This new law which God writes on the hearts of His people - Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Hebrews 8. 7-13 - is the same thing as the holy faith mentioned in Jude 20-1: `But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.'

What are the advanced tenets and fundamental principles of this holy faith? I suppose everyone knows about the crucifixion and the resurrection. St. Paul tells us that the law is fulfilled in one word - love - which is also the theme of John 15. 12: `This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.'

One might further paraphrase the Divine Law and the holy faith - the Gospel of Jesus Christ - by recalling Mark 11. 23-26: God will not forgive your trespasses if the don't forgive people who have trespassed against you.

In 1649, during the English Civil War, the executioner asked Charles I. to forgive him. Charles responded with `I forgive no subject of mine who comes deliberately to shed my blood. I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world.' This might have been very sincere but it wasn't very bright. His head was coming off whether he forgave the executioner or not. In his last words on earth Charles I. spat on Jesus' words - which is not a very bright thing for a Christian to do! When you're going to judgment you don't want as your last action on earth to be an action where you spit on the words of your Judge, the words He spoke in Mark 11. 23-26.

To review some more of the basics of Christianity: Christianity proclaims that the Creator of the Universe was crucified by man - John 1. 1-14, I Tim 3. 16, Col 2. 8-10, Titus 2. 13, Hebrews 1. 8, Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6 etc. Isaiah 9. 6 and Psalm 2 tell us the Son is God. And God is the Creator of the Universe. Therefore, God the Son must be worshipped just as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are worshipped. Isaiah 9. 6,

`For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.'

The doctrine that the Son, the Messiah, will be a conquering Messiah, finds its supreme articulation in Psalm 2. 5-9,

`Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.'"'

To quote these New Testament scriptures which say that Jesus is God, Colossians 2: 8-10,

`Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.'

John 1. 1-14,

`In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God...All things were made through Him...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.

1 Timothy 3: 16,

`And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.'

Titus 2. 13,

`Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ...'

1 Peter 4. 8 - Love covers a multitude of sins - would seem to be the best hope for Christians who find themselves divorced from the True Church, who find that they have fallen away from the True Faith.

John 15. 6 has Jesus saying,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

If one abides in Christ one is in the True Church.

The True Church is not a cathedral or any sort of building. It is a collection of people, a collection of saints, who teach doctrines which lead souls to heaven, and who do not teach a single doctrine which leads souls to perdition.

The True Church does not have to be sinless. And she can teach errors. But she does not teach a single error which leads souls to hell.

John 14. 23-26,

`Jesus answered him and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings...But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'

If one accepts John 14. 23-26, one will also accept Matthew 16. 13-19,

`When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the son of Man, am? So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'

Again, the True Church can make errors but she does not make a single serious error which leads souls to perdition. A church might teach thousands of benevolent doctrines, but if she teaches one malevolent doctrine which leads souls to perdition, then that church is not the True Church.

St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4. 4-6,

`There is one body [body = church] and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'

Matthew 7. 13-16 indicates the True Church is rather exclusive,

`Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits...'

1 Cor 1. 10 would be a scripture saying that those who are in the True Church hold to a uniform set of doctrines. St. Paul writes,

`Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.'

Again, Galatians 1. 8 would be a scripture which indicates that those in the True Church hold to an unchanging set of doctrines, doctrines which never contradict St. Paul's teaching. St. Paul states in Galatians 1. 8,

`But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.'

St. Paul tells us in Galatians 1. 11-12 that he received his doctrines via a revelation from Christ.

If one accepts Galatians 1. 8-12 then one will accept what St. Paul writes in I Cor 6. 9-10,

`Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God.'

Feminists have issues with St. Paul because he told wives to obey their husbands. But St. Paul told husbands to love their wives, and if a husband loves his wife, and if she makes reasonable requests from him, then he more or less has to obey her.

Revelation 20. 15,

`And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.'

Matthew 26: 28,

`For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many.'

Mark 14. 24,

`This is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many.'

Luke 22. 20:

`This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.'

If one rejects the above words one rejects Christianity. If one accepts the above words one will also accept Jeremiah 31. 31-34, because Christ's words about a new covenant refer to Jeremiah 31. 31-34, which again states,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Again, first there was the Crucifixion, and then the Resurrection, and then there was Pentecost. And after Pentecost the New Testament was written. And, therefore, Christians who were not on the scene at the time of Pentecost get the New Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on their hearts via the indirect agency of the Holy Spirit, when they study the New Testament or when they listen to sermons, or read books, which teach the New Testament.

§ 28. Rome's War Against the Moriscos

There were many rebellions against Rome prior to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. But Luther, Calvin and Henry VIII. supported the kings, nobles and other rich men - and received their support in return - whereas earlier rebellions against Rome - The Waldensians, the Lollards, the Spiritual Franciscans, Dolcino and Margarita etc. - though they had the Gospel's teachings against the rich more firmly in mind than did Luther, Calvin and Henry - nevertheless, their rebellions didn't have enough swords and enough funds to earn their escape from the tyranny of the Roman yoke. So much of the history of Western Civilization is the history of the Papacy vs. the Cafeteria Catholics. Rome gave its blessing to William the Conqueror, not to Harold. Harold claimed to be a Roman Catholic but he didn't grasp elementary logic: If Rome is the True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven, then it is wrong for Harold to oppose Rome and William. But if Rome leads souls to perdition, if Rome is not the True Church, then it is wrong for Harold to remain in the Roman Catholic Church. English monarchs rebelled against Rome long before Henry VIII. When we speak of Magna Carta, the Constitutions of Clarendon, the Statutues of Mortmain, Provisors and Praemunire - we speak of Cafeteria Catholic rebellions against the authority of Rome. The history of Europe can seem an endless parade of Merovingians, Carolingians, Viscontis, Colonnas, Can della Scalas, Plantagenets and Bourbons claiming to be Roman Catholics, while, at the same time, they rebel ceaselessly against the Popes. The Cafeteria Catholic leaders knew that if they renounced Rome completely they would soon be overthrown by their Catholic subjects. Henry IV., Henry Plantagent, Edward III., Philip the Fair, Louis XIV. etc., etc., could not bring themselves to obey the Papacy, for that would make them underlings and minions, and they could not renounce Rome completely, as that would embolden their Catholic subjects to rebel against them.

The Church of Rome, to this day, commands all True Christians to venerate St. Pius V. Pius was a Counter-Reformation Pope and a big pusher of the Inquisition. He tortured lots of people, such as people who wanted to renounce their Catholic baptisms so that they could worship Allah. And of course, in the Islamic world especially, there is some animosity toward people who venerate a torturer of Muslims, who venerate a man who tortured and burned those who wanted to leave Catholicism so that they could be free to worship Allah. Could it be they are right to be angry? Well, if Rome is God's True Church, then these angry Muslims have absolutely no right whatsoever to complain about St. Pius V. And these angry Muslims would be wise to renounce their false-god Allah, and wise to convert to Roman Catholicism, and wise to stop being so angry.

But if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then the Muslims would not be wise to convert to Roman Catholicism!

The term `Moriscos' refers to both people who sought to renounce their Catholic baptism so that they might convert to Islam and worship Allah, as well as to loyal Catholics who were only accused of wanting to convert to Islam. The terms is analogous to the term `Marranos' which comprehends both Jews who wanted to renounce their Catholic baptisms (which were often forced baptisms) so as to return to Judaism, as well as baptized Jews who were loyal Catholics but were accused of being disloyal. Dr. Lea wrote in his `The Moriscos of Spain':

`There doubtless is some truth in the assertion that the terror of the Inquisition was less for the Moriscos than for Spaniards, since the former when punished were naturally regarded by their fellows as martyrs and were consequently held in high esteem. It was for them an honor to appear on the scaffold of an auto de fe...There is a story of a woman who, when the san benito was put on her, asked for another for her child, as the weather was cold...When, after the fall of the Roman Empire, heresy first became the subject of systematic persecution in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, confiscation was one of the penalties decreed for it under the canon law and princes who did not enforce this vigorously were threatened with the censures of the Church. The monarch who profited by the spoliation of his subjects could therefore, strictly speaking, not forego it without papal authorization, leading at times to some curious and intricate questions...In the case of Bartolomé Sanchez, who appeared in the Toledo auto de fe of 1597, cleanliness was regarded as a suspicious circumstance - doubtless from the Moorish habit of bathing - and though he overcame the torture he was finally brought to confess and was punished with three years in the galleys, perpetual prison and confiscation. Miguel Caneete, a gardener, for washing himself in the fields while at work, was tried in 1606; there was nothing else against him but he was tortured without success and his case was suspended.'

Dr. Lea also writes in `The Moriscos of Spain' (GreenwoodPress, 1968),

`They came to be known by the name of Mudéjares - the corruption of Mudegelin, an opprobrious term bestowed upon them by the Moors...No forcible conversion was allowed, but only persuasion, and the convert had all the rights of the Old Christians save eligibility to holy orders; he was never to be insulted but was to be held in honor...The Church, in fact, had long regarded with disfavor the careless indifference which led Alfonso VI. to style himself imperador de los dos cultos - which was satisfied to allow subject Moors to enjoy their religion in peace. When, in 1212, Alfonso IX., at the head of a crusade, won the great victory of Las Navas de Tolosa and advanced to Ubeda, where 70,000 Moors had taken refuge, they offered to become Mudéjares and to pay him a ransom of a million doblas. He accepted the terms but the clerical chiefs of the crusade, Rodrigo of Toledo and Arnaud of Narbonne, forced him to withdraw his assent, with the result that, after some further negotiation, the Moors were all massacred except such as were reserved as slaves. In a similar spirit Innocent IV., in 1248, ordered Jayme I. of Aragon to permit no Moors, save as slaves, to reside in the Balearic Isles...In 1266 Clement IV. returned to the charge in a brief urging upon him the expulsion of all Saracens from the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon. The pope told him that his reputation would suffer greatly if in view of temporal profit he should permit such opprobrium of God, such infection of Christendom as is caused by the horrible cohabitation of Moors and Christians, while by expelling them he would fulfill his vow to God, close the mouths of his detractors and show his zeal for the faith...Hernado de Talavera, the saintly Archbishop of Grenada used to say `They ought to adopt our faith and we ought to adopt their morals.'...There were no beggars among them, for they took affectionate care of their own poor and orphans...In short, they constituted the most desirable population that any land could possess...To the conscientious medieval churchman, however, any friendship with the infidel was the denial of Christ; the infidel was not to be forcibly converted, but it was a duty to lay upon him such burdens that he would seek relief in conversion. Accordingly the toleration and conciliation, which were the basis of the Spanish policy, were vigorously opposed in Rome...The Church was succeeding in gradually awakening the spirit of intolerance, but its progress was slow...the final policy of expulsion was suggested, in 1337, by Arnaldo, Archbishop of Tarragona, in a letter to Benedict XII, imploring the pope to order the King of Aragon to adopt it...the resistance of the nobles might be overcome by empowering them to seize and sell the persons and property of the Moors, as public enemies and infidels, while the money thus obtained would be serviceable for the defense of the kingdom - an inhuman proposition which we shall see officially approved by the Church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries...Morerías and Juderías were ordered to be established everywhere, surrounded by a wall having only one gate; any one who within eight days after notice should not have settled therein forfeited all his property, with personal punishment at the king's pleasure, while severe penalties were provided for Christian women entering the forbidden precincts. It was easier to enact than to enforce such laws and in 1480 Ferdinand and Isabella state that this had been neglected, wherefore they renewed it, allowing two years for the establishment of these Ghettos after which any Jew or Moor dwelling outside of them was subjected to the prescribed penalties and no Christian woman should be found within them. Under Ferdinand and Isabella laws were no longer neglected and these were enforced with their accustomed vigor...In 1598 the Venetian envoy, Agostino Nani, writes that expulsion is considered too prejudicial, as it would depopulate the land; that sometimes the idea has been entertained of a Sicilian Vespers [genocide], at others the castration of all male infants, and the former measure was advocated by Gomez Davila of Toledo in a long memorial addressed to Philip III...Hideous as was this project, it was resolved upon at one time and came near being attempted. In 1581, when Philip II. was in Lisbon, regulating his newly acquired kingdom of Portugal, a junta of his chief counselors, including the duke of Alva, the Count of Chinchon and Juan de Idiaquez, concluded to send the Moriscos to sea and scuttle the vessels...A variant of this was the proposition, in 1590, that the Inquisition should proceed against all the Moriscos of the crown of Castile, without sparing the life of a single one...Not much more humane was the suggestion of Archbishop Ribera to enslave all the males of proper age and send them to the galleys or to the mines of the Indies...Ferocious and inhuman as were all these projects, they evoked no scruples of conscience. Theologians there were in plenty to prove that they were in accord with the canons. By baptism the Moriscos had become Christians; as such they were subject to the laws of the Church, and as heretics and apostates they had incurred the death penalty...Even more outspoken was Fray Bleda, who proved by irrefragable authorities that the Moriscos could all be massacred in a single day...Bleda's work was...pronounced free from error, and Clement VII. read it with pleasure at the suggestion of his confessor, Cardinal Baronius. In the midst of all these conflicting projects the idea of expulsion gradually forged to the front...the last year of Philip's life. His end came at last, September 13, 1598...consumed by gout, strangled with asthma, for almost two months he lay near motionless and with but enough of life to render him capable of suffering. Covered with tumors and abscesses, which when opened continued to discharge till the stench in the death-chamber could not be overcome by the strongest perfumes, the long-drawn agony was greater than any of his executioners had invented for the torture-chamber...No spectre of Cazalla or Carranza, of Montigny or Egmont came to disturb the serenity of his conscience...When once this resolution was reached the Moriscos lost no time in converting into coin whatever movables they possessed. The land became a universal fair...The troops marched out to meet them and escort them to the galleys, which was necessary to protect them from the robbers who flocked thither...While thus all proper effort was made to smooth the path of the exiles it was impossible to restrain the savage greed of the Old Christians...They sallied forth in squads, robbing and often murdering all whom they encountered. Fonseca tells us that in going from Valencia to San Mateo he saw the roads full of dead Moriscos...It was a massacre rather than a battle...the well-armed Spaniards, who mowed them down, and, when they broke and fled, slaughtered them without sparing women and children. Three thousand Moriscos lay dead...The great mass of the insurgents found refuge on the top of the mountain, where they could get neither food nor water...gave themselves up...in numbers of which the estimates vary from 11,000 to 22,000, so starved with hunger, thirst and cold that even the soldiery were moved to compassion, although this did not prevent their stealing numbers of women and children and selling them as slaves. Mexia granted them their lives and escorted them to the port of embarkation...The estimates of the number of exiles vary greatly...Navarrete speaks of 2,000,000 Jews and 3,000,000 Moriscos having been at various times expelled from Spain...No computation, that I am aware of, has been attempted of the number of children taken from their parents and retained...The fate of the exiles was deplorable. Torn from their homes without time to prepare for the new and strange life before them, and stripped of most of their property, at best their suffering was terrible, but man's inhumanity multiplied it tenfold. In whatever direction they turned they were exposed to spoliation or worse. While the voyage to Africa, in the royal ships, was doubtless safe enough, the masters of the private vessels which they chartered had no scruples in robbing and murdering them...The Moslems of Tetuan were not so tolerant, and it adds a new horror to the whole unhappy business to learn that there the Christian Moriscos who were firm in their religion were lapidated or put to death in other ways for refusing to enter the mosques. The Church which had impelled them to martyrdom, however, took no steps to canonize these obscure victims.'

§ 29. The Antichrist and the Archangel Michael.

Revelation 14. 6-7,

`I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on earth - to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people - saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has arrived; and worship the Creator of heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water."'

John 1. 3 says Jesus created the universe. Christianity says that God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with Jesus being God the Son - Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, John 1. 1-14, Col 2. 8-10 and I Timothy 3. 16. I suppose the phraselogy `God the Son' is more emphatic in stressing the idea that the Son is God than is the phrase `the Son of God'. Matthew 24. 21 mentions a great tribulation, and this reminds one of Daniel 12. 1,

`And at that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book.'

This phrase: `found written in the book' refers to the Book of Life. Recall Revelation 20. 15,

`And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.'

Daniel 12. 1 is a very important scripture in Christian apologetics because Daniel was a Hebrew prophet, and he is telling the Jews that they will be delivered when Michael arrives, not when the Messiah arrives, and Christians say that this supports some Christian doctrines, 1) Michael will deliver the Jews by converting the Jews to the true version of Christianity, which is none other than the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and alluded to in Ezekiel 36. 24-28. Michael will deliver the Jews by leading them to the True Faith and the True Church. Christians have no way to interpret Daniel 12. 1, aside from insisting that Michael is Christian. If the archangel Michael is anti-Christian, then the Christian religion would be invalid, and Christians do not say the Christian religion is invalid! 2) If the Jews are delivered when Michael arrives, then this supports the Christian doctrine that the Jews will not be delivered at the Messiah's First Coming - whereas the Jews believe they will be delivered at the Messiah's First Coming - not to imply that the Jews believe in a Second Coming. Christians insist the Messiah must suffer first (Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 9. 9, Zechariah 12. 10, Daniel 9. 24-27 etc) but will conquer later, as Psalm 2 is very clear that the Messiah is a conquering Messiah.

Chapter 3. The Evidence for Christianity

Suffering and violent death has been the fate of millions or billions of human beings. For millennia in the lands which are now India, China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Europe, Africa, North America, South America etc., people suffered under tyrants and the yoke of cruelty and oppression. The ancient Persians would bury children alive. Genghis Khan and his hordes once put 1,600,000 people to cruel deaths in one mere week of genocidal gore - see One Hundred Great Kings, Queens and Rulers of the World, 1967, Hamlyn Publishing Group. Thousands of infants were impaled on stakes, their mothers violated and then set afire. 6 million Jews were murdered in Nazi Germany. Estimates run as high as 100 million people were tortured, executed, starved and worked to death under the tyranny of the 20th century Communist regimes.

As wretchedness and torment have long afflicted human beings on earth, Christians see evidence for a crucified God in the concept that God, seeking to be fair, seeking to live under the same conditions which afflict human beings, subjected Himself to life on earth, and to the suffering and torment which must result when one lives among human beings who employ such means of execution as crucifixion. Jules Michelet gave us the following, via Walter K. Kelley's translation from the French, in History of France,

1Mankind was to recognize Christ in itself; to perceive in itself the perpetuity of the Incarnation and the Passion. It remarked it in Job and Joseph, it traced it again in the martyrs. This mystic intuition of an eternal Christ, ceaselessly renewed in humankind, presents itself everywhere in the middle ages...appears in Louis le Debonnaire, spat on by the bishops; in the good king Robert, excommunicated by the pope; in Godefroy of Bouillon, a warrior and a Ghibeline, but dying chaste in Jerusalem as a plain baron of the Holy Sepulchre. The ideal takes still loftier proportions in St. Thomas of Canterbury, forsaken by the Church and dying for Her...realised in the fifteenth century...by...La Pucelle [Joan of Arc].'

Will Durant told us in Caesar and Christ that the invention of a Christ as noble as Jesus, by some fishermen and a rabbi named Saul, who became Paul, would be a greater miracle than any miracle mentioned in the gospels.

Pascal wrote in pensée 767,

`Jesus Christ is typified by Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his father to meet his brethren, etc., innocent, sold by his brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and thence becoming their lord and saviour, the saviour of strangers, and the saviour of the world; which would not have been but for their plot to destroy him, and their sale and rejection of him. In prison Joseph was innocent between two criminals; Jesus on the cross was innocent between two thieves. Joseph foretells freedom to the one and death to the other from the same omens. Jesus Christ saves the elect, and condemns the outcast for the same sins. Joseph only foretells, Jesus Christ acts. Joseph asks him who will be saved to remember him when he comes into his glory; and the thief who is saved by Jesus asks that He remember him when He comes into His Kingdom.'

All authorities agree that the Old Testament was composed centuries before the New. Joh 1. 1-14, 1 Tim 3. 16, Titus 2, 13, Hebrews 1. 8 and Col 2. 8-10 all declare that Jesus is God. The fact that Isaiah 9. 6 is an Old Testament scripture which asserts the Son is God certainly helps to support the New Testament scriptures which say Jesus is God.

Isaiah 9. 6,

`For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.'

Psalm 2 also testifies to the Divinity of the Son: if a Divine Father begets a Son, then the Son must also be Divine. John 1. 1-14, 1 Tim 3. 16, Col 2. 8-10 could stand on their own if they had to, but it helps in refuting those who insist that Christianity invented the doctrine that the Son is God, who say that Christianity contradicts the Jewish scriptures, to have Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6. And how curious it is that we rely some on the authority of a man who walked round naked for three years - Isaiah 20. 3 - to argue for the doctrine that the Son is God.

Christians believe that, centuries before the Kingdom of Judah was founded, Jacob made a true prophesy in Genesis 49. 10,

`The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.'

The sceptre departed from Judah when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, several decades after Jesus walked on earth.

Christ stated in Matthew 24. 14 that his words would be preached to the entire world. When one with few disciples and to all appearances slender means asserts that his words will be preached in every corner of the world, we usually discover that his words are not preached in every corner of the world. Since Christ's prophecy came to pass, we see corroborating evidence in Christianity's favor.

In Mark 13: 2 Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Second Temple. And the Second Temple was certainly destroyed. We read in the pages of Josephus that the legions of Vespasian and Titus destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Jews were finally expelled completely from the Holy Land in the 2nd century, and for many centuries thereafter Jerusalem was trampled under by the Gentiles. We read the words of Jesus in Luke 21. 20-24,

`But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you know its destruction is near...And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.'

Julian the Apostate attempted to refute the last part of this prophecy by rebuilding the Temple: he attempted to re-establish the Jews before the times of the Gentiles had been fulfilled. Ammianus, Chrysostom, and Gibbon were all very impressed with the evidence of Divine Intervention to thwart Julian. In Christian Evidences: Fulfilled Bible Prophecies (A. Balfour & Co., 1831, reprinted by Klock and Klock), Dr. Keith quotes Ammianus:

`"Fearful balls of fire, bursting from the earth, sometimes burned the workmen, rendered the place inaccessible, and caused them to desist from their undertaking"...The attempt was made avowedly...It was never accomplished - the prophecy stands fulfilled.'

The emotional and ethical evidence which weigh in favor of Christianity hold that after a careful reading of the gospels and the epistles, a congenial soul and a fair-minded skeptic will conclude that Christ is at the minimum an heroic and sympathetic figure. One might not be prepared to profess that He is God, the Second Person in a Trinity, but if one does not find the personality and career of Christ to be heroic and attractive, then one rejects what most Christians consider to be the strongest evidence for Christianity. Those who are persuaded by the emotional and ethical evidence for the Divinity of Christ might disregard the analytical evidence - the fulfilled prophecies - seeing these as superfluous. Indeed most Christians have a very murky understanding of the Old Testament scriptures which Christian theologians insist refer to Jesus, such as Isaiah 9. 6, Daniel 9. 24-27, Isaiah 53, Psalm 2 etc.

`The Nation' reports that 1,000 Chinese boys are abducted every year. John Sullivan in National Review (5.4.2009, p. 45) tells us that, according to the US State Department, between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked as sex slaves or as other sorts of slaves worldwide every year. 80% of these are women or girls. 14,500 to 17,500 are brought into the USA every year. Many people, appalled at the suffering they see in the world, ask God: why do You permit so much suffering on earth? Christianity maintains that God is not a God who reposes in Olympian luxury with a prodigious indifference to the misfortunes which crush mankind. God, in the Second Person of the Trinity, having suffered an excruciating death on earth, well understands agony, heartbreak and despair. God is therefore well qualified to commiserate with the abused and the broken-hearted, the wretched and the oppressed. God the Son endured torment, death, the harrowing of hell, and yet He triumphed over all, and will come again to judge the quick and the dead.

Christianity's explanation for the existence of evil and suffering runs as follows: 1) The final reward for virtue is to be found in the afterlife not in this life. 2) God is pleased with those who resist evil, who hold to their integrity amid trials, see I Chronicles 29: 17. 3) The Book of Job informs us that God, though He permitted Satan to afflict Job, also rewarded Job with eternal life for remaining faithful during his ordeal, "I know that my Redeemer liveth and He shall stand at last on the earth" - Job 19. 25. 4) Christianity teaches that not only will God reward with eternal life those who resist evil and act with integrity in their trials, but, God Himself, i. e., the Second Person in the Trinity, gave us the supreme example of how one retains ones integrity while suffering on earth.

One reads the Bible and decides if Jesus is to be worshiped. If one is unimpressed with the emotional and ethical evidence for Christianity, that is, if one is unimpressed with the career, personality and precepts of Jesus, then one probably won't trouble oneself to examine the analytical evidence for Christianity - the fulfilled prophesies. Every Christian would insist that it is far better to believe in Christ in a passionate yet confused manner than to know everything there is to know about Christianity with a cold and hard-hearted lucidity. But there's no reason for anyone to be confused, or to believe without immense evidence for belief.

Pascal wrote in pensée 245,

`Christianity...does not acknowledge as her true children those who believe without inspiration.'

This inspiration, for example, would be signalized by feelings of pity and compassion, such as evoked upon reading Luke 22. 43-44,

`Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.'

Non-Christians are often perplexed and angered by the doctrine which says that none save true Christians will attain eternal life in paradise. They reason that God would not damn a sweet and gentle soul merely because that soul rejects Christ. The logic which says that heaven is an exclusively Christian haunt runs in two lines of logic. The first line holds that the Christian scriptures are trustworthy. And these scriptures are rather unambiguous on certain points, a) Christ gave His life as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of many, b) No one comes to the Father save through the Son, c) John 3. 18, `he who does not believe is already condemned,' etc., etc.

The second line of logic holds that God the Son was once tortured and executed on a cross, therefore, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit would be displeased with those who insist that the Son never suffered on a cross; moreover, the Father would be inclined to consign to hell those who disparage the Son's suffering, and who revile Christ in their blasphemies. Even if one is neither obnoxious nor profane in ones unbelief, one cannot have any compassion for the crucified God if one doesn't believe God was ever crucified. If one has no compassion for the crucified God, the crucified God will reciprocate, and will have no pity and compassion on the unfeeling unbeliever. Such is the logic which says there is no salvation for those who reject Jesus.

2 Thess 1. 8 says that those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ will suffer fire. This seems very harsh and obnoxious to modern, secular minds. But the Christian logic is more or less simple and obvious: John 1. 1-14, Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, Colossians 2. 8-10 and I Timothy 3. 16 are trustworthy. Therefore, the Creator of the Universe was crucified while He lived on earth. Therefore, if one says or implies Jesus is a fraud one will suffer some hellfire. You can't say or imply the Creator of the Universe is a fraud - especially after He was crucified - and expect to avoid an unpleasant punishment.

The Book of Revelation mentions a `second death' - the damned are cast into a lake of fire - but Revelation 20. 15 doesn't unambiguously tell of eternal or prolonged torments. Being cast into a lake of fire where a soul suffers momentarily and then is annihilated, sounds awful enough, but it is still a much more preferable fate than a prolonged plunge in hellfire. Some believe that souls are never annihilated, as is Catholic doctrine, see also Daniel 12 on this. The Book of Revelation elaborates some on the topic of who will suffer eternal fire, but the New Testament does not say that all of the damned suffer eternal fire.

We have scriptures which say love covers a multitude of sins. But we also have scriptures which tell of hellfire for those who don't obey the gospel and who don't know God. Jeremiah 31. 31-34 says that God's people will know God. Christians insist that the New Testament gives us a very clear picture of Jesus; and if one knows the Son then one knows the Father - John 10. 30.

John 15. 6-12,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned...If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love...This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.'

As stated, if one is sincerely impressed with the career, personality, and precepts of Jesus, one must then determine if Jesus is God, and decide if Jesus is not only worthy of admiration, but indeed must be worshipped as God. As we've seen, there are several New Testament scriptures which are quite unambiguous in stating that Jesus is God: Colossians 2: 8-10, I Timothy 3: 16, and John 1. 1-14. Again, Isaiah 9: 6 and Psalm 2 would be the clearest Old Testament scriptures to indicate that the Son is God, that is, the Second Person in a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The personality of Christ, as depicted in the pages of the New Testament, would be exhibit A in the case which says that Christianity is the true religion. Exhibit B would be the supreme unlikelihood that an ex-Pharisee named Paul, along with some fisherman and laborers in ancient Judea, could have fabricated a personality as noble as Christ's, and could have withstood persecutions and cruel martyrdoms in the propagation of that fabrication. Exhibits C, D, E etc., would be the fulfilled prophecies from scripture.

Jesus states in Matthew 13. 49-50,

`So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth and separate the wicked from the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.'

Recall the prophetic vision seen in Revelation 14. 6-7:

`I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on earth - to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people - saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has arrived; and worship the Creator of heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water."'

And, again, John 1. 3 says Jesus created the universe.

Daniel 12. 1 states the Jews are delivered when Michael arrives, not when The Messiah arrives, and this implies that the Christians are right: the Jews were the enemies of the Messiah at His first coming, and therefore God sends Michael to make sure the Jews are not enemies of the Messiah at His second coming. Daniel 12. 1,

`At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even until that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book.'

Everyone knows there are kind, altruistic, sweet-natured, intelligent, charitable and long-suffering people to be found in all of the world's major religions. And from this observation one might be led to conclude that doctrine is unimportant, and led to conclude that one may subscribe to a false religion and still attain heaven and avoid perdition, provided one is charitable, provided one has love in ones heart. It's true that I Peter 4. 8 tells us that love covers a multitude of sins, but it would make no sense for a Christian to elevate that single scripture over every other scripture. If one is a non-Christian, then one rejects John 1. 1-15, Colossians 2. 8-10, I Timothy 3. 16. If one rejects these scriptures then one believes that Jesus is a bogus deity, and, obviously, Jesus will not be pleased with those who say He is a bogus deity. Furthermore, if one doesn't believe in a crucified God, one can have no compassion on the crucified God. And if one has no compassion on the crucified God, how could one expect to go to heaven when one passes away, assuming of course Christianity is true?

The contention that various altruistic and loving people found in the Roman Catholic Church, and in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and in the Church of England, and in The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and in the Baptist Church, and in the United Methodist Church etc., etc., are all in the True Church is problematical because these people all subscribe to conflicting creeds, and it stands to reason that the saints in the True Church will subscribe to the same new covenant, to the same Divine Law, as they will all have God's new covenant inscribed on their hearts, therefore they will not have conflicting creeds inscribed on their hearts. Recall Christ's words at the Last Supper \- `this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many.' What is the new covenant? Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

It stands to reason that the Divine Law will not be a mass of conflicting creeds, but, rather, it will be coherent, sane, non-conflicting.

In searching for the True Church, one might begin with Rome, then move on to Eastern Orthodoxy, then to the Church of England, then to Lutheranism, then to the Baptists....If one determines that Rome is the True Church, then one has determined that Rome leads souls to heaven and Rome leads no one to perdition. The only logical reason for rejecting Rome would be: Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Rome has fallen away, recall 2 Thess 2. Since rome has fallen away, Rome leads souls to perdition. If, however, Rome is still the church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition, then it makes no sense to ever reject an official doctrine from Rome. How is it sane to rebel against the True Church? The True Church can teach errors, but she leads no one to hell. But if one rejects an official doctrine of the True Church, one might go to hell for doing so. Rome says the Inquisition is the Holy Office. If Rome is the True Church, then don't say the Inquisition was evil. But if Rome is not the True Church, then renounce the Church of Rome and find the True Church.

St. Paul said in Galatians 1. 8 that even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters St. Paul's gospel. St. Paul said a bishop must be a man of one wife - I Timothy 3. 2. Rome says a bishop must be a man with no wife. If one believes Rome leads souls to perdition, because it corrupts St. Paul's gospel, then one might investigate the Mormon Church to see if it is the True Church.

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young said a bishop may have more than one wife. If Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are damned for corrupting St. Paul's gospel, then it makes no sense for anyone to be a Mormon, even if the Mormon Church in the 21st century has renounced polygamy.

If one believes that the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church lead souls to perdition, because they authorize people to bow down before images of human beings, then one might consider the Church of England. There would be no reason to reject either Rome or the Eastern Orthodox Church if one of these churches is the Church which Christ founded on a rock. But if neither one is the True Church, if both have fallen away, if both lead souls to perdition, then one would be wise to reject both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy.

The Church of England says that the Anglican British Monarchs, such as Henry VIII., Elizabeth I., James I. etc., etc., were the true leaders on earth of God's True Church. The Church of England insists that, regardless if their laws and policies were evil or contrary to the Gospel, these monarchs were still the true leaders of the Church which Christ founded on a rock. It's a take it or leave it situation. If one thinks this doctrine from the Church of England leads souls to perdition, one might move on from the Church of England and consider the various Protestant denominations.

The Protestant denominations generally insist that they uphold the teachings of the Bible. One must determine what doctrines are in this new covenant which is written on human hearts, which is mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and mentioned by Christ at the Last Supper - Matthew 26. 28, Mark 14. 24 and Luke 22. 20. As we've seen, the New Testament has many verses which cast the rich into hell. The most logical way to reconcile the various Christian scriptures is via the doctrine which says that in the True Church there is equal sharing of the wealth among those who work. How else can one make sense of Acts 2. 44, Acts 4. 32-34, Luke 16. 19-31, Luke 6. 24, Luke 18. 25, Matthew 19. 23, Luke 3. 11, I John 3. 17, I Tim 6. 10, James 1. 9, Matthew 6. 24, Malachi 5. 3, Matthew 25. 31-46, 2 Thess 3. 10 etc? In the True Church there are bishops, as St. Paul said there are bishops and deacons - I Timothy 3. 2 and I Timothy 3. 8. The True Church, led by a collection of bishops and deacons, must determine who is fit to receive the Eucharist and who is unfit to receive it. Someone, or some committee, has to determine who is to be excommunicated. Obviously, the community of the faithful have to help the bishops in this matter. If corrupters are not expelled from the True Church, the True Church falls away from the True Faith.

Getting back to the basic evidence for Christianity, David Klinghoffer, in a review of Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity (National Review, 12.31.2007) writes on why the Jews have rejected Jesus,

`No, it's not sinful pride: It is sacred scripture. The plausibility of [the] Christian religion rests on how well it fits with everything we know about God from the pages of revelation that preceded Christianity. Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal, as the Torah itself says explicitly over and over again. The Jews' refusal to submit to a misreading of their Bible is the most basic reason they rejected Jesus...A Christian apologist should recognize this and offer a plausible response not only to Dawkins or Hitchens [Atheists] but to the rabbis and other Jewish teachers and interpreters from Moses and Isaiah through Maimonides and up to the present day.'

Let us consider these words: `Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal.'

Psalm 40. 6,

`Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened, burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.'

It might be argued that the famous text of Isaiah 1. 11-18 applies, quite literally, to only to the rulers of Sodom and to the people of Gomorrah, but that would be a faulty interpretation. Isaiah i. 11-18 is directed at the ancient Jews, at people who had become like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (these cities had been destroyed centuries before Isaiah's time).

Isaiah 1. 11-18,

`"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?" says the LORD. `I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats...Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me...Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean...cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together...though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.'

David Klinghoffer wrote:

`Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal, as the Torah itself says explicitly over and over again.'

Aren't Psalm 40. 6 and Isaiah 1. 11-18 part of the Hebrew Bible? Don't these two scriptures suggest that God is sick of animal sacrifices and that animal sacrifices are not eternally required? Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their incessant rebellions. We've seen that Jeremiah 31. 31-34, part of the Hebrew Bible, tells that God will make a new covenant with the houses of Judah and Israel. The Mosaic Law is still on the books - it's an eternal law - even though many of its statutes - slaughtering animals and executing Sabbath violators, for instance, are held in abeyance - they are on the record for eternity but they are no longer enforced - though many parts of the Old Law are incorporated into the New Law, and they are enforced - The Ten Commandments for instance.

It is certainly true that the Mosaic Law given in the Torah, in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, which, again, is the same as the first five books of the Christian Old Testament, gives one the very distinct impression that the Mosaic Law will never be replaced.

Much of the argument between Christians and Jews deals with the question: has the Mosaic Law been amended? The Jews insist the Mosaic Law is an eternal law which is in temporary abeyance. It has been in abeyance for nearly 2,000 years now. There hasn't been any animal sacrifice in the Temple since the time the Temple was destroyed. The Jews don't say the Mosaic Law was destroyed when the Temple was destroyed. They say the Mosaic Law is in abeyance. If it can be abeyance for 2,000 years and still be an eternal law, then it can be in abeyance for an infinite number of years and still be an eternal law.

Deuteronomy 4: 2,

`Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.'

Deuteronomy 27: 26,

`Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them: and all the people shall say, Amen.'

Jeremiah 9: 11-24,

`And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons...And the Lord saith, because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice...I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them among the heathen...the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field...let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord...'

Leviticus 26. 14-36,

`But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror...I shall bring a sword upon you...ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat...I will make waste your cities...I will send faintness into their hearts...the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them...'

Deuteronomy 28. 15-67,

`But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field, cursed shall be thy basket and thy store...Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke...The Lord shall make pestilence cleave unto thee...The Lord shall smite thee...And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth...The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch...thou shalt grope at noonday...Thou shalt betroth a wife and another man shall lie with her...Thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes...thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee...If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful...he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt...the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart..thy life shall hang in doubt before thee...In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!'

Despite all of these threats, the impediments keeping modern Jews from obeying all of the Law of Moses are swiftly apparent. The fact that there is no sanctified altar in a Temple in Jerusalem means that Jews can't offer any animal sacrifices, but they must, provided they wish to live by the Mosaic Law, still execute adulterers (Leviticus 20. 10), execute blasphemers (Leviticus 24. 16), execute false prophets (Deuteronomy 13. 5), execute homosexuals (Leviticus 20. 13), execute witches (Leviticus 20. 27), and keep all the other statutes such as not wearing clothing of mixed cloth, e. g., wool and linen, and purchasing only new houses which have parapets. It's true that we never read in the Old Testament of dire punishments falling on the children of Israel for the transgressions of wearing clothing of heterogeneous fabrics, of wearing garments without tassels, or after they built dwellings without parapets - all of which are transgressions against the Mosaic Law. The terrible chastisements - the captivities - resulted when the children of Israel perpetrated grievous sins: when they bowed down before the Baals and Ashtoreths, playing the harlot by serving pagan deities, and when they oppressed the poor and poured out the blood of the innocent. Thus, an important lesson to be learned from the Old Testament is that while one might find it impossible to obey every little statute in a Divine Legal Code, one must strive to obey the most important laws in that Divine Code.

Hosea 4. 6 informs us that God's people, i.e., the Jews, are destroyed for lack of knowledge. The context of Hosea 4. 6 tells us the Jews have forgotten the Mosaic Law, especially the Ten Commandments. Secularized Jews today have forgotten one or more of the Ten Commandments. If these secularized Jews, who probably comprise more than 50% of all Jews, were to obey all of the Mosaic Law then they would have to obey both the good parts - such as the Ten Commandments - as well as the bad parts: executing Sabbath violators, executing rebellious children, executing homosexuals etc. Before one gives up on Judaism altogether and becomes secularized one might ask if it is possible that the Gentiles corrupted a Jewish new covenant for century after century. Did the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2 happen centuries ago? Before giving up on God and becoming a secularized Jew, one has to ask: is it possible that Jesus is the Messiah even though the people under the sign of the cross fell away from the True Faith? Did they fall away by persecuting the Jews for centuries, by enforcing evil laws, by enslaving Africans, by oppressing peasants, by dividing the Church into a partition where one group of Christians waged war (the nobles), one group prayed (the priests, monks and nuns), and a third group toiled (the peasants), a partition which tramples on both the New Testament and justice. Could it be that not every barbarian who had some baptismal water splashed on him was made instantly pure in the eyes of the Creator of the Universe? `Thus thou didst to the vase at Soisson!' screamed Clovis, the Catholic king of the Franks, as he cleaved the skull of someone with his axe. The man who had his skull split open had broken a vase belonging to the Catholic Church. The history of Western Civilization is very concerned with this question: did every barbarian who was washed in the baptismal waters comport himself like one of the apostles? Perhaps the baptized didn't immediately have the Divine Law inscribed on their hearts. Did the people under the sign of the cross fall away from the True Faith? Is it possible to obey the Mosaic Law? If it is impossible to obey the Mosaic Law, was a New Law given to the Jews centuries ago? Could it be that the Gentiles corrupted this new covenant? Have those under the sign of the cross fallen away from the new covenant, aka the True Faith?

Christians assert that, as the Jews don't worship Jesus, and don't understand that Christianity is the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and as the Jews are in rebellion against the doctrine that Jesus is God (Isaiah 9. 6, I Timothy 3. 16, Colossians 2. 8-10, John 1. 1-14, John 5. 23, Hebrews 1. 5-8, Acts 3. 22, Titus 2. 13 etc.), though they might not be in rebellion against Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6, nevertheless, perdition awaits all who refuse to worship Jesus as the Son in the Divine Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now if a Jewish person rejects the doctrine that Christianity is this new covenant, then, as the Temple has long since been destroyed, as the daily sacrifices have long since been taken away, as prophecy and vision seem to have vanished, what has become of the true religion, the religion of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah? We know that the Jews do not obey the Mosaic Law, because the Mosaic Law demands the execution of blasphemers, enchantresses, homosexuals and rebellious children, and the Jews don't execute anyone for religious violations.

Eekiel 20: 24, 25 reads:

`Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised My statutes and polluted My sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good and judgments whereby they should not live.'

The whole Old Covenant system of animal sacrifice is not at all good in the estimation of most people today. Exodus 29. 20 tells us that God wanted the blood of a ram to be placed on the tip of Aaron's right ear, and on the tips of the right ears of his sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. This curious little ritual certainly appears to be an example of God mocking man, mocking him because of his incessant rebellions and eternal heart of stone. Yet scripture is clear that even an Old Covenant law of the most frivolous or barbarous aspect must not be discarded until a New Covenant - a Covenant which says the Old Covenant is still eternal yet unobserved in many of its statutes - has been given, for dire curses would crush the children of Israel if they rejected the slightest element of the Old Covenant. `Cursed be thy basket and thy store...'

We can certainly see that the Old Covenant needed to be amended with a New Law. The Old Law can be put into abeyance so that it is an eternal law, though unobserved, whereas the New Law is both eternal and observed.

Since the Jews reject Christianity as the new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then, as the Temple has long since been razed, as the daily sacrifices have long since been taken away, as prophecy and vision seem to have long since been sealed, what has become of the true religion? Where is the religion of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah?

The new covenant was not prophesied by a Gentile, but by a Jew. Jeremiah 31. 31-34,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Jeremiah is not the only Hebrew prophet who tells of such a covenant which consists of God putting His law inside people.

Isaiah 59. 20-21,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

Ezekiel 36. 24-28,

`For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.'

Christians don't believe that the above scripture refers to the gathering of the Jews in the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, because Christians do not believe the prophecy was fulfilled after the Babylonian Captivity. Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago, and Christians do not believe that those who approved that He be crucified understood and obeyed the Divine Law! Christians believe that Ezekiel 36. 24-28 will be fulfilled later. But there are two parts to Ezekiel 36. 24-28. There is the first part, God will gather the Jews in the Holy Land, which looks a lot like Zionism, and then the second part, the Jews will receive the Divine Law.

As we've seen, Christianity says one is damned if one opposes Zionism. To run through the logic again: Ezekiel 36. 24-28 supports Zionism. ` For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...' If one rejects Zionism then one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28, then, one will reject another Old Testament scripture which tells of God putting his Divine Law into the Jews - Jeremiah 31. 31-34. If one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34, which tells of a new covenant, then one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper - `For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.' If one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper, one rejects Christianity. Christianity says one is damned if one rejects Christianity. Therefore, Christianity says one is damned if one is anti-Zionist.

The Jews insist that Jesus can not be the Messiah, because Jesus does not rule the world with a rod of iron - and recall that Psalm 2 is very clear in stating that the Son will rule the world with a rod of iron. But Psalm 2 does not supply us with a timetable. It merely says that, at some time in the future, the Messiah, the Divine Son, will rule the world.

The Jewish insistence that Christianity can not be the true religion, because evil Christians have persecuted the Jews for centuries, is founded upon an inability to understand something which is easy to understand: there is a True Faith and a True Church. Merely because many millions of Christians have fallen away from the True Faith and the True Church doesn't mean that the True Faith and the True Church don't exist, and it doesn't mean that Christ and the apostles taught falsehoods.

All New Testaments in the world today are essentially the same, these being derived from 5,000 early Greek manuscripts which were all essentially the same. The Catholic Old Testament is the same as the Protestant Old Testament, save the Catholic version also includes the Apocrypha. The Protestant Old Testament is the same as the Hebrew Bible. The Torah, also known as the Pentateuch, also known as the first five books of the Old Testament, are all different terms which describe the same things: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Law of Moses, the Old Covenant, is found in these first five books of the Hebrew Bible, in the Torah, the Pentateuch.

Isaiah 9. 6 certainly clashes with Torah, because the Torah clashes with the idea of God being a Child, or God being born. But Isaiah 9. 6 says what it says, and there's no sense in saying it was written by a Gentile, and there's no sense saying it reminds one of the Torah,

`For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.'

Psalm 40: 6-7 seems to clash rather conspicuously with the Torah,

`Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened, burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. My ears you have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, "Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.'

Hosea 4. 6 says God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Perhaps the doctrine which says there is nothing in the Hebrew Bible which remotely suggests that an Old Covenant will be placed in eternal abeyance, and that God will make a new covenant with his people would be an example of this lack of knowledge.

Hosea 6. 6 also says that God wants mercy and not sacrifice. This is at least a suggestion that the Torah is not the last word on God's relationship with the Jews.

If one was to actually believe that God still considered the Jews to be subject to the Mosaic Law, then one would have to agitate the State of Israel to destroy and remove the Dome of the Rock, and then one would have agitate the State of Israel to commence rebuilding the Temple, and then agitate for a high priest, and then agitate the State of Israel to gather up bulls and goats so as to begin again the whole business of ritualistic slaughter, and to start executing homosexuals and enchantresses and rebellious children etc. Before one jumps to the conclusion that the Mosaic Law is not in eternal abeyance, and that it must be obeyed, one might read Jeremiah xxxi 31-34, and one might also read the New Testament, to see if, perhaps, the New Testament explains the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34. One mustn't confound the sins of evil Christians who have persecuted Jews over the centuries with the authors of the New Testament. Christ and the apostles were Jews not Gentiles, and of course the New Testament contains prophecies which say that wolves in sheep's clothing will enter the flock.

The 28th chapter of Deuteronomy is one of the most amazing chapters in literature, and it certainly inclines one to think the Mosaic Law will never be replaced. Nevertheless, it makes no sense to ignore Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Isaiah 9. 6.

David Klinghoffer makes these assertions:

1) `The plausibility of [the] Christian religion rests on how well it fits with everything we know about God from the pages of revelation that preceded Christianity.'

So far so good.

2) Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal, as the Torah itself says explicitly over and over again. The Jews' refusal to submit to a misreading of their Bible is the most basic reason they rejected Jesus...'

Again, we know that the Jews are not upholding the Mosaic Law at present. Does this mean the Mosaic Law has been destroyed? No. It means the Mosaic Law is in abeyance. Why can't the Mosaic Law remain in abeyance for eternity?

One has to ignore the words written in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 in order to write: `Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal, as the Torah itself says explicitly over and over again. The Jews' refusal to submit to a misreading of their Bible is the most basic reason they rejected Jesus...' To write that sentence one would have to ignore Isaiah 1. 11-18. One would have to ignore Psalm 40. 6. One would have to ignore Ezekiel 20. 25....

As we know the Old Testament is very clear in stating the Mosaic Law is an eternal law. Therefore, Christians don't say that the New Law has replaced the Old Law, the Mosaic Law. We say that the Old Law is an eternal law but it is not enforced, it is in suspension, it is in abeyance, whereas the New Law is enforced. One is not damned under the New Law as an outlaw if one refuses to execute homosexuals and adulterers, as demanded by the Mosaic Law, but one is subject to damnation if one is an outlaw under the New Law. Under the New Law we do not practice the lex talionis - `eye for an eye, tooth for tooth' justice, because the lex talionis is not part of the New Law. The lex talionis is part of the Mosaic Law, and as the Mosaic Law is an eternal law, held in eternal abeyance, the lex talionis is also an eternal law, held in eternal abeyance. If the Jews were to say the lex talionis is not in abeyance, then, they would have to practice `eye for an eye, tooth for tooth' justice, or else they would have to accuse themselves of being outlaws under the Mosaic Law, and, hence, they would have to accuse themselves of being accursed in the eyes of God.

One might look at Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and see that a New Law is going to be inscribed on the hearts of God's people. Is the slaughtering of bulls something which will be inscribed on people's hearts? Who can remember all of the sin offering and wave offerings and all the details found in the Mosaic Law? People have a horrendous time simply trying to remember to love God, to love our neighbors, and to love even our enemies, as Jesus commanded. In order to love God one must keep the commandments and keep all of Jesus' words - I John 5. 3 and John 14. 23-26.

3) `A Christian apologist should recognize this [Assertions 1 and 2] and offer a plausible response not only to Dawkins or Hitchens [Evolutionists and Atheists] but to the rabbis and other Jewish teachers and interpreters from Moses and Isaiah through Maimonides and up to the present day.'

The Christian response to Jews and everyone else includes a recapitulation of Luke 13. 5 - repent or perish. And then Acts 3. 22-25 repeats Deuteronomy 18. 15-19: `Every soul who will not hear that Prophet will be utterly destroyed.' There's the second half of Matthew 5, which is a sermon on hellfire. There's John 15. 6 and Revelation 20. 15. All of this is more or less the same as 2 Thess 1. 8 - fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Under both covenants, the Old and the New, blood is required to wash away sins. Under the Old Covenant the blood of animals was shed. Under the New Covenant, the blood of God was shed. Under the Old Covenant, under the Law of Moses, the sinner would contemplate the anguish of the bull being slaughtered. The pathos of the suffering bull might have inspired in the sinner's mind some concept of his own punishment should he persist in his wickedness and his contempt of God's commandments. `For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft' \- I Samuel 15. 23. Under the New Covenant, the sinner is supposed to recall the anguish of God on the cross - and supposed to recall the anguish of hell and damnation which befalls sinners who continue to sin and rebel against the Divine Law.

In Hebrews 9. 11-28 we read,

`But Christ came as high Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance...So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.'

The Christian response to Atheists and Jews, and to Christians who aren't living the way good Christians are supposed to be living, and to everyone else for that matter, is quite simple: Repent or Perish. All of Christian scripture supports the Repent or Perish theology. Recall Daniel 9. 24-27 and Luke 13. 1-5, John 15. 6 and 2 Thess 1. 8. The Bible preaches a consistent message of the need to repent from wicked ways. To repeat what Christ said in Matthew 25. 41-46,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

Recall the last chapter in the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi 4. 4 begins as follows,

`"For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly, will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," says the LORD of hosts, "that will leave them neither root nor branch...'

Malachi 4. 4 also tells us to remember the Law of Moses. The order to remember the Law of Moses is not the same thing as the order to forget what is written in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28.
An eternal law should be remembered even though it is in abeyance. If everyone forgot the Mosaic Law, it would cease to be an eternal law. But as long as it is remembered, though it is in abeyance, it remains eternal. And certainly not everything in the Law of Moses is excluded from the New Covenant; one has to include the good parts of the Law of Moses - the Ten Commandments for instance. The New Law certainly excludes the bloody animal sacrifices and all the patently bad laws: execute rebellious children, burn the harlot daughter of a priest, execute homosexuals etc.

Is Jesus the Son mentioned in Isaiah 9. 6 and Psalm 2? The first step in making an intelligent assessment of Jesus is to acquire a sound understanding of what the Old and New Testaments actually say. Many people reject Christianity because they, more or less, know what John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8 and Revelation 20. 15 say. They reason that, since the Christian God has sent the souls of their ancestors to perdition, then, they will reject the Christian God. But one has to do what is right for ones children. And leading ones children to perdition is not doing the right thing for ones children. The standard Jewish complaint against Jesus is that He does not rule the world with a rod of iron, as prophesied in Psalm 2. There is a First Coming and a Second Come. Christ will rule the world with a rod of iron at the Second Coming.

Again, Daniel 12. 1,

`And at that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book.'

Christians of course see this phrase `found written in the book' refers to the Book of Life, which we find in Revelation 20. 12-15.

Daniel 12. 1 is a very important scripture in Christian apologetics because Daniel was a Hebrew prophet, and he is telling the Jews that they will be delivered when Michael arrives, not when the Messiah arrives, and this supports the Christian doctrines that, 1) Michael will convert the Jews to the New Law and the True Church, and 2) the Messiah must suffer first and conquer later, and Psalm 2 is very clear that the Messiah is a conquering Messiah.

The Book of Revelation is quite clear about some things. Christ will return to earth to slaughter the evil people who brandish the evil mark on their foreheads or right hands. These evil people are so vile God has determined that they deserve to burn in hell forever. Then, there is a millennium, where Christ and the saints who come out of the great tribulation reign on earth for 1,000 years. Then another satanic rebellion must be crushed. Then there's the final judging of souls. The saints who come out of the great tribulation are safe from this judgment. Then the New Jerusalem comes down out of the sky and the Trinity and the saints reign forever.

Apropos of repenting and perishing, many centuries of human experience have taught us that it is impossible for human beings to be freed from all taint of greed, anger, pride, sensuality, sloth, gluttony etc., etc., and therefore we see the importance of those scriptures which tell us that love covers a multitude of sins - Proverbs 10. 12 and I Peter 4. 8. James 5. 20 also pertains to this theme.

We've seen some evidence which says that Christians aligned under the sign of the cross have often been more murderous than loving, but this doesn't prove that Christianity is a false religion, and indeed, as we've seen, it corroborates various New Testament scriptures and prophecies, such as the scriptures which say that Satan exists, and that there will be a falling away. The insistence that Jesus can not be God the Son, because a sinister omnipresence hovered over Christendom for century after century - a malevolence embodied in millions of thugs brandishing crosses and terrorizing Jews and other non-conformists \- no doubt has some emotional logic behind it. Still it doesn't tax ones intelligence too strenuously to observe that Jesus can't be blamed for the atrocities committed by false Christians claiming to be His followers. The basic Christian promise is: live according to the gospel: endure trials and suffering without renouncing the True Faith and you will be rewarded with eternal life in paradise. Jesus could be blamed if this promise was a false promise, but it is rather impetuous to insist it is a false promise when one has no evidence which says it is a false promise. One might at least wait until one is dead, until ones soul has gone to judgment, before one declares it a false promise! We have no end of evidence which says there have been millions of bloodthirsty Christians, but this fact doesn't invalidate the New Testament. It corroborates it. Recall Acts. 20. 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

The existence of millions of evil Christians certainly corroborates St. Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

Daniel 9. 24-27 is indeed one of the pre-eminent scriptures from the Repent or Perish School of Theology. It is also one of the supreme prophetical scriptures from the Old Testament in telling us that the Messiah must suffer first and conquer second. That is, the words: `And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off' lead one to think the Messiah will be killed. Daniel 9. 24-27 runs as follows:

`Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.'

The doctrine that the Son, the Messiah, will be a conquering Messiah, finds its supreme articulation in Psalm 2. 5-9,

`Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.'"'

Christians have some advantages over Jews in recognizing the authority of scripture. Christians can easily see many fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament which point to Jesus being the Messiah, and these fulfilled prophecies greatly increase people's confidence in the Divine authority of the Old Testament. Many Jews however are shaken in their belief in these ancient scriptures - for the Messiah should have arrived ages ago, and yet, as the Jews see things, he has certainly failed to arrive, and thus their confidence in the scriptures has been shaken.

Daniel 9. 24-27 is the most explicit Old Testament scripture which we have stating that the Messiah will arrive on earth before the destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD), albeit one must conduct a little research to see that it is explicit. Sir Robert Anderson elucidates the matter for us in his Preface to the Tenth Edition of his The Coming Prince: The Marvelous Prophecy of Daniel's Seventy Weeks Concerning the Antichrist (Kregel, 14th edition, 1957),

`1. The epoch of the Seventy Weeks was the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. (Daniel ix. 25.) [Here one must be careful to distinguish the earlier decree to rebuild the Temple, found in the Book of Ezra, from the latter decree to rebuild Jerusalem, found in the Book of Nehemiah].

2. There was but one decree for the rebuilding of Jerusalem...

3. That decree was issued by Artaxerxes, king of Persia, in the month Nisan in the 20th year of his reign, i.e. B.C. 445...

4. The city was actually built in pursuance of that decree.

5. The Julian date of 1st Nisan 445 was the 14th of March...

6. Sixty-nine weeks of years [the Biblical year consists of 360 days, and 69 weeks of years equals 69 x 7 x 360 days] - i.e. 173,880 days - reckoned from the 14th March B.C. 445, ended on the 6th April A.D. 32...

7. That day, on which the sixty-nine weeks ended, was the fateful day on which the Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah ix. 9; when, for the first and only occasion in all His earthly sojourn, He was acclaimed as "Messiah the Prince, the King, the son of David...no date in history, sacred or profane, is fixed with greater definiteness than that of the year in which the Lord began His public ministry. I refer of course to Luke iii. 1, 2...I say this emphatically because Christian expositors have persistently sought to set up a fictitious date for the reign of Tiberius. The first Passover of the Lord's ministry, therefore, was in Nisan A.D. 29; and we can fix the date of the Passion with absolute certainty as Nisan A.D. 32.'

The Torah essentially gives one no hope of eternal life. The relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah - the first 5 books of the Christian Bible - is one where God is immortal but human beings are mortal dust, and the best that the mortal dust can hope for is a long and happy life on this side of the grave. But the Hebrew Bible, in Daniel 12. 2, tells of eternal life,

`And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.'

Apropos of Messrs. Dawkins and Hitchens - both men are English Atheists - the basic problem most of us have in dealing with Evolution is that we have no great knowledge about what the fossil record actually says. Many Christians simply reply that Evolution is one of God's creations. We all hear various reports from various people. And if these reports support our pre-determined notions, our theological or atheistic prejudices, then we accept these reports. But both Creationists and Evolutionists reject those reports which offend their fundamental beliefs and premises. Is there clear evidence in the fossil record which shows that one species has evolved into a different species? Might it be that Evolution is founded upon Materialistic Faith? In order to form a strong opinion in favor of Evolution one must be able to see strong evidence in its favor. Most of us don't care to study fossils. Many of us don't care to repair to the Sumatran jungle for 50 years to look for `missing links' and `transitional forms.' Therefore our inclination might be to say that Evolution is bunk, or to say that Evolution is one of God's creations, but we can't speak with any authority because we are not experts on any evidence which pertains to Evolution, thus we can either parrot other people who reflect our prejudices, or we can refuse to be parrots altogether, and simply admit we don't know much about the evidence which pertains to Evolution.

St. Paul asserted that it was foolishness to deny the existence of God. Voltaire said all of creation shouted the existence of a Creator. Ivan Karamazov refused to believe in God because he refused to believe in a Deity who would not intercede and prohibit atrocities to proliferate over earth: soldiers impaling babies on bayonets etc. Michelet described for us in La Sorcière how a peasant girl would be driven to such extremes of despair by cruel noblemen that she would turn to the devil for help. The modern materialist, generally speaking, is rather conflicted about God. On the one hand he says he doesn't believe in God. But he certainly seems at other times to be angry with God because of all the evils which proliferate over the planet, and perhaps he is also angry with God because God did not grant the prayers and the most earnest entreaties of the Materialist when he formerly believed in God. Thus, the Materialist responds by giving God the silent treatment, i.e., by embracing Atheism. Elie Wiesel became famous because he did not renounce Judaism after the Holocaust. David Limbaugh reports in Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity that CNN founder Ted Turner accepted Christ at a Billy Graham Crusade, but then he rejected Christ after his sister's death and his father's suicide. After 9.11.2001 one heard stories of both people who lost all faith in God and people who became more religious.

Norm Cantor, in his The Civilization of the Middle Ages (HarperCollins, 1993, p. 31) tell us about the Man of Sorrows in Isaiah 53 . Cantor is quite explicit. He says this Man of Sorrows who wears a crown of thorns represents Israel and the Jewish people. He tells us that Isaiah 53 offers an explanation why sinful Gentiles have prospered while pious Jews have languished in their captivities.

Cantor's words hint at the gulf dividing Christianity and Judaism, for Christians of course insist the Man of Sorrows is a prophecy which refers to Jesus not to the Jewish people.

Isaiah 53. 3-9:

`He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not...But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed...he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is mute...He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.'

Consider Zechariah 12. 10:

`And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have pierced; they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.'

Is it Cantor's contention that the Jewish people pierced the Jewish people?

Isaiah 53. 9 says, `He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.'

The Hebrew prophets filled the Hebrew Bible full of verses saying the Jews were quick to shed innocent blood and were full of deceit.

Cantor might say the Man of Sorrows refers to good Jews alone. He might insist that Psalm 22 refers to the suffering of all righteous Jews, not to Jesus. But we can return to Daniel 9. 24-27, and specifically to some words which demand an explanation, `And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off'. We still have Psalm 2, which clearly speaks of the Son, begotten by the Father. And, again, Isaiah 9. 6 is obviously an amazing scripture.

Many centuries before the birth of Jesus it was prophesied in the scriptures of the Jews that the Messiah would not descend from the clouds in glory when he first appeared on earth, but would rise up from the people like another Moses (Deuteronomy 18. 15-18); he would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7. 14), in Bethlehem (Micah 5. 2); he was destined to suffer (Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53). He will enter Jerusalem in triumph (Zechariah 9. 9). He will be rejected by his own people (Psalm 118. 22). He will be betrayed by one of his friends (Psalm 41. 10). He will be smitten and spat upon by his enemies (Isaiah 50: 6). He will suffer with sinners and pray for those who hate him (Isaiah 53. 12). Lots will be cast for his garment (Psalm 22. 19). He will be given vinegar and gall (Psalm 69. 21). His bones will not be broken (Numbers 9. 12). He will rise from the dead (Psalm 16. 10). He will stand at the right hand of God (Psalm 110. 1). He will come before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A. D. (Daniel 9. 24-26). He will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11. 12).

Zechariah 9. 9,

`Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.'

Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6 tell us God has a Son. What is the evidence saying Jesus is this Son? We know that the Son is supposed to rule the world with an iron rod - Psalm 2 - and we know Jesus didn't rule the world with an iron rod at His First Coming, but we have scriptures telling of a Second Coming. The parallel with Moses is then: Moses appeared to the people without power, then he was taken away into the desert for many years, and he returned to the Jews having power, power to lead them out of Egypt. Similarly, Jesus appeared once with little power, was taken away for many, many years, and will return again with great power. Moses brought a Law inscribed on stone tablets. Jesus brought a Law inscribed on human hearts. Moses led the people in the desert of Sinai where they rebelled against the Mosaic Law and against the LORD for 40 years. Have the people under the sign of the cross upheld the New Law or have they rebelled against the New Law. One would need to have a sound understanding of the history of Western Civilization to correctly answer that question.

Hebrews 10. 1: FOR THE law (the Mosaic Law, the Old Covenant) having a shadow of the good things that are coming....

The parallel between the Passover lamb and Jesus are more or less obvious. The blood of the slain Passover lamb was placed on the top of doorways in ancient Egypt where the children of Israel were held in servitude. The destroying angel passed over those houses marked with lamb's blood. But every first-born child, whether Egyptian or Israelite, was killed in those houses where no lamb's blood was found over the doorway. The blood of Jesus was shed for the remission of sins. With their sins covered by the blood of Jesus, True Believers are passed over at the Last Judgment and escape being hurled into the Lake of Fire - Revelation 20. 11-15.

Bible students have elaborated on no end of comparisons between Jesus and Joseph, how both suffered, how Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and how Jesus was rejected by His people - the Children of Israel - how both were sold for silver, how both became the saviors of their people; Joseph took a Gentile bride when he was in Egypt; Jesus will take a Gentile bride, in that the True Church, the Bride of Christ, will be comprised mostly of Gentiles; the bones of Joseph travelled with the Children of Israel through the wilderness of Sinai side by side with the ark of the covenant; Jesus was with this ark while it travelled side by side with the bones of Joseph etc., etc.

It is a paradox that Christendom was often a dark and savage civilization, and yet this attests to the truth of Christianity. One need only inspect the New Testament to see that these scriptures offer prophesies of wolves infiltrating the Christian flock. If we found prophecies in the New Testament asserting that Christians would fashion a civilization to rival paradise, that there would be no Christian wolves in sheep's clothing, that the love of many would not grow cold, that malevolent men would not masquerade as apostles, then we would have evidence that Christianity is a superstition. Such however is not the case, as the corruption of Christendom is clearly foretold in the New Testament.

In 2 Peter 2. 1-3, St. Peter prophesies that many in Christendom will follow after damnable heresies. The Epistle of Jude speaks of ungodly men preordained to enter the Church. As we've seen, St. Paul states in 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

St. Matthew 7. 21-23 states many who profess to follow Jesus will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but will be given over to the flames because they are practitioners of lawlessness.

1 Timothy 4. 1-3 reads:

`Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.'

That there were evil Christians in Christendom strengthens the contention that St. Paul was a true prophet. As we have seen, St. Paul stated in Acts 20. 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

As we saw earlier, St. Paul is shown here to be an antitype of Elisha, for both were men who gazed into the future and wept. We read in 2 Kings 8. 12,

`And Hazael said, "Why is my lord weeping?" And he [Elisha] answered, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword; and you will dash their children, and rip open their women with child."'

So much of the history of Western Civilization is merely the history of the corruption of the creed which Christ gave to the apostles. Salo W. Baron stated that no Jew was known to have starved to death in a Jewish community during the middle ages, whereas Christians, wedded to feudal pride and caste snobbery, to a failure to share, were forever dying from famines during the Middle Ages. The ancient Christians, as opposed to the medieval, were admired even by their enemies for their generosity, but little respect was given to Acts 2. 44-47 and Matthew 25. 31-46 by the kings and nobles of medieval Christendom.

A later chapter looks in some detail at a Scottish statesman and writer named John Buchan, a.k.a., Lord Tweedsmuir. He was a member of the British House of Commons before he was made a Lord. He was also a Governor General of Canada, a Protestant, a classical scholar, a writer of thrillers as well as histories and biographies and no end of magazine articles. There is some insensitive language in some of his espionage thrillers, anti-Semitism-wise, but, an author is permitted to create anti-Semitic characters, and Buchan was a Protestant Zionist, and he gave a lot of money to the Zionist cause. We read in Buchan's The Three Hostages (1924),

"I GOT TO HULL ABOUT SIX O'CLOCK...went on board myself, and went straight to my own cabin...All that night and all the next day it blew fairly hard, and I remained quietly in my bunk, trying to read Boswell's Life of Johnson, and thanking my stars that I hadn't lived a thousand years earlier and been a Viking. I didn't see myself ploughing those short steep seas in an open galley...Stavanger [Norway]...I went into town...learned that my motor-launch was ready...bought a quantity of provisions, and by ten o'clock we were on the move...It was a gorgeous day, with that funny northern light which makes noon seem like early morning...the air was chilly and fresh, but when we turned the corner of the Merdalfjord out of the sea-wind and the sun climbed the sky it was as warm as June...Soon we were shaping due east in an inlet which was surrounded by steep dark hills...I had Boswell with me in two volumes; the first I had read on the steamer, and the second I was now starting on, when it fell overboard...surrendered myself to tobacco and meditation...the inlet narrowed to a fjord, and the walls of hill grew steeper. They were noble mountains, cut sharp like the edge of the Drakensberg, and crowned with a line of snow, so that they looked like a sugar-coated cake that had been sliced. Streams came out of the upper snow-wreaths and hurled themselves down the steeps - above a shimmering veil of mist, and below a torrent of green water tumbling over pebbles to the sea...We came to Hauge...in a wonderful purple dusk, for the place lay under the shadow of a great cliff...I was in good spirits myself as I stretched my legs on the road which led from Hauge to Merdal. The upper fjord lay black on my left hand, the mountains rose black on my right, but though I walked in darkness I could see twilight ahead of me, where the hills fell back from the Skarso valley, that wonderful apple-green twilight which even in spring is all the northern night...His wife gave us supper - an omelette, smoked salmon, and some excellent Norwegian beer...Gaudian gave me a grisly picture of his own country. It seemed that the downfall of the old regime had carried with it the decent wise men like himself, who had opposed its follies, but had lined up with it on patriotic grounds when the War began. He said that Germany was no place for a moderate man, and that the power lay with the bloated industrials, who were piling up fortunes abroad while they were wrecking their country at home. The only opposition, he said, came from the communists, who were half-witted, and the monarchists, who wanted the impossible. `Reason is not listened to, and I fear there is no salvation till my poor people have passed through the last extremity. You foreign Powers have hastened our destruction, when you had it in your hands to save us. I think you have meant well, but you have been blind, for you have not supported our moderate men and have by your harshness played the game of the wreckers among us.'"

Buchan is saying, in 1924, that the actions of Allied victors of World War I are creating the conditions which will have the good people in Germany getting slammed again. It doesn't take great genius to predict that, should the victors crush the reasonable people in a nation, they will not help peace and justice prevail in the world. But it takes some prophetic genius for a foreigner to grasp the true situation, in 1924, of what is happening to Germany: the foreign Powers are hurting the good people in Germany, and hence they are creating conditions which will enable the evil people in Germany to seize power - and there will be no salvation for the good Germans till they have passed through the last extremity, which is exactly what happened under the conquering Nazi and Soviet and East German regimes. Millions of German Protestants and Catholics had, all through the 1920s, 30s and 40s, enormous reverence for Christ's words at the Last Supper - `this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for you' - but their Christian educations were very incomplete, and they did not make the connection between the new covenant mentioned by Christ at the Last Supper with Ezekiel 36. 24-28. Christians in Nazi Germany certainly knew about the connection between Christ words at the Last Supper and Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and they certainly knew of the modern Zionist movement. But they failed to see, that, when one is hostile to Jews one is hostile to Zionism, and when one is hostile to Zionism one is hostile to Ezekiel 36. 24-28, and when one is hostile to Ezekiel 36. 24-28 one is hostile to Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and when one is hostile to Jeremiah 31. 31-34 one is hostile to Christ's words at the Last Supper, and when one is hostile to Christ's words at the Last Supper, ones soul goes to perdition. The Christians in Nazi Germany didn't make this connection. And they didn't see the connection which says: if you support Christ's words at the Last Supper, then you will be favorable to Zionism and Jews. The fact that Christians in Nazi Germany were not able to correctly teach Christianity helped the Nazis come to power.

The German Christians in Nazi Germany never understood that when one hates the Jews and hates Zionism, one hates Christ's words at the Last Supper, and therefore one embraces damnation. If the German Christians had been properly educated, if they understood the New Law, if they were not sunk in false churches which had fallen away from the True Faith, then these German Christians would have been more effective in correcting many people, if not every person, who had fallen under the spell of Hitler. The Holocaust would never have happened if millions of German Christians had been properly educated.

When Christians are poorly educated, when they don't understand the Christian Bible, then these poorly educated Christians will be susceptible to evil impulses and evil leaders such as Hitler, whereas a True Christian, one who has the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 written on his heart, will certainly not be led astray by evil. A Christian who gives the New Testament a cursory reading might certainly have hostility toward the Jews on account of the New Testament. When one begins to study the Christian Bible - the Old and New Testaments - when one is working towards a sound understanding of this large document - it is understandable why one might feel hostility toward the Jews: the Gospels contain accounts of the Jews crucifying Christ. The gospel has Jesus insisting that one love and pray for ones enemies, but the gospel also tells of Jews clamoring for the release of Barabbas, and clamoring for the crucifixion of Christ. The gospels tell us that the Jews and the Romans crucified God. God says of the people who approved His crucifixion - in Revelation 2. 9 - `I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews but are a synagogue of Satan'. But the scriptures tell us Christ forgave those who crucified him. As has been stated in the beginning pages of this book, Jesus is either God or else he isn't God. Jesus is either the Divine Son or else he isn't. If the scriptures which tell us Jesus is God are trustworthy \- Matthew 1. 23, Colossians 2. 8-10, John 1. 1-14, 1 Timothy 3. 16 etc. are trustworthy, then it stand to reason that every religion which says Jesus is a bogus deity, a man not God, is a religion which leads people away from heaven and to perdition, and so it is a satanic cult though it claims to be a respectable religion, or even the True Religion.

Therefore it is very important that a Christian continue his education, and that he not be stuck with a remedial understanding of the Christian scriptures. He must understand the connection between Christ's words at the Last Supper \- this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many - with Jeremiah 31. 31-34. And one must understand the connection between Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 \- all of which tell us that God has not disowned the Jews. Whenever zealous Christians fail to see the connections between these scriptures they are often driven to hate and persecute the Jews, something which is obviously rebellion against the gospel. One might think that Christ's clear commandment to love and pray for ones enemies would be enough to keep Christians from hating and persecuting the Jews over the centuries, but this hasn't been the case.

Deuteronomy 7. 6-9,

`For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.'

Apropos of the Divine inspiration of the Old Testament, the following is from Alexander _Keith's Christian Evidences: Fulfilled Bible Prophecies._ Dr. Keith, a Scottish divine of the 19th century, wrote many years before the modern State of Israel came into existence, an event which further testifies to the validity of such ancient prophecies as Ezekiel 36. 24, Deuteronomy 30 and Leviticus 26. 14-44.

"Could Moses, as an uninspired mortal, have described the history, the fate, the dispersion, the treatment, the dispositions of the Israelites to the present day, or for three thousand two hundred years, seeing that he was astonished and amazed, on his descent from Sinai, at the change in their sentiments, and in their conduct, in the space of forty days? Could various persons have testified, in different ages, of the self-same and of similar facts, as wonderful as they have proved to be true? Could they have divulged so many secrets of futurity, when, of necessity, they were utterly ignorant of them all? The probabilities were infinite against them. For the mind of man often fluctuates in uncertainty over the nearest events, and the most probable results; but, in regard to remote ages, when thousands of years shall have elapsed -and to facts respecting them, contrary to all previous knowledge, experience, analogy, or conception, -it feels they are dark as death to mortal ken. And, viewing only the dispersion of the Jews, and some of its attendant circumstances -how their city was laid desolate, -their temple, which formed the constant place of their resort before, leveled with the ground, and ploughed over like a field -their country ravaged, and themselves murdered in mass falling before the sword, the famine, and the pestilence -how a remnant was left, but despoiled, persecuted, enslaved, and led into captivity -driven from their own land, not to a mountainous retreat, where they might subsist with safety, but dispersed among the nations, and left to the mercy of a world that everywhere hated and oppressed them -shattered in pieces like the wreck of a vessel in a mighty storm -scattered over the earth, like fragments on the waters -and, instead of disappearing, or mingling with the nations, remaining a perfectly distinct people, in every kingdom the same, retaining similar habits and customs, and creed, and manners, in every part of the globe, though without ephod, teraphim, or sacrifice -meeting everywhere the same insult, and mockery, and oppression -finding no resting place without an enemy soon to dispossess them -multiplying amidst all their miseries -surviving their enemies -beholding, unchanged, the extinction of many nations, and the convulsions of all -robbed of their silver and their gold, though cleaving to the love of them still, as the stumbling block of their iniquity -often bereaved of their very children -disjoined and disorganized, but uniform and unaltered -ever bruised, but never broken -weak, fearful, sorrowful, and afflicted -often driven to madness at the spectacle of their own misery -taken up in the lips of talkers -the taunt and hissing and infamy of all people, and continuing ever, what they are to this day, the sole proverb common to the whole world; -and how did every fact, from its very nature defy all conjecture, and how could mortal man, overlooking a hundred successive generations, have foretold any one of these wonders that are now conspicuous in these latter times? Who but the Father of Spirits, possessed of perfect prescience, even of the knowledge of the will and the actions of free, intelligent, and moral agents, could have revealed their unbounded and yet unceasing wanderings -unveiled all their destiny -and unmasked the minds of the Jews, and of their enemies, in every age and in every clime? The creation of the world might as well be the work of chance as the revelation of these things. It is a visible display of the power and of the prescience of God, -an accumulation of many miracles.'

The New Testament is rather clear about hellfire: the fifth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew gives us both the beatitudes as well as a sermon on hell. Revelation 20: 12-15, deals with the Last Judgment. At this Last Judgment one is either admitted into Heaven or else one is cast into a lake of fire. St. Paul in 2 Thess 1. 8 mentions hellfire for those who don't obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who don't know God. In Galatians 1. 8-12, St. Paul tells us he learned his doctrines directly from Christ and that even an angel from Heaven is accursed if he alters these doctrines. In John 15. 6 Christ tells us that one will be given to the flames if one doesn't abide in Christ. In John 14.23-26 Christ tells that those who love Him keep His words and those who don't love Him don't keep His words. Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their rebelliousness. Thus a New Law is required to amend the flawed parts of the Old Law. The critics of Christianity fall into at least two broad categories. 1) There are those who say Jeremiah 31. 31-34 is a superstition, and, 2) there are those critics who say Jeremiah 31. 31-34 is trustworthy but Christianity is simply not God's New Law, and Jesus is simply not the Messiah prophesied in scriptures such as Psalm 2, where the Messiah is described ruling the world with absolute authority. As we've seen Ezekiel 36. 24-28 tells us God will bring the Jews back into the Holy Land and then He will put His Spirit inside the Jews. Christians don't see how this prophecy could pertain to the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity over 2500 years ago. If God put His Spirit into the Jews a long time ago, and since the Jews reject Jesus, then this means Jesus is a false Messiah. Christians don't accept the conclusion, so we don't accept the premise, the premise saying God put His Spirit inside the Jews a long time ago. So, if the first part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 pertains to the modern Zionist movement, then you would think the second part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28, the part about God putting His Spirit into the Jews, would happen fairly soon. If centuries elapse, if it becomes 2200 AD, and 2300 AD etc., and the Jews are still not converted to Christianity, then a Christian would have to wonder: What is going on here?

To review some more important scriptures:

1) Matthew 24. 23-27

`Then if anyone says to you, "Look, here is the Christ!" or "There!" do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect...For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.'

2) John 14. 23-26 and Galatians 1. 8-12 tell us, in so many words, that one falls away from the True Faith whenever one rejects any of Christ's sayings, and whenever one alters St. Paul's gospel.

3) James 4. 4 says worldliness, such as exampled by the sin of adultery, is enmity toward God. James 1. 27 tells us pure religion is visiting widows and orphans, and keeping oneself untainted from the world. St. Paul said a Christian who refused to support his family had denied the faith and was worse than an unbeliever. The scriptures support the doctrine of the equal sharing of wealth in the True Church - but all must work if they are able to.

St. Paul:

`Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples...For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God...the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away...if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious...the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away...their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ...when one turns to the Lord the veil is taken away...But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded...We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed...Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day...Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? - I speak as a fool - I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils of the city, in perils of the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness...And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood...O FOOLISH Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar -for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children- but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.'

Chapter 4 - The Protestants: Rebels Against Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy

§ 1. Protestant Business. § 2. Mormonism. § 3. The Protestants under the Sign of the Cross.

§ 1. Protestant Business.

The Protestant Churches are big business. And it's not good for Protestant business when a Protestant minister drives people out of his church, so there is pressure on ministers to not preach on controversial subjects. A Liberal minister will drive pro-lifers out of his church if he preaches pro-choice sermons. A Conservative minister who says that Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have fallen away from the True Faith and both of these churches lead souls to perdition will drive Liberal Protestants out of his church. You would think any Protestant could understand that Protestantism can only make sense provided both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have fallen away from the True Faith - neither is the True Church - both lead souls to perdition - but you would be surpised how many confused Liberals there are in the world. If a Protestant rejects John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Matthew 16. 13-19, Ephesians 4. 4, 2 Thess 2, 2 Thess 1. 8, Galatians 1. 8, Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Ezekiel 36. 24-28, Isaiah 59. 20-21 etc., if a Protestant rejects the doctrine there is a True Church and a True Faith, why would he bother to attend church? What is his motivation? Perhaps he is making money by attending church. Perhaps he can make business contacts. No doubt there are ladies who like church because they like to sing in the choir and mingle at the pot luck suppers. I suppose there are some basic rules in Protestant Business: when trying to make money off religion, preach sermons which don't offend your congregation. Beware of too much truth-telling! If the truth is popular then by all means preach the truth, but you'll drive people out of church if you insist on speaking unpopular truths. Just make yourself as inoffensive as possible and you should do OK money-wise.

One of the arguments against having public school teachers in the USA teach religion is that the public school teachers wouldn't know how to teach religion in a competent way, and therefore, if one can't teach a subject in competent fashion, one shouldn't try to teach it at all. Generally speaking a union man toiling as a public school teacher is much better at teaching Political Correctness and the platform of the Democratic Party than he is at teaching religion with the authority of God. If one truly had the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on ones heart, then, it might be said, one would be able to teach religion with the authority of God. Therefore, so the argument runs, it is best that the public school teachers obey their 9 masters on the Supreme Court: Thou shalt not teach religion in the public schools.

We've seen the connection between Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Isaiah 59. 20-21. Again, Matthew 26. 28 gives us Christ's words at the Last Supper - `This is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many'. Isaiah 59. 20-21 says,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

What are the chances that the pro-choice mantra are words which these descendants will speak forevermore? The pro-choice mantra is `if you don't like abortion then don't have one, but don't tell women that they can't have abortions'.

If one rejects Isaiah 59. 20-21, then one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and if one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34 one rejects Matthew 26. 28, and if one rejects Matthew 26. 28 Christianity says one is damned.

Before `Roe v. Wade', the individual States determined their own abortion laws. But it only takes five Supreme Court justices, a Scalia here and a Thomas there, to issue a declaratory judgment which would invalidate `Roe' in every State in the USA. It only requires five Supreme Court justices to declare that unborn babies are persons, and therefore every level of government in the USA must defend their lives, because the Due Process Clause of Amendment V. and the Supremacy Clause of Article VI. guarantee them this right. That's the reasoning under human law which says abortion must be made illegal. What does Divine Law say? Christian politicians and Christian might begin with the question: is the Gospel hostile to the pro-choice philosophy. In the Gospel hostile to the pro-choice mantra: if you don't like abortion then don't have one, but don't tell women they can't have abortions? If one believes that Christ is hostile to the pro-choice philosophy, then Christian politicians and Christian judges would be inclined to outlaw abortion, especially if they accept 2 Thess 1. 8 - Fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I mean if God hates the pro-choice philosophy, then there's no sense for a Christian politician or a Christian judge to throw himself into hell by defending the pro-choice philosophy, right? All of this is madness to those who reject 2 Thess 1. 8 and John 15. 6. But if one accepts 2 Thess 1. 8 and John 15. 6, then it is not so crazy! John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

To properly educate kids you might have to teach them to Question Authority. You certainly have to teach kids to be suspicious of people preaching a party line when these people are making money by preaching the party line. You have to teach kids to ask the tough questions, such as: who are the well-paid public sector employees who are always droning on about the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, but who also forbid any discussion of religion in the public schools? And, which priests, ministers, rabbis, imams etc., are in bed with false churches? Who is making money and handsome perquisites off of these false churches? Might there be money motives which hinder Mormons, Catholics, Lutherans etc., from comprehending some simple things? If, for instance, a Mormon says to himself: `I can make money by promoting Mormonism, but I will not make money if I reject Mormonism,' then, the Mormon will be inspired to preach Mormonism, and he will not be inspired to ask an important question: is it possible that the Mormon Church is not the True Church?

§ 2. Mormonism.

Mormonism - the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - is not like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Church of England, Lutheranism and Calvinism, because, Mormonism is not tied to centuries of cruel jurisprudence, inquisitional torments, slave trading, anti-Semitism, witch-hunting, woman-burning, nobles oppressing peasants etc. Mormonism has not perpetrated tyranny and evil for century after century. But Mormonism is tied to polygamy. Mormonism of the 21st century rejects polygamy, but Mormonism of the 19th century embraced polygamy. We have to ask a prying question: did Joseph Smith obey the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34?

If the New Law is hostile to polygamy, then Joseph Smith did not obey the New Law. And just how wonderful could a church be if its founding father was an outlaw under the New Law? If polygamy is acceptable under the New Law, then, Mormonism in the 20th and 21st centuries should not have renounced polygamy.

One has to make a determination. Is the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 hostile toward polygamy? If it is, then, Joseph Smith was an outlaw under the New Law: he was never a True Christian: the Mormon Church is not the True Church. Therefore, one would be making a mistake which leads to perdition if one followed after Joseph Smith and Mormonism.

St. Paul said even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters St. Paul's gospel. St. Paul said a bishop must be a man of one wife. This implies it is anti-Christian for bishops to have two, or three, or four wives. This also implies it is anti-Christian for a church to insist that bishops must be unmarried men. We know that some famous men mentioned in the Old Testament had more than one wife, but we are interested in the New Law not the Old Law. A bishop might reason as follows: if it is immoral for bishops to have more than one wife, then it is immoral for the men in his congregation to have more than one wife. This sort of thinking would soon lead a bishop to a specific conclusion: the New Law is hostile to polygamy.

I can't remember reading of a single Christian in the Apostolic or Early Church who was a polygamist. I've never read of polygamy in any Christian Church save the Mormon Church.

Logic and Rationality are also hostile to polygamy, because, if the Mormon Church lets a man have two wives, then it is on the slippery slope, as it will be difficult to say it is moral for a man to have two wives, but it is immoral for a man to have three wives, and then if the Mormon Church permits a man to have three wives, it will feel pressure to let another man have four wives, and if it lets one man have four wives, then it might have to permit another man to have 157 wives. Under the Old Law, King Solomon was permitted to have hundreds of wives. But, once you say polygamy is legal under the New Law, you might be led to say that a man may have hundreds of wives under the New Law.

If a man has only four wives - only four! - is this curious ménage a cinq lawful under the Divine Law? One will know the answer if one has the Divine Law written on ones heart. Is it lawful under the new covenant for five people to be wedded together in the bonds of holy matrimony?

One might read the Book of Mormon and ask: does it ring true? I've read it and it is quite coherent. You would find it very believable if that was the only book you ever read! But if you know a few things about archeology and the history of Pre-Columbian America, you would see there are problems with the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon describes a modestly advanced Pre-Columbian civilization in America. This would be very interesting except for the fact that there is not a scrap of evidence from archeology or from the Native Americans to suggest there ever was such a civilization. Some might insist that Mormons are not Christians. For instance, James R. White, in his `Answers to Catholic Claims: A Discussion of Biblical Authority', tells us, p. 159, that `Mormons are polytheists, believing in many, many gods.' But believing in many gods is not contrary to scripture, because the Bible uses the term `gods'. Recall John 10. 34 and Psalm 82. 1-6. One is a polytheist if one worships more than one God. Perhaps Rev. White meant to say that the Mormons worship more than one God, or meant to say that they worship multiple gods. I'm not aware if there are any official Mormon documents which command Mormons to worship `gods'. The doctrine of the Trinity has always given non-Christians ammunition saying that we Christians are polytheists, and indeed we have to go to some length to explain how we have 3 Divine Persons in One God. If Mormons insist they worship the Trinity alone - if they insist they don't worship any `gods' - then Mormons are Christians. Of course we are interested in the question: what is True Christianity and what are the false versions of Christianity? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints claims to be True Christianity. It's a take it or leave it proposition. Jude 1. 3 tells us the Faith was once given to the saints. Doesn't this tell us that the Faith established by Christ will not be amended over the centuries, so that True Christians must accept strange new doctrines to be True Christians: doctrines such as: the Bishop of Rome is the `Holy Father'; the Inquisition is holy, it is the `Holy Office'; you're damned in you reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility etc. In the Dark Ages popes declared that God was the sort of God who tortured the souls of little children in hellfire if they died before they could be baptized. We know that God does not torture little children. 2 Thess 1. 8 - Fire for those who do not know God. Rome says that God is the sort of God who says the Inquisition is holy. How many people did this `Holy Office' torture and burn? Rome stole the children of Jews. If a Roman Catholic priest hears the confessions of men who confess they rape women or children, what does Rome do? Rome's says it is a sacrilege for the priest to ever tell a 3rd party the secrets he hears in the confessional. This has no Biblical authority. Rome says take it or leave it. Rome says you're damned if you reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. Take it or leave it. What can you do with the Roman Catholic Church? You might try to convince Roman Catholics that the sign of the cross must be either one of two things: it must either be the seal of God which protects one from the torments dispensed by Apollyon - Revelation 9 - or it must be the mark of the beast, and if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead or right hand you will burn in hell forever - Revelation 14. One might patiently explain to Roman Catholics that a person is telling a lie if he says he is 100% certain the sign of the cross is sacred when it is obvious he is not 100% certain, when it is obvious he fears putting the mark on his forehead or right hand, because he fears doing this will cause him to burn in hell forever. The Gospel is all about being honest not about telling lies! If Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition, then you can't lose if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead, and indeed the mark of a cross might protect you from cruel tortures dispensed by this Apollyon character. But if Rome has fallen away, if the sign of the cross is the mark of the beast, then you'll wish you hadn't trusted those who say the material cross is sacred, and you'll wish you hadn't put the mark of a cross on your forehead or right hand, while you are being tortured in hell forever! The Mormons teach the doctrine that the American Indians were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. Do you think it is possible the `Book of Mormon' is a work of fiction rather than a work of non-fiction? Rev. White's book explains the Catholic attitude toward scripture. If a scripture supports Rome then Rome supports that scripture. But if a scripture contradicts Rome, then Rome has contempt for that scripture. Rome loves Matthew 16. 13-19 because that scriptures is useful to Rome. Rome doesn't like a common sense interpretation of Matthew 1. 25 because a common sense interpretation contradicts Rome's vision of the gospel. Rome insists that only Rome is authorized to interpret scripture. Luke 14. 23 - `compel them to come in' - for centuries, in Rome's determination, Luke 14. 23 meant that it is right for Rome to torture people to compel them to obey Rome. Rome insists Mary was `Ever-Virgin' whereas this is not supported by scripture; scripture is clear than a bishop may have a wife; scripture is clear you are not to call anyone father; Catholics pray to saints but scripture is clear you are not to be in communication with dead people; scripture is very opposed to mediums, to talking to the dead, such as by praying to dead `saints'. Rome wants you to bow before images of `saints'. A person must have contempt for scripture if he thinks it is right to bow before images of `saints'. This is not to say that Protestants are perfect. Protestants are supposed to believe that St. Paul received his doctrine directly from Christ, and that even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters Christ's doctrine - Galatians 1. 8-12. It is simply corrupt human traditions which lead many to rebel against St. Paul's words in I Corinithians 11. 5 - which tells us women must have their heads covered when they pray or prophesy. And it is simply corrupt Catholic tradition which leads Catholics to rebel against I Timothy 3. 2 - a bishop must be a man of one wife. It is just plain irrational to insist that St. Paul is trustworthy in most of his assertions - such as Galatians 1. 8-12 - but he is untrustworthy in I Cor 11. 5 and I Timothy 3. 2! Even if he makes a few mistakes, the logic you use is this: St. Paul leads souls to heaven and he leads no one to perdition. Therefore it is madness to ever rebel against any of Paul's teachings, because one might go to hell if one rebels against any of Paul's teachings. Peter and Paul told wives to obey their husbands but they also told husbands to love their wives, and if a husband loves his wife, and if she makes reasonable requests, then the husband has to obey his wife's reasonable request in order to love her. Rev. White's book combats Rome by preaching the line adopted by people like Jean Calvin and Martin Luther. But Calvin and Luther were stuck in the Old Law - `an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth' - they paid lip service to the New Law - love, mercy etc. - but they didn't sincerely embrace the New Law. The only sane reason for a Christian to break with Rome is the reason which says that Rome leads souls to perdition, so, obviously, get away from the Church of Rome if she leads souls to perdition. There's no sense renouncing the Roman Catholic Church if she leads souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition, though she makes a few mistakes in regards to scripture and some other things! It would be idiotic to renounce Rome because she makes a few mistakes if in fact she is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if she leads souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition. The only sane reason to break with Rome is the reason which says Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and therefore Rome leads souls to perdition, because she has fallen away from the True Faith - recall 2 thess 2 And if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, perhaps the Eastern Orthodox, the Anglicans and the Protestants have fallen away as well. Perhaps every church under the sign of the cross leads souls to perdition.

§ 3. The Protestants under the Sign of the Cross.

The evidence saying that Protestantism under the sign of the cross was never the True Faith, is similar to the evidence against Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy: Protestants supported evil doctrines and practices: burning women at the stake in the witch hunts, executing Anabaptists, supporting the African slave trade, supporting the exploitation of child labor. The rich Protestants oppressed the poor. The Protestant nobles oppressed the peasantry etc. Durant mentioned the following in `Rousseau and Revolution', p. 716,

`In 1772 two parliamentary committees investigated Indian affairs, and revealed such exactions and cruelties that Horace Walpole cried out: `We have outdone the Spaniards in Peru! We have murdered, deposed, plundered, usurped. Nay, what think you of the famine in Bengal, in which three million perished, being caused by monopoly of provisions by the servants of the East India Company.'

Calvinism burned Michael Servetus alive over a slow fire because Servetus denied the Trinity. This is enough evidence for many to say that Calvinism is not the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34. The Britannica (1963), in its article on Servetus, says that Calvin wanted him beheaded rather than burned - give Calvin credit for being more merciful than his co-religionists \- but, nevertheless, 16th century Calvinism burned Servetus alive, and thus many would insist that 16th century Calvinism simply can not be the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34, because burning people is evil, and the New Law is hostile to everything evil.

The main problems with Martin Luther, at least from the Protestant perspective, would be: 1) Luther did not obey the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 because he advocated the death penalty for the Anabaptists, and the New Law is hostile to killing people on account of their religious beliefs, 2) Historians tell us Luther advocated burning `witches', i.e. women who confessed to witchcraft only because they were tortured and forced to make confessions, 3) he sided with the cruel nobles when they crushed the poor peasants, and 4) In A History of the Jews From the Babylonian Exile to the End of World War II (The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1947, p. 427) Solomon Grazel asserts that when the Jews refused to embrace Luther's version of Christianity, he surpassed the Catholic clergy in heaping vile abuse upon Judaism and the Jews. Grayzel asserts that Luther advised the complete extermination of the Jews.

James MacKinnon in his article on Luther in the Britannica (1963) makes no mention of any call by Luther for the extermination of the Jews. But the extermination of the Anabaptists was advocated by Luther, and this anti-Christian policy was carried out by both Protestant and Roman Catholic authorities. Professor Mackinnon writes of Luther,

`Towards the Anabaptist movement, on the other hand, he adopted an attitude of uncompromising antagonism. These sectaries, who took their rise at Zurich in 1525, and rapidly spread their views from Switzerland over the Empire, continued the more radical tendency of Münzer, whose revolutionary teaching was adopted by the more extreme section and eventuated in the fantastic and fanatic attempt to establish the reign of the saints at Münster in Westphalia. The more moderate section led by Hubmaier, Hetzer, and Denck, all of them men of scholarly attainments, eschewed revolutionary violence, and advocated adult baptism as the exclusive scriptural practice, and a more literal revival of primitive Christianity as they understood it. To Luther both sections were alike obnoxious subverters of religious and social order, and he ultimately belied his own principle of freedom on conscience by supporting the persecution to which both sections were alike subjected in Protestant as well as Roman Catholic territories, and in joining Melanchthon in pronouncing for the infliction of the death penalty for persistent profession of the Anabaptist error (1536).'

The Israeli statesman Abba Eban, in his book `Heritage: Civilization and the Jews' (Simon & Schuster, 1984, pp. 198-201), gives an account of Luther's transformation from being a friend of the Jews to one of their bitter enemies. In 1523, in his pamphlet That Jesus Christ Was a Born Jew Luther excoriates the popes, bishops and monks for their cruel treatment of the Jews. Nineteen years later, in 1542, in his Against the Jews and their Lies, Luther calls for, 1) burning the synagogues of the Jews, 2) destroying their homes to make them live like gypsies or force them to live under one roof, 3) deprive them of their prayer books and Talmuds, 4) forbid rabbis to teach, and execute those rabbis who violate this decree, 5) forbid the right to travel to the Jews, 5) confiscate their valuables, forbid them to loan money, 6) make the Jews earn their livings via manual labor.

All of this Lutheran wrath certainly looks like proof that Luther corrupted the Gospel. 16th century Lutherans perpetrated hateful things the eyes of God, e.g., their nobles oppressed their peasants; their criminal law was evil in its barbarous cruelty; their witch-hunts tortured confessions out of innocent women.

In `A History of Christianity', p. 366-7, Paul Johnson tells us that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, never intended to break from the Church of England, and we're told that he was dead-set against any movement which departed from the Church of England. Yet the Methodist Church departed from the Church of England. Furthermore, we're informed that Wesley deplored the decline in witch-hunting, and we now know that witch-hunting was an evil which involved the torture of innocent women who were falsely accused of witchcraft. If one is trying to sell Methodism today, one might, in the beginning, win more converts, if one perpetrated a cover up of Wesley's more controversial positions, but, eventually, as the truth has a way of getting out, one will eventually be found guilty of perpetrating a cover-up, and one will then lose converts to Methodism if one tries to conceal John Wesley's participation in burning ladies. If one is going to sell Methodism today, one must, eventually, deal with the most controversial doctrines taught by John Wesley, and one would think that any attempt to deceive people about Wesley's most controversial doctrines would be a strategy which would eventually backfire.

If in fact Methodism is the True Church, then Methodism has nothing to hide. But if Methodism is not the True Church, then no one should be a Methodist.

A Church is either the True Church or it isn't. If it isn't the True Church, then it has fallen away from the True Faith, and Christians must assume that a church which has fallen away from the True Faith is a church which leads souls to perdition, as John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8, Revelation xiii. 7 and 2 Thess 2 would certainly incline Christians toward this conclusion.

A conspicuous problem with both the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church is that both churches accept the Seven Ecumenical Councils in defining doctrine, and that the canons of these Ecumenical Councils are infallible and irrevocable. The Seventh Ecumenical Council (II. Nicaea, 787 A. D.) authorized Christians to prostrate themselves before the images of saints, something which many Christians insist is idolatry.

Bury states in History of the Later Roman Empire (vol i. p. 12) that the Catholic emperors in Constantinople, following the example of the pagan Emperors, took the epithets `sacred' and `divine' and insisted that these be applied to themselves. Bury writes, p. 15:

`The oriental conception of divine royalty is now formally expressed in the diadem; and it affects all that pertains to the Emperor. His person is divine; all that belongs to him is "sacred." Those who come into his presence perform the act of adoration; they kneel down and kiss the purple.'

Bury states, p. 14, that the Patriarch refused to crown the Emperor Anastasius unless he signed a written oath that he would introduce no novelty into the Church.

Might there be an absurdity lurking somewhere in having Emperors who claim to be good Christians, while, at the same time, they claim to be sacred and divine? Might this absurdity also be an evil novelty?

Apropos of the falling away in II Thessalonians ii., the spectacle of Christian Emperors claiming to be sacred and divine, and demanding that their subjects adore them, and demanding these subjects prostrate themselves before them, while also promising to bring no innovations into the Christian religion, is clear proof of a falling away from the Apostolic Faith.

Because it sounds absurd to say that the United Methodist Church and only the United Methodist Church is the True Church, a clergyman earning his living as a minister for the United Methodist Church has an inducement to say, either, 1) there is no True Church, or 2) the True Church embraces conflicting creeds.

To say 1 is true is to reject Christianity. To say 2 is true is to speak nonsense. It is insane to think the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 is a Babel of conflicting creeds.

The only reason the clergyman can't see sense (sense being: there is a True Church and it's not the United Methodist church) is because he is making money off of the United Methodist Church, and he wants to keep on making money off this Church. As we saw earlier, Paul Johnson told us in `A History of Christianity' that John Wesley was a fan of the witch-hunts. And modern enlightened people know that the witch-hunts were all about mass hysteria, all about torturing innocent women and forcing them to make absurd confessions to crimes and sins they didn't commit. Again, we have the nagging question: just how wonderful could a church be if it's founding father was an outlaw under the New Law?

If a minister was to announce that the United Methodist Church and only the United Methodist Church is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, then this minister would know that he is talking nonsense. It is nonsense, not because the United Methodist Church is rather small, and it is not because it was not in existence at the time of Christ. It is nonsense because it is absurd to think that the United Methodist Church teaches the same creed that Christ taught. The United Methodist Church is Liberal, and Liberals dismiss or disobey scriptures, but then so do Conservatives. Liberals are comfortable with the pro-choice philosophy, which is anti-Christian. Therefore, to say that the United Methodist Church and only the United Methodist Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, is to speak nonsense. To say the True Church doesn't exist is to renounce Christianity. To say that the True Church and the New Law embrace conflicting creeds is absurd. What is the minister to do? Everywhere he turns he sees only nonsense or apostasy or the loss of his dearly beloved weekly paycheck from the United Methodist Church if he departs from the United Methodist Church.

If one never contradicts the New Testament, one is immediately confronted with a few issues - one actually has to obey the harder teachings of the New Testament - such as the equal sharing of the wealth. The New Testament of course says that the able-bodied must work, and that those who refuse to support their families have denied the faith. Nevertheless, scripture is clear enough: there is equal sharing of the wealth in the True Church.

Born-Again Christians are a sect within Protestantism. They are self-proclaimed saints in that they claim they are saved, because they can repeat what is written in John 1ii. 16. But there is a difference True Believer and someone who can repeat John 1ii. 16. The True Believer has a Divine Law written on his heart. If a Born-Again Christian actually obeyed the Bible, then he would have an excellent claim to be a saint. Our immigration laws in the USA oppress aliens, and these laws have great support from Born Again Christians in the USA. We've been over Malachi 3. 5. Malachi 3. 5 is of course not in the New Testament, but it is consistent with the New Testament, and hence it is part of the New Law.

The degree to which Christians may use lethal force in police and military service is something which has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It makes no sense to say the State must not employ cops with guns and bullets when these are necessary to subdue murderers, rapists, child molesters etc. It makes no sense to say that Christians must be strict pacifists, and that force must not be used to combat murderers, rapists, child molesters etc. And since violence is sanctioned to combat these criminals then it seems plausible that violence would be permitted to repulse the soldiers of invading armies, who are rather like criminals, especially if they are launching an unjust and criminal war.

Some Christians will defend many aspects of the crusades and many Christians will defend some aspects of the crusades. Islam was the initial aggressor in the war between the cross and the crescent: recall the Islamic invasion of the Christian Mideast, North Africa and Spain. Gibbon is especially eloquent in describing the valor of the Emperor Heraclius in repelling the Islamic assaults on Byzantine territory. The Dark Age Caliphs in Spain demanded that their Catholic subjects send in tribute a number of girls to serve as pleasure slaves in the Islamic harems. One will not find many modern Christians who will say that Catholics in Dark Age Spain didn't have the right to fight this Islamic abuse. And one will not find many modern Christians who will defend Richard I. He tore the eyes out of thousands of Muslim prisoners of war. The crusades are not swiftly paraphrased, but one can generalize matters by saying that, 1) the crusaders lost more than they won - Jerusalem was won and then lost, and Constantinople was lost, but Western Europe did halt the invading Islamic armies, at least to the extent that Western Europe remained Christian, and 2) no end of evil atrocities were committed by both sides.

I suspect most Protestant ministers would say that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can not be justified, even though Japan began the war with her attack on Pearl Harbor, and even though Japan was cruel in her treatment of Korean and Chinese civilians, and in her treatment of American, Filipino, British and Australian prisoners of war. It's rather obvious that incinerating thousands of women and children in huge fireballs, in either nuclear first strikes or retaliatory nuclear strikes, will always be an action which is repugnant to the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34.

The Protestant Churches of today are big business. They are they partly money-making operations which pay generous salaries and excellent benefits to the pastors. A Protestant minister knows he will drive pro-choice parishioners out of his church if he preaches a pro-life sermon. Therefore he might refuse to preach that sermon because it would be bad for business. A Protestant minister who preaches against conscription and defense spending will infuriate military men. A Protestant minister who preaches equal sharing of the wealth will certainly drive wealthy people out of his Church. A Protestant minister who says the USA's drug laws are malevolent will make enemies with those who say America's drug laws are enlightened. If one preaches a sermon which doesn't offend anyone, one is probably putting people to sleep. And if one preaches a sermon which does not put people to sleep, then one is probably deeply offending someone. If a Conservative minister says Liberals are unjust - because Liberals impose high taxes on Christians to pay for the public schools - but these schools are forbidden to teach Christianity, which Christian parents want taught to their children, and because the Liberals refuse to support vouchers - then, that Conservative minister will watch the Liberals in his Church run for the exists. If a Liberal minister says the USA must open her borders to all foreigners, because Malachi 3. 5 says what it says, then, Conservatives in his congregation will run for the doors. A pro-life minister will drive pro-choicers out of his congregation, and vice versa.

Protestantism proclaims the Christian Bible to be our supreme religious authority here on earth. Jesus taught via parables, and II Timothy 3. 16 doesn't say that all scripture must be interpreted literally. One might first assume that a literal interpretation of a scripture is sound, provided the context of the scripture does not make it clear that figurative language is being used. St. Paul tells us in Galatians i. 11-12 that he received his doctrines via a revelation from Christ. That needs to be taken literally. St. Paul tells us in Galatians 1. 8 that even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters these doctrines. That needs to be taken literally and those who respect Galatians 1. 8 will conform to St. Paul's teaching.

Eusebius, in History of the Church, III. 30, quoting Clement of Alexandria, says Peter and Philip were married men, with families, and Paul was probably married. Clement describes the touching scene of Peter comforting his wife when she is being led away to her death. The reader will recall that in Roman Catholic doctrine Peter is said to be the first Bishop of Rome.

St. Paul tells us in I Timothy 4. 1-3,

`Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils...forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats...'

When Protestants read 1 Timothy 4. 1-3, the Roman Catholic Church swiftly comes to mind, for the Roman Catholic Church and the Inquisition formerly tortured and burned those who ate meat during Lent; the Roman Catholic Church formerly forbade the laity to read Bibles on pain of death and torments; the Roman Catholic Church still forbids her priests and bishops to marry, when St. Paul clearly made celibacy optional; the Roman Catholic Church says Protestants are heretics, because, Rome says Rome has never fallen away from the True Faith.

If we can assume that men with the love of wives and children are generally, though not in all cases, more stable and well-balanced than are men who lack the love of wives and children, then terrible consequences might result because of the Roman Catholic refusal to abide by St. Paul's teaching that celibacy is optional and not mandatory. In the first 1000 years of Christendom, when the Catholic priests had wives, there was a great deal of bloodshed from the 2nd Estate - from the emperor and the nobles - but much less from the 1st Estate - the bishops and priests. The evils of the Inquisition and the witch-hunts were creatures born after Gregory VII. and Urban II. had strictly imposed celibacy on Roman Catholic priests.

Protestant Fundamentalism might appear to exist only in theory, for few Fundamentalists practice the communal sharing of goods, as described in Acts 2: 44-47

In Mark 10: 25 we read it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, but this causes no great anxiety among rich Christians.

Few indeed will admonish, apropos of I Cor 11, the next hatless female or mitred male they see praying in Church. Jesus said oaths are from the devil, but many Christians still take oaths. The Quakers however refuse to take them.

One might attempt to abide by 1 Corinthians 5. 11 - good Christians must ostracize sinful Christians - and one might be ostracized for making the attempt. St. Paul instructed the elect to give a polite warning to Christians who had descended into sexual immorality, drunkenness, covetousness etc. If the sinful Christian didn't repent after being gently reminded of the need to lead a good Christian life, he was to be excommunicated and shunned until he repented. Today we find Christian prostitutes, Christian abortionists, Christian adulterers, Christian drunkards, Christian blasphemers, Christian thieves etc. Modern Christians are very reluctant to rebuke or shun other Christians. This is due in part to the impulse to avoid hypocrisy, i. e., as everyone is a sinner, then, if sinner A shuns sinner B, then A is a hypocrite. No one objects too vociferously if sinner A shuns violent criminal B, but A will be seen as a fool or a fanatic if he shuns someone, who, in the eyes of society, is seen as a more or less ordinary person. There are also economic inducements which lead one to evade St. Paul's theology. If Christian A and Christian B work for the same Corporation, then, if A is not living the way a good Christian is supposed to be living, B is to gently rebuke A, and, then, if A fails to repent, B is to shun A. But the Corporation will see B as a troublemaker and will fire him if he makes a practice of rebuking and shunning other employees.

James 4. 4 says that worldliness, as signalized by the sin of adultery, is enmity toward God. If a man is a good man in most respects, save for his incorrigible womanizing, are we to say he must be excommunicated? Recall the biography of Chateaubriand: reared in a medieval castle; voyaged to America after our Revolution; slept and danced with the Indians by Niagara Falls; returned to France during their Revolution; got married; wrote a romantic history of Christianity; became famous and mingled in the highest circles; had numerous love affairs, such as with Mme Récamier; was elected to the French Academy; was elevated to the office of ambassador to Germany and then to England etc. Must a human being be excommunicated if he can't remain faithful to his wife, even if he feels he will go insane if he tries to remain faithful to his wife? Scripture delegates the responsibility of deciding issues such as these to bishops, sober men having one wife. But what else can a bishop do besides banish the adulterer from Holy Communion? Things would swiftly degenerate into a farce in the True Church if the True Church didn't excommunicate adulterers, and we know what Malachi 3. 5 says about adulterers.

In the 4th century the Catholic Emperor Theodosius ordered the massacre of 7,000 people in Thessalonica. He attempted to retract this order but this second order didn't arrive in time to stop the massacre. Ambrose, the archbishop of Milan, courageously refused to permit Theodosius to partake of the Eucharist until he had submitted to penance. We occasionally hear of a Roman Catholic Bishop threatening pro-choice Roman Catholic politicians with being forbidden to celebrate mass, but that's about the only time we hear of a bishop putting his foot down and forbidding someone to receive the Eucharist.

The Episcopalians in the USA, at a Council known as Minneapolis I., in 1976, permitted women to be Bishops in the Episcopalian Church. Michelet, in The Bible of Humanity, tells us that as late as 369 A.D. women were consecrated priests in the Eastern or Greek regions of the Catholic world. Dr. Lea reminds us in History of Sacerdotal Celibacy that St. Paul mentioned that Phoebe was a deacon of the Church at Cenchrea, and that the Apostolic Constitutions contain a regular formula for the ordination of women, and that it wasn't until 352 at the Council of Laodicea that women were forbidden to serve as priests or preside over churches. So there is some evidence saying Minneapolis I. is consistent with the teachings of the Apostolic Church.

In 2009, again in Minneapolis, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America decided to permit practicing gays and practicing lesbians to be Pastors in the ELCA.

Various Christians insist that God makes various Divine Laws for human beings, Laws which, though they might seem unreasonable to some people, must nevertheless be obeyed. Everyone recalls the unfortunate incident in the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were permitted to dine on every fruit save one, and we know what happened when that Divine Law was broken.

At a second Episcopalian Council, Minneapolis II., in 2003, the Episcopalians voted to allow practicing homosexuals to become Bishops. Evidently the Episcopalians argued that the Holy Spirit wants practicing homosexuals to be Bishops, and, no doubt, there are Episcopalians who will insist that you are a hater and a bigot if you follow after the `deluded' St. Paul, or if you contend that the Holy Spirit does not want some practicing homosexuals to be Bishops.

One also has to admit it is unreasonable to expect Bishops or anyone else to be sinless, which means we must draw a line between sins we can tolerate and sins we can't tolerate \- that is in regards to who can partake of the Eucharist, and who can be elevated to the office of Bishop. If a Bishop admits he has recently yielded to some covetous temptations, must he be thrown down from his Episcopal thrown? No, but if he...

John Buchan wrote a novel called `Witchwood'. It concerns a 17th century Scottish minister who had to fight a war on two fronts. On the one hand he had to deal with the warlocks and the witches in his congregation. These people were also the `respected church elders' and the `pious church ladies' who were so convinced of their salvation, so convinced that they were numbered among the elect, that they thought no harm, eternal-damnation-wise, could result from indulging in pagan revels - worshipping pagan gods, impregnating females in orgies, dancing round pagan altars at midnight on Midsummer's Eve etc., because, after all, no ones perfect, and, didn't even luminaries such as King David and King Solomon descend into sin now and then? And yet, certainly, the salvation of those fallible kings of Israel is assured. Therefore, it stands to reason, God doesn't mind if a Christian has a little pagan fun now and then. On the other front the minister had to fight against the clergymen in his own church. These people were fond of quoting the Old Testament to justify war and slaughter. It's as if they had no conception that the New Covenant might be different than the Old Covenant.

Minneapolis II., in its curious embrace of the practice of allowing practicing homosexuals to become Bishops in the Episcopalian Church, has given us a choice. The Episcopalians have given us a take it or leave it proposition. If one believes that a Church which elevates practicing homosexuals and makes them Bishops is the True Church, and if one believes it is ones best bet in striving to attain heaven and elude damnation, then one will wager ones eternal soul on that Church. That wager will either pay off or it will go bust. Either way, it might be awkward and difficult for practicing homosexual Bishops to forbid practicing adulterers and practicing pornographers and practicing blasphemers and practicing devil-worshippers to receive the Eucharist. St. Paul states in I Corinthians 11. 27,

`Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.'

St. Paul writes Romans 8. 38-9,

`For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

The supreme formula that we have for blessing someone is from Numbers 6. 24-27,

`The LORD bless you and keep you;

The LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you;

The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.'

Chapter 5 - The Pontifical Monarchy: The World's Oldest Monarchy

§ 1. The Basic Teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. § 2. Catholics and Anti-Catholics. § 3. Some of Rome's Most Controversial Doctrines. § 4. Do Roman Catholics Teach Religion with the Authority of God? § 5. Juan de Capistrano, Carlo Borromeo and Pius V. § 6. Apparitions. § 7. The Third Secret of Fatima. § 8. The Confusion of Professor Brown and Cardinal Baum. § 9. Professing the Credenda. § 10. Milman, Lea and Symonds. § 11. De Rosa, Gibbon and Galileo. § 12. The Tridentine Profession of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church. § 13. The Supreme Architect of the Pontifical Monarchy: Pope St. Gregory VII.

§ 1. The Basic Teachings of the Roman Catholic Church

In the Forward to Richard P. McBrien's Catholicism, Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, tells us he is astonished at the number of theologically illiterate Catholic freshmen who descend upon Notre Dame every year.

The Church of Rome is very easy to understand. Rome claims to be the True Church, the Church which Christ has founded upon a rock. She claims she leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell. Rome claims that she correctly teaches the True Faith, also known as the New Law and the Divine Law, also know as the New Covenant and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Rome claims that, if you have the Divine Law written on your heart, then, you have Rome's official doctrines written on your heart, including Rome's most controversial official doctrines. Rome claims to know God and she claims she obeys the gospel of Jesus Christ. We recall from previous chapters that St. Paul states in 2 Thess 1. 7-9,

`And to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.'

We've been all through John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Matthew 16. 13-19, Ephesians 4. 4, 2 Thess 2 etc., etc. We know that if one rejects those scriptures one rejects the doctrine that there is a True Church and a True Faith. We know it is anti-Christian to reject those scriptures. We now it is anti-Christian to reject the doctrine there is a True Church and a True Faith. We've been over the logic that the spiritual cross of Christ mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 is sacred, and therefore we have some interesting possibilities. The spiritual cross of Christ is sacred - and - Case 1. The sign of the cross and the material cross are also sacred. If the sign of the cross is sacred then perhaps it is the seal of God which protects on from the torments dispensed by Apollyon - recall Revelation 9. Case 2. But if the sign of the cross and material cross are evil, if the reflect the evil that people under the sign of the cross have perpetrated for century after century, then perhaps the cross is the mark of the beast - and recall that Revelation 14 says that those who have the mark of the beast on their foreheads will burn in hell forever.

The Church of Rome declares that she is the True Church, all others are of Satan. If this is true then you know there can be no danger if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead or right hand. But if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then Rome is untrustworthy on the sign of the cross, and therefore one would have to hesitate before putting the mark of a cross on ones forehead or right hand.

So, we're trying to decide if the cross is sacred or evil, and we're trying to decide if the Church of Rome has fallen away - recall 2 Thess 2. Does the Church of Rome lead souls to heaven or does she lead them to perdition?

Consider Pope John XII of the 10th century. Gibbon writes,

`The most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign may have suggested to darker ages the fable of a female pope. The...son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen that the second of these became the head of the Latin Church. His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otto the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read, with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.'

It is only in the French language that Christ's pun on Peter's name is exact. In L'évangile selon Saint Matthieu xvi. 18 - Le Neuveau Testament (Montreal, 3rd edition, 1966) we're informed,

« Et moi, je te declare: Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre, je bâtirai mon Eglise, et les portes de l'enfer ne prévaudront pas contre elle. »

`And me, I declared to you: You are Rock, and on this rock, I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.'

In his commentary on the text of Matthew 16: 18, S. E. Mgr Charles-Omer Garant, Auxiliary Bishop of Quebec, tells us that whenever one wishes to find the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, one need only look to the Bishop of Rome, to the Pope, for wherever the Pope is, there also is God's True Church. Bishop Garant writes that Satan and his evil angels can never overthrow the Church of Rome. These assertions might be considered the most fundamental teachings of the Church of Rome. It is official Roman Catholic doctrine that all the true Christians must venerate St. Pius V. Christopher Hare (pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Andrews) wrote in her `Men and Women of the Italian Reformation' (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York):

"On January 7, 1566, Michele Ghislieri, the fanatical Inquisitor, was elected Pope, under the title of Pius V, and from that moment every distinguished Italian who held reformed views was in peril of his life...Carnesecchi was taken a captive to Rome and lodged in the prison of the Holy Office...the rack was freely employed...Through fifteen long months of imprisonment and frequent torture, these awful examinations continued, until at length, on August 16, 1567, sentence was delivered by the tribunal of the Inquisition...Carnesecchi was borne to the Ponte St. Angelo, amidst the execrations and curses of the fanatical rabble which crowded round him, but he continued his courage and composure to the last. They clothed him in a "sanbenito," the garment of heresy, painted over with flames and devils...He was first beheaded, then burnt in the flames of the Inquisition...by means of spies and the seizing of all private letters and papers, the Inquisition had already the most intimate knowledge of all that Carnesecchi and his friends had ever said or written...It is true that the case of Giulia Gonzaga was already pre-doomed, for on the accession of Pius V (Michele Ghislieri) in 1566 he had come into possession of a chest containing a great number of letters to Carnesecchi and others. On reading these papers, the Pope had declared that "if he had seen these before her death, he would have taken good care to burn her alive."'

The Catholic Church is not interested in any debates pertaining to St. Pius V. As with all canonized persons, the Catholic Church considers these matters to be closed. The Catholic Church teaches, a) St. Pius V. practiced heroic virtue, b) the faithful are to venerate him and pray to him, c) it is blasphemy to speak against him or any other canonized person, n.b., Paragraph 2148, Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition, 2000, Imprimi Potest, Libreria Editrice Vaticana).

It's the same old refrain. If Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, then obey Rome. But if Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to perdition, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then get out of the Church of Rome. Rome does not make the explicit claim that the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is the true ruler of the World, but - examine the logic for yourself - if Rome is the True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven, if Rome does not lead anyone to hell, then, it is would be idiotic and evil to ever rebel against Rome. If it is idiotic and evil to ever rebel against the Church of Rome, then the Pope is the true ruler of the world, right?

Millions of Protestants accept John 14. 23-26 and Matthew 16. 13-19, but a big problem confronting the Protestant sects is that is difficult to take these sects seriously. It sounds ludicrous to say the ELCA - the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America - and only the ELCA is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. It sounds insane to say that only the Congregationalists are in God's True Church, all others are lost sheep. If the Congregationalists insist that God's True Church is a Church consisting of people of good will who embrace many creeds, then they are forgetting that the saints in the True Church have the Divine Law written on their hearts, and this Divine Law is not a medley of conflicting creeds. In Chapter 1 we examined this Divine Law, beginning with Christ's words at the Last Supper concerning a new covenant, with the upshot being that it makes no sense to say the Divine Law is a medley of conflicting creeds. The Protestants have grown accustomed to trampling on the scriptures which say there is one True Church. Protestants pronounce the clause in the Apostles' Creed which mentions a holy catholic Church, and then they proceed to divide and subdivide themselves into sects and sub-sects with conflicting creeds. It's madness of course, but the Protestant minister in his little sect likes his paycheck, so he's in no mood to admit that it is madness to think his little sect is the church which Christ founded on a rock, but he might be in the mood to reject both John 14. 23-26 and Matthew 16. 13-19. In the eyes of ardent Roman Catholics, the mainline modern Protestants sects must seem to owe their existence to the fact that millions of deluded Protestants want to keep up an air of piety on Sundays. Everyone knows the mainline Protestant churches are Liberal Business Concerns. Everyone knows a pro-life Protestant clergyman will drive people out of his mainline Protestant church on Sundays, and big cash flow problems will result, if he insists on preaching those pro-life sermons, therefore he doesn't preach those pro-life sermons. Money triumphs over truth.

It is not clear what is the strongest argument in favor of Roman Catholicism. There are millions of people in the world who believe it is perfectly sensible to say that Rome and only Rome is the True Church. Compare this to the way the world looks at the United Methodist Church. It is not conclusive proof against the United Methodist Church, but, nevertheless, it is certainly some sort of evidence against the United Methodist Church, when 99.99% of the world's population believes it is patently absurd to say that the United Methodist Church and only the United Methodist Church is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock.

Why do people succumb to false churches? Some have money motives which cloud their judgment and lead them astray. The world is something of an economic jungle. If a clergyman is receiving a pay check from Church X, when it is perfectly obvious that Church X is not the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, then, nevertheless, the clergyman will hesitate to renounce Church X, because this would mean renouncing his pay check: it means having to enter the economic jungle, where one might attempt to sell cars, or try to sell impossible-to-sell condos in order to survive in the economic jungle.

Perhaps the strongest argument saying the Roman Catholic Church is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock runs as follows: 1) The Church of Rome claims she is guided by the Holy Spirit. 2) It is easy to prove that the Roman Catholic Church has perpetrated evil for centuries. 3) It is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to say the Holy Spirit guides a church which perpetrates evil. 3) Rome blasphemes the Holy Spirit, therefore Rome can't be the Church which Christ founded on a rock, because the True Church doesn't blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

As stated in Chapter 1, one doesn't want to crush anyones hopes for heaven by convincing them they have committed an unforgiveable sin in blaspheming the Holy Spirit, when they have not quite committed an unforgiveable sin, though they are perilously close to doing so. But, nevertheless, one must explain to people why one must not say or imply the Holy Spirit guides churches which perpetrate evil for century after century. And it is very easy to present evidence which proves the Roman Catholic Church has perpetrated evil for century after century. Voltaire hated the Roman Catholic Church because Rome gave her blessing to laws which inflicted all sorts of cruel torments on people. He wasn't living in a fantasy world, he didn't dream up evils which didn't exist.

§ 2. Catholics and Anti-Catholics

We might look at an extract from the Roman Catholic perspective. The following is from a work bearing the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimi Potest, the signs and seals of Catholic orthodoxy. We read in Rev. James MacCaffrey's `History of the Catholic Church' (M. H. Gill and Son Ltd., Dublin, 1915):

"The Catholic Church, indeed, had never been hostile to classical studies, nor unmindful of their value, as a means of developing the powers of the human mind, and of securing both breadth of view and beauty of expression...The Scholastics, more anxious about the logical sequence of their arguments than about the beauties of literary expression, invented for themselves a new dialect, which, however forcible in itself, must have sounded barbarous to any one acquainted with the productions of the golden age of Roman literature or even with the writings of the early Fathers of the Latin Church. Nor was it the language merely that was neglected. The monuments and memorials of an earlier civilization were disregarded, and even in Rome itself, the City of the Popes, the vandalism of the ignorant wrought dreadful havoc. So complete a turning away from forces that had played such a part in the civilisation of the world was certain to provoke a reaction. Scholasticism could not hold the field for ever to the exclusion of other branches of study, especially, since in the less competent hands of its later expounders it had degenerated into an empty formalism. The successors of St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure had little of their originality, their almost universal knowledge, and their powers of exposition, and, as a result, students grew tired of the endless wranglings of the schools, and turned their attention to other intellectual pursuits...Philosophy and theology were no longer to occupy the entire intellectual field, and other subjects for investigation must be found...Again, the example set by the tyrants who had grasped the reins of power in the Italian States, by men like Agnello of Pisa, the Viscontis and Francesco Sforza of Milan, Ferrante of Naples, and the de' Medici of Florence, was calculated to lower the moral standard of the period, and to promote an abandonment of Christian principles of truth, and justice, and purity of life. Everywhere men became more addicted to the pursuit of sensual pleasure, of vain glory, and material comfort; and could ill brook the dominant ideas of the Middle Ages concerning the supernatural end of man, self-denial, humility, patience, and contempt for the things that minister only to man's temporal happiness. With views of this kind in the air it was not difficult to persuade them to turn to the great literary masterpieces of Pagan Rome, where they were likely to find principles and ideals more in harmony with their tastes than those set before them by the Catholic Church...In the conclave that followed Cardinal Pietro Caraffa, the first general and in a certain sense the founder of the Theatines, received the required majority of votes...He was proclaimed Pope under the title of Paul IV. (1555-59). During his life as an ecclesiastic the new Pope had been remarkable for his rigid views, his ascetic life, and his adherence to Scholastic as opposed to Humanist views. As nuncio in Spain he had acquired a complete distrust of the Spanish rulers...he put himself into communication with the Italian opponents of Philip II. of Spain, and concluded an alliance with France. The French army despatched to Naples under the leadership of the Duke of Guise was out-manoeuvered completely by the Spanish viceroy, the Duke of Alva, who followed up his success by invading the Papal States and compelling the

Pope to sue for peace (1556). The unfriendly relations existing between Paul IV. and Philip II. of Spain, the husband of Queen Mary I., rendered difficult the work of effecting a complete reconciliation between England and the Holy See...But of his own initiative Paul IV. took strong measures to reform the Roman Curia...stamped out by vigorous action heretical opinions that began to manifest themselves in Italy, and presided frequently himself at meetings of the Inquisition. He even went so far as to arrest Cardinal Morone on a suspicion of heresy, and to summon Cardinal Pole to appear before the tribunal of the Inquisition. By the Romans he had been beloved at first on account of his economic administration whereby the taxes were reduced considerably, but the disastrous results of the war against Philip II. in Naples effaced the memory of the benefits he had conferred, and he died detested by the people. After his death the city was at the mercy of the mob, who plundered and robbed wholesale for close on a fortnight before order could be restored...He was proclaimed under title of Pius IV. (1559-65). The new Pope had nothing of the stern morose temperament of his predecessor. He was of a mild disposition, something of a scholar himself, inclined to act as a patron towards literature and art...A profession of faith based on the decrees of the Council of Trent and the previous councils was drawn up by Pius IV. (13 Nov. 1564), and its recitation made obligatory on those who were appointed to ecclesiastical benefices or who received an academic degree as well as on converts from Protestantism. The Catechism of the Council of Trent ( _Catechismus Romanus_ ) was prepared at the command of Pius V. and published in 1566. It is a valuable work of instruction, approved by the highest authority in the Church, and should be in the hands of all those who have care of souls...The Council of Trent had accomplished the work for which it was called. Though it failed to extinguish the rising flames of heresy or to restore peace to the Christian world, it had swept away most of the glaring abuses that had proved the main source of Luther's success, and rendered impossible for the future any misunderstanding about the doctrines that had been called into question...But if the labours of the Fathers of Trent were to be productive of the good results that might be anticipated, earnest, religious, energetic Popes were required to give a lead to their spiritual children, whose courage had been damped by over thirty years of almost uninterrupted defeats, to put into force the valuable reforms that had been planned with such minute care, and above all to make the court and city of Rome an example for the princes and people of the world. Here, again, the providence of God watching over His Church was manifested in a striking manner. Pius IV. deserves to be remembered with gratitude by all future generations for the part that he took in bringing to a successful conclusion the Council of Trent in face of almost insuperable difficulties, for having taken such energetic and withal such prudent action to secure the acceptance of its decrees and their reduction into practice, and for having given to Rome and to the Catholic Church so gifted, so saintly, and so disinterested an ecclesiastic as his nephew, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan, St. Charles Borromeo. On the death of Pius IV. the conclave, mainly through the exertions of Cardinal Borromeo, elected Cardinal Ghisleri, who took the title of Pius V. (1566-72) in memory of his predecessor. In his youth the future Pope joined the Order of St. Dominic, and for years had acted as professor of theology, master of novices, and prior. He was noted specially for his simplicity and holiness of life, a holiness which it may be remarked had nothing in common with the morose rigour of Paul IV., for his humility, his love of silence and meditation, and for his kindness towards the poor and the suffering. As a man of good education and of conservative tendencies he was summoned to assist Cardinal Caraffa, then president of the Holy Office, and when the latter became Pope he was created cardinal and appointed Grand Inquisitor. After his election Pius V. followed still the strict life of fasting and prayer to which he had been accustomed as a Dominican friar. He did not seek to create positions, or to carve out estates from the papal territories for his relatives. Anxious to promote the temporal as well as the spiritual welfare of the people in his temporal dominions he took steps to see that justice was meted out to the poor and the rich, banished women of loose character from the streets, put an end to degrading amusements, enforced the observance of the Sunday, and, backed by St. Charles Borromeo and the princes of Italy, he changed the whole face of the capital and the country. Rome was no longer the half-pagan city of the days of Leo X., nor yet did it partake of the savage rigour of Geneva...Clement VIII...It was also during his reign that the infamous ex-monk Giodano Bruno was condemned by the Inquisition, handed over to the secular power, and burned at the stake (17th Feb. 1600). In his youth Giordano joined the Dominicans, from which order he fled because definite charges of heresy, the truth of which he could not deny, were brought against him. Later on he was excommunicated by the Calvinists of Geneva and the Lutherans of Germany, and refused permission to lecture by the professors of Oxford when he visited that seat of learning. Many of his writings are strongly anti-Christian, and some of them thoroughly indecent. He was condemned to die solely on account of his denial of the Divinity of Christ and other heretical views and not, as is said by some, because he defended the Copernican system...In 1615 Galileo appeared before the Inquisition to defend his views, but without any result. The heliocentric system was condemned as being opposed to Scripture and therefore heretical, and Galileo was obliged to promise never again to put it forward (1616). The work of Copernicus and those of some other writers who advocated the Copernican system were condemned _donec corrigantur_. The decision of the congregation was wrong, but in the circumstances not unintelligible. Nor can it be contended for a moment that from this mistake any solid argument can be drawn against the infallibility of the pope. Paul V. was undoubtedly present at the session in which the condemnation was agreed upon and approved of the verdict, but still the decision remained only the decision of a congregation and not the binding _ex cathedra_ pronouncement of the Head of the Church. Indeed, it appears from a letter of Cardinal Bellarmine that the congregation regarded its teaching as only provisional, and that if it were proven beyond doubt that the sun was stationary it would be necessary to admit that the passages of Scripture urged against this view had been misunderstood. Galileo left Rome with no intention of observing the promise he had made...After the election of Urban VIII. who, as Cardinal Barberini, had been his faithful friend and supporter, Gallileo returned to Rome...He returned to Florence, where he published eight years later a new book on the subject...He was summoned to appear once more before the Inquisition, and arrived in Rome in February 1633...It is not true to say that Galileo was shut up in the dungeons of the Inquisition...Neither is it correct to state that he was tortured or subjected to any bodily punishment...he was allowed to return to Florence...Most of his misfortunes were due to his own rashness and the imprudence of his friends and supporters...In England Deism and Naturalism secured a strong foot-hold amongst the better classes, but the deep religious temperament of the English people and their strong conservatism saved the nation from falling under the influence of such ideas. In France the religious wars between the Catholics and Calvinists, the controversies that were waged by the Jansenists and Gallicans, the extravagances of the _Convulsionnaires_ , the flagrant immorality of the court during the rule of the Duke of Orlean and of Louis XV., and the enslavement of the Church, leading as it did to a decline of zeal and learning amongst the higher clergy, tended inevitably to foster religious indifference amongst the masses. In the higher circles of society Rationalism was looked upon as a sign of good breeding, while those who held fast by their dogmatic beliefs were regarded as vulgar and unprogressive. Leading society ladies such as Ninon de Lenclos (1615-1706) gathered around them groups of learned admirers, who under the guise of zeal for the triumph of literary and artistic ideals sought to popularise everything that was obscene and irreligious...Amongst some of the principal writers who contributed largely to the success of the anti-Christian campaign in France might be mentioned Peter Bayle (1647-1706), whose _Dictionnaire historique et critique_ became the leading source of information for those who were in search of arguments against Christianity; John Baptist Rousseau (1671-1741), whose life was in complete harmony with the filthiness to which he gave expression in his works; Bernard le Bouvier de Fontenelle...who though never an open enemy of the Catholic Church contributed not a little by his works to prepare the way for the men of the Encyclopedia; Montesquieu (1689-1755), whose satirical books on both Church and State were read with pleasure not only in France but in nearly every country of Europe; D'Alembert (1717-83) and Diderot (1713-84), the two men mainly responsible for the _Encyclopaedie_ ; Helvetius (1715-1771), and the Baron d'Holbach, who sought to popularise irreligious views then current amongst the nobility by spreading the rationalist literature throughout the mass of the poorer classes in Paris. But the two writers whose works did most to undermine revealed religion in France were...Voltaire (1694-1778), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The former of these was born at Paris, received his early education from the Jesuits, and was introduced while still a youth to the salon of Ninon de Lenclos, frequented at this time by the principle literary opponents of religion and morality. His earliest excursions into literature marked him out immediately as a dangerous adversary of the Christian religion. He journeyed in England where he was in close touch with the Deist school of thought, in Germany where he was a welcome guest at the court of Frederick II. of Prussia, and settled finally at Ferney in Switzerland close to the French frontiers. Towards the end of his life (1778) he returned to Paris where he received a popular ovation. Poets, philosophers, actresses, and academicians vied with one another in doing honour to the man who had vowed to crush _L'Infame_ , as he termed Christianity, and whose writings had done so much to accomplish that result in the land of his birth. The reception given to Voltaire in Paris affords the most striking proof of the religious and moral corruption of all classes in France at this period.'

§ 3. Some of Rome's Most Controversial Doctrines.

In `Catholicism', edited by George Brantl, 1962, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur (pp. 166-8, George Braziller) we find the words of John Cardinal Newman. He informs us that the true Christian must profess the credenda, that is, every priest and layman must profess as revealed truth all the canons of the Councils and the innumerable decisions of the popes. The reasoning behind professing the credenda is that if one believes that the Roman Catholic Church is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, and if one believes that the popes are the Vicars of Christ, if one believes the authority of the Roman Catholic Church is from God, then, one will profess the truth of all the official decrees of the Church of Rome. That makes perfect sense if Rome is the True Church. And it makes no sense at all if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith.

The non-Christian maintains that the Christian scriptures can not bring enlightenment, as evidenced by the fact that Christendom was a dark and savage civilization for centuries under the sign of the cross. It's true that the humanitarian principles of modern jurisprudence owe much more to non-Christians such as Voltaire, Diderot, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin etc., than to any modern or medieval Christian. Very few people in medieval Christendom knew or read the Bible, and for centuries, on pain of death and inquisitional torments, the Roman Catholic Church forbade the laity to read the Bible. St. Thomas More approved the burning of William Tyndale for translating the Bible into English. To this day Rome honors More as the saint and holds Tyndale to be the heretic. For centuries the papacy taught the doctrine that the Jewish race was forever accursed. Anyone can inspect Romans 11. 1-29, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21, Ezekiel 36. 24-28, Zechariah 12. 10, Daniel 12. 1 and see these scriptures clearly show that the Jews will eventually be reconciled with God: the Jews are not forever accursed. For a few centuries, Rome taught the doctrine that God was the sort of God who tortured in eternal hell any infants who were unfortunate enough to die in their infancy before they had been baptized. And yet, Rome, today, insists that Rome has always known the True God. The African slave trade in the New World was initiated by Christians who were ignorant of the Bible and it was terminated by Christians were better versed in their Bibles. St. Paul said a bishop must be a man of one wife. The Roman Catholic Church, for nearly a thousand years now, has rigorously enforced its law saying its priests and bishops will have no wives. To run through the logic once again: if, in most instances, if not in every particular instance, married priests are more emotionally stable than are priests who have been ordered to live without the love of wives, then serious consequences might arise from this pope-imposed, wife-rejecting, children-rejecting state of affairs. The Inquisitions, the African slave trade, and the witch-hunts all transpired after Gregory VII. and Urban II. strictly imposed celibacy on the clergy in the eleventh century. During the first millennium of Christendom, when priests were permitted to marry, we had some savagery from priests, but at least the priests weren't burning laymen for reading the Bible. There was much savagery from the Second and Third Estates of course during the first millennium. During Christendom's second millennium we see a revolution: the priests became crueler, more fanatical. Consider some popes during those centuries when Rome forbade priests to have wives and children. Again, Innocent III. launched crusades against Cathars in the south of France and against the Lithuanian peasants. Gregory IX. created the Papal Inquisition. John XXII. had a bishop flayed alive. Urban VI. had cardinals tortured. Sixtus IV. blessed the Spanish Inquisition. Paul III. re-introduced the Roman Inquisition. Popes Martin V. and Nicholas V. sanctioned the African slave trade. Innocent VIII. wrote the inspiration for the persecuting forces during the witch-craze, the hottest fires of which burned for 150 years.

We might take it for granted that the strongest argument in favor of Rome is an argument which boldly defends all of Rome's official doctrines, even her most controversial doctrines. The most controversial doctrines in Roman Catholicism are also those doctrines which tend to inspire Catholics to rebel against the Roman Catholic Church. One rebels against something for various reasons - there are the emotional, hot-blooded reasons, and there are the cool-headed, coldly calculated and logical reasons. Many Roman Catholics renounced Rome because of the recent clerical sexual abuse scandal. Yet if eleven out of every twelve Roman Catholic Bishops is a true successor of the apostles, and if one out of every twelve is a Judas, then it wouldn't make any sense to renounce Roman Catholicism simply because one had dealings with a Judas.

We reviewed the issue in Chapter 1, but it's OK to review things. With ebooks there's no huge pressure to keep your book thin. It's not as if any forests have to be cut down to make paper if you add a few extra pages to your ebook. The child abuse scandal which hit Roman Catholicism might not seem a Constitutional issue, because the Roman Catholic Church asserts that molesting children is a crime against both Divine and human law. Crimes were perpetrated and connived at by priests and bishops, but the criminals were rogue elements within the Church of Rome, they were not acting according to any official teaching of Rome.

Consider the sacrament of penance. The child / sex abuse scandal which hit Rome is a Constitutional issue, because, in Roman Catholicism, it is a sacrilege, a mortal sin, to violate the secrecy of the confessional, and, therefore, should a priest in the confessional learn that a sinner has confessed to being a child molester, the priest is forbidden to tell the parents of the victim, and forbidden to tell the police. If a priest learns that someone hurts little children, and if the priest is forbidden to tell the parents of the victim, and if he is forbidden to go to the police, then, he must have some means to keep the perpetrator under surveillance to make sure he doesn't hurt any more children. And this is rather difficult for one priest to do all by himself. But Rome is quite clear: There are no exceptions - the secrets told in the confessional must be kept secret.

Non-Catholics maintain that the entire Roman Catholic sacrament of penance is something which Christ and the apostles never instituted: it is a human innovation. Protestants maintain it is not part of Divine Law. To insist it is part of the New Law mentioned in Jeremiah xxx. 31-34, to insist that True Christians must, in some instances, shield the identities of murderers and rapists from the police and from parents and from everyone else, is only more proof that Rome has fallen away from the True Faith.

Paragraph 2490 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church,

`The secret of the sacrament of reconciliation is sacred, and cannot be violated under any pretext. "The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore, it is a crime for a confessor in any way to betray a penitent by word or in any other manner or for any reason.'

There are some advantages to such a confessional system, but only if predators are kept under strict surveillance. That is, 1) dangerous predators might, in fleeting moments of remorse or carelessness, confess their crimes to clergymen who they know will never betray them to the police, 2) the same predators would never have confessed to the police, though they will confess to a priest, because, the consequences for confessing to the police are too dire: prison, financial ruin, public humiliation, beatings in prison at the hands of prisoners who hate child molesters etc., etc. But everything falls to pieces if surveillance is not maintained on the predator after he has made it known in the confessional that he is dangerous. Again, the non-Catholic says that Paragraph 2490 is not part of God's New Law, and says those who conceal the identity of people who abuse children must, at the very least, take steps to watch these predators to make sure they don't hurt any more kids. And how is a priest supposed to watch one or two or ten molesters 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, unless he gets some help? One shouldn't be surprised if parents renounce the Roman Catholic Church if they learn a degenerate was molesting their child, and a priest knew this, but, he never told them or the police or anyone, because, Rome forbids the priest to tell anyone.

Rome teaches a very controversial doctrine when she says that no matter how murderous a pope might have been, that pope was still the Vicar of Christ, and that pope was the true leader on earth of the True Church which Christ founded upon a rock. Jacob Burckhardt wrote of Roderigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander VI., and his Cardinal son, Cesar, in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,

`Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal list of proscribed persons, or that the murders were resolved upon one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent on the secret destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they coveted. Of this money and movable goods formed the smallest part; it was a much greater source of profit for the pope that the incomes of the clerical dignitaries in question were suspended by their death, and that he received the revenues of their offices while vacant, and the price of these offices when they were filled by the successors of the murdered men. The Venetian ambassador Paolo Capello announces in the year 1500: "Every night four or five murdered men are discovered -bishops, prelates and others- so that all Rome is trembling for fear of being destroyed by the duke (Cesar)." He used to wander about Rome in the night-time with his guards, and there is every reason to believe that he did so not only because, like Tiberius, he shrank from showing his now repulsive features by daylight, but also to gratify his insane thirst for blood, perhaps even on the persons of those unknown to him. As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that many of the papal guards were waylaid and put to death. But those whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence fell victims to their poison. For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion seemed requisite, a white powder of an agreeable taste was made use of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which could be mixed without notice in any dish or goblet...The official epitomizer of the history of the popes, Onofrio Panvinio, mentions three cardinals, Orsini, Ferrerio and Michiel, whom Alexander caused to be poisoned, and hints at a fourth, Giovanni Borgia, whom Cesar took into his own charge - though probably wealthy prelates seldom died in Rome at that time without giving rise to suspicions of this sort..."He would," says Panvinio elsewhere, "have put all the other rich cardinals and prelates out of the way, to get their property, had he not, in the midst of his great plans for his son, been struck down by death." And what might not Cesar have achieved if, at the moment when his father died, he had not been laid upon a sickbed! What a conclave would that have been, in which, armed with all his weapons, he had extorted his election from a college whose numbers he had judiciously reduced by poison - and this at a time when there was no French army at hand! In pursuing such a hypothesis the imagination loses itself in an abyss.'

The Roman Catholic Church does not teach that all popes are saints. Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that all true Christians must profess that the Popes, including Alexander VI., are the Vicars of Christ, the supreme priests on earth and the true leaders of the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Rome insists the laity must obey the Pope even if the Pope is a murderer.

In an article on the work of Gregorovius entitled The Borgias and their Latest Historian, Lord Acton informed us,

`The leading fact that governs his [Alexander VI.'s] whole pontificate is the notorious invalidity of his election...all Europe was able to learn the exact sums that he had paid or promised to his supporters, and even to their attendants.'

But the Roman Catholic Church has not declared Alexander VI. to be an anti-pope. It was merely the opinion of Lord Acton that the election of Alexander VI. was invalid. Rome has had over 500 years now to declare Alexander VI. to be an anti-pope. Rome has not done so.

Lord Acton continues,

`It was only by resorting to extraordinary artifice of policy, by persisting in the unlimited use of immoral means, and creating resources he did not lawfully possess, that Alexander could supply the total want of moral authority and material force...violence and fraud are sometimes the only way to build up a State. He depended on two things -on the exchange of services done in his spiritual capacity for gold, troops, and political support; and on the establishment of principalities for his own family. The same arts had been employed by his predecessors with less energy and profit...Flatterers told him that he was invested with the power of Almighty God on earth, that he was supreme in the temporal as well as the spiritual order, that no laws or canons could bind him...He declared that his authority was unlimited, that it extended over all men and all things. In virtue of this claim he bestowed Africa and America on the kings of Spain, excommunicating beforehand all who would presume to trespass on these regions without license...In order to make money by Indulgences, Alexander claimed jurisdiction over the other world...It was he who simplified and cheapened the deliverance of souls in purgatory, and instituted the practices which Arcimboldus and Prierias, in an evil hour, set themselves to defend. The mass was not held necessary; to visit the churches did as well. Neither confession nor contrition was required, but only money. It came to be the official doctrine that a soul flew up to heaven as fast as the money chinked in the box. Whosoever questioned the rightfulness of the system was declared a heretic.'

Lord Acton writes,

`Cannes, April 5, 1887...Dear Mr. Creighton, I thank you very sincerely for your letter...What is not at all a question of opportunity or degree is our difference about the Inquisition. Here again I do not admit that there is anything esoteric in my objection. The point is not whether you like the Inquisition but whether you can, without reproach to historical accuracy, speak of the later mediaval papacy as having been tolerant and enlightened. What you say on that point struck me exactly as it would strike me to read that the French Terrorists were tolerant and enlightened, and avoided the guilt of blood...I mean the Popes of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries...These men instituted a system of Persecution...They inflicted, as far as they could, the penalties of death and damnation on everybody who resisted it. They constructed quite a new system of procedure, with unheard of cruelties, for its maintenance. They devoted to it a whole code of legislation...it is perfectly familiar to every Roman Catholic student initiated in canon law and papal affairs; it has been worn threadbare in a thousand controversies; it has been constantly attacked, constantly defended, and never disputed or denied, by any Catholic authority. There are dozens of books, some of them official, containing the particulars. Indeed it is the most conspicuous fact in the history of the mediaval papacy, just as the later Inquisition, with what followed, is the most conspicuous and characteristic fact in the history and record of the modern papacy. A man is hanged not because he can or cannot prove his claims to virtue, but because it can be proved that he has committed a particular crime. That one action overshadows the rest of his career. It is useless to argue he is a good husband or good poet. The one crime swells out of proportion to the rest. We all agree Calvin was one of the greatest writers, many think him the best religious teacher, in the world. But that one affair of Servetus outweighs the nine folios, and settles, by itself, the reputation he deserves. So with the mediaval Inquisition and the Popes that founded it and worked it. That is the breaking point, the article of their system by which they stand or fall...But what amazes and disables me is that you speak of the Papacy not as exercising a just severity, but as not exercising any severity. You do not say, these misbelievers deserved to fall into the hands of these torturers and Fire-the-faggots; but you ignore, you even deny, at least implicitly, the existence of the torture-chamber and the stake...I cannot accept your canon that we ought to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men...There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it...You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science.

Alexander Flick wrote in his The Rise of the Medieval Church (Burt Franklin, 1909):

"Pope John XII. was proved guilty of the whole category of mediaeval crimes: celebrating mass without communing himself, ordaining a bishop in a stable, accepting bribes for ordination, consecrating a ten-year-old bishop...being guilty of adultery and incest, making the Lateran a brothel...putting out the eyes of his own godfather, Benedict, cruelly murdering the archdeacon John, setting fire to houses like Nero...the Emperor wrote a letter addressed to the "Pontiff and Universal Pope John" asking him to appear: `...Know, then, that you are accused - not by individuals but by the unanimous voice of clergy and laity - of homicide, sacrilege, perjury, and incest...'

To understand the Church of Rome one must understand her Constitution, that is her official doctrines. Whether one sees John XII. as evil or not, Rome teaches that a true Christian must profess that he was the Vicar of Christ. He was God's supreme agent on earth. He was the supreme priest in the Church which the Son of God founded upon a rock. He exercised full, supreme, and universal power over the entire Christian Church. Rome insists that no matter how much evil one might think Pope John XII., or any other Pope, is guilty of, it is always an act of evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church.

In The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition, 2000, Imprimi Potest, Libreria Editrice Vaticana) Paragraph 882 states that the pope is the pastor of the entire Church, and has full and supreme power over the whole Church. Similarly, Paragraph 937 states that the pope has by divine institution supreme power in the care of souls. Paragraph 883 asserts that the bishops have no authority unless they are united with the pope. Paragraph 888 assured us that the pope and the bishops in communion with the pope are authentic teachers endowed with the authority of Christ. Paragraph 936 affirms the pope to be the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth. Paragraphs 411 and 493 assert Mary was conceived free of original sin and that she remained free of sin her whole life long. Paragraph 87 says the faithful must obey their pastors. Paragraph 89 asserts that if one is living an upright life one will be open to the truth of the Catholic faith. Paragraph 100 says that only the pope and the bishops in communion with the pope are authorized to authentically interpret scripture. Paragraph 837 tells us that those in the Church who do not persevere in charity will not be saved. Paragraph 161 tells us that belief in Jesus and in God the Father are necessary for salvation. In Paragraph 2298 the Catholic Church admits that it employed and sanctioned cruelty in the past. 2298 also asserts that the error of using cruel measures only became evident in recent times.

Catholics are to profess that the popes are the Vicars of Christ and are endowed with the teaching authority of Christ. Unam Sanctum, from Boniface VIII., in the early 14th century, asserted it is necessary for salvation for all human creatures to submit to the Roman Pontiff. In Nulla Sallas, Pope Pius XII., in the 20th century, re-emphasized that there is no salvation for those who refuse to be subject to the Roman Pontiff. All of this follows quite logically, provided, Rome is the True Church. But if Rome has fallen away...

Catholicism defines the `Church' as the communion of the saints -Paragraph 946. Thus, if one is not a saint, one is not in the Church. In Catholicism we have the Church Triumphant, the Church Expectant, and the Church Militant. The Church Militant is the visible Catholic Church. It is comprised of all those who have been baptized into the Catholic Church. The Church Militant is comprised of both the elect and the damned. The Catechism of the Council of Trent specifically states that there are both good and evil people in the Church Militant. The Church Expectant includes those souls being purified in Purgatory. The Church Triumphant consists of God, the holy angels and the saints.

As we've seen, Paragraph 882 states that the pope is the pastor of the entire Church, and has full and supreme power over the whole Church. Similarly, Paragraph 937 states that the pope has by divine institution supreme power in the care of souls. All of this might lead one to conclude that the Catholic Church teaches that every properly elected pope is a saint. For how can one who is not a saint, who is not in the Church, have supreme care of souls and supreme authority over those who are saints, and who are in the Church? Lord Acton held that there was no greater heresy than the doctrine which said the office sanctifies the office-holder. Pope St. Gregory VII. said every properly elected pope was a saint. Rome, however, does not promote this doctrine today. Rome does not say that all Popes are numbered among the elect - a saint is someone who is among the elect, someone who goes to heaven not perdition. Again, Rome says that the Popes teach with the authority of Christ, i.e., the Second Person in a Divine Trinity. We've been through the logic which says that if one has the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on ones heart one will be able to teach religion with the authority of God. Rome insists that all Popes lead souls to heaven and lead no one to perdition. But it is still incumbent upon the individual to put the teachings of Rome into action. Rome essentially says that Roman Catholics who profess the official doctrines of the Church of Rome won't be damned for the sin of heresy, but they might be damned for some other sin. This leads us back to the same old logic. If Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, then renounce Rome. If Rome has not fallen away from the True Faith, then obey Rome. Under all scenarios and circumstances, it is delusional to be a Cafeteria Catholic.

Consider Pope John XII. Do you think he had the Divine Law written on his heart? Do you think he taught religion with the authority of God? Gibbon writes,

`The most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign may have suggested to darker ages the fable of a female pope. The...son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen that the second of these became the head of the Latin church. His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otto the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read, with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.'

Exurge Domini, from Leo X. in the 16th century, directed against Martin Luther, states it is heresy to assert that the Holy Spirit does not desire the death of heretics. Leo X. also said: `God has given us the papacy, therefore let us enjoy it.'

Ad extirpanda, issued by Innocent IV. in 1252, granted to priests the authority to torture people in inquisitional proceedings. The Dogma of Papal Infallibility specifically states one is anathema if one rejects that Dogma. To profess the credenda one must profess the truth of Ad Extirpanda and Exurge Domini.

Rome claims to be the path to heaven. Recall Matthew 7. 13-16,

`Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits...'

§ 4. Do Roman Catholics Teach Religion with the Authority of God?

The popes gave their blessing to the feudal system which permitted the kings and nobles who oppressed the peasants, the Jews, the women, the African slaves etc. The endless tyranny which Popes and Kings inflicted on the world certainly gave Diderot some reasons to yearn for the day when the `last king was strangled with the entrails of the last priest.'

To attempt to explain Diderot's fierce anti-clericalism we might look at Catholic society in 17th and 18th century France. Hippolyte Taine writes in The Origins of Contemporary France (University of Chicago Press, translated by John Durand):

`LA BRUYÈRE wrote, just a century before 1789, "Certain savage-looking beings, male and female, are seen in the country, black, livid and sunburnt...They retire at night into their dens where they live on black bread, water and roots..."...I estimate that in 1715 more than one-third of the population, six millions, perish with hunger and of destitution..."In 1725," says St. Simon, "with the profuseness of Strasbourg and Chantilly, the people, in Normandy, live on the grass of the fields. The first king in Europe [Louis XV] is great simply by being a king of beggars of all conditions, and by turning his kingdom into a vast hospital of dying people of whom their all is taken without a murmur."...the king interrogated the bishop of Chartres on the condition of his people; he replied that "the famine and the mortality were such that men ate grass like sheep and died like so many flies." In 1740, Massillon, bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, writes to Fleury: "The people of the rural districts are living in frightful destitution...the majority, for half the year, even lack barley and oat bread, their sole food, and which they are compelled to take out of their own and their children's' mouths to pay the taxes. It pains me to see this sad spectacle every year on my visits. The negroes of our colonies are, in this respect, infinitely better off, for, while working, they are fed and clothed along with their wives and children, while our peasantry, the most laborious in the kingdom, cannot, with the hardest and most devoted labor, earn bread for themselves and their families, and at the same time, pay the subsidies...prosecutions for unpaid dues are carried on with unexampled rigor. The clothes of the poor are seized and their last measure of flour, the latches on their doors...The abbess of Jouarre told me [d'Argenson] yesterday that, in her canton, in Brie, most of the ground had not been planted" [the cultivators reason that there is no sense in planting crops if they are only going to be taxed to death at harvest time]...Ten years later the evil is greater. "...My curate tells me that eight families, supporting themselves on their labor when I left, are now begging their bread. There is no work to be had. The wealthy are now economizing like the poor. And with all this the taille is exacted with military severity...Those who are able to leave, emigrate. "A person from Languedoc tells me of vast numbers of peasants deserting that province...tormented and frightened by the measures resorted to in collecting tithes...The extortioners sell everything and imprison everybody as if prisoners of war..."...At Lyons twenty thousand workers in silk are watched and kept in sight for fear of their going abroad... poor widows have burned up their wooden bedsteads and others have consumed their fruit trees to preserve themselves from the cold...From Rioni, from La Rochelle, from Limoges, from Lyons, from Montauban, from Caen...come similar statements...taxes, seigniorial dues, the tithes, the expenses of cultivation...leaving nothing for the unfortunate cultivators...two thirds of Brittany is lying waste. This is not sterility but decadence. The régime invented by Louis XIV. has produced its effect...almost every infant dies. Mothers having scarcely any milk, their infants eat the bread of which I spoke, the stomach of a girl of four years being as big as that of a pregnant woman...In Auvergne, a feudal country, covered with extensive ecclesiastic and seigniorial domains, the misery is the same. At Clermont-Ferrand, "there are many streets that can for blackness, dirt and scents only be represented by narrow channels cut in a night dunghill." In the inns of the largest bourgs, "closeness, misery, dirtiness and darkness"...That of Aubenas, says Young, "would be a purgatory for one of my pigs"...The primitive man is content so long as he can sleep and get something to eat...On contemplating this temperament, rude and intact since Vercingétorix, and, moreover, rendered more savage by suffering, one cannot avoid being somewhat alarmed. The Marquis de Mirabeau describes the votive festival of Mont-Dore, savages descending the mountain in torrents, the curate with stole and surplice, the justice in his wig, the police corps with sabres drawn...the hootings and cries of children, of the feeble and other spectators, urging them on as the rabble urge on so many fighting dogs; frightful-looking men, or rather wild beasts covered with coats of coarse wool...their faces haggard and covered with long matted hair, the upper portion pallid, and the lower distended, indicative of cruel delight and a sort of ferocious impatience...Misery begets bitterness in a man; but ownership coupled with misery renders him still more bitter. He may have submitted to indigence but not to spoliation...Theoretically, through humanity and through good sense, there is, doubtless, a desire to relieve the peasant and pity is felt for him. But, in practice, through necessity and routine, he is treated according to Cardinal Richelieu's precept, as a beast of burden to which oats are measured out for fear that he may become too strong and kick, "a mule which, accustomed to his load, is spoiled more by long repose than be work"...TAXATION THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF MISERY...Let us closely examine the extortions he has to endure, which are very great, much beyond any that we can imagine...In the Toulousain, at St. Pierre de Barjouville, the poorest day-laborer, with nothing but his hands to earn his support, and getting ten sou a day, pays eight, nine and ten livres poll-tax. In Burgundy it is common to see a poor mechanic, without any property, taxed eighteen and twenty livres for his poll-tax and the taille. In Limousin, all the money brought back by the masons in winter serves to pay the imposts charged to their families...In Brittany, it is notorious that nine-tenths of the artisans, though poorly fed and poorly clothed, have not a crown free of debt at the end of the year, the poll-tax and others carrying off this last and only crown. At Paris the dealer in ashes, the buyer of old bottles, the gleaner of the gutters, the peddlers of old iron and old hats, the moment they obtain a shelter pay the poll-tax of three livres and ten sous each. To ensure its payment the occupant of a house who sub-lets to them is made responsible. Moreover, in case of delay, a "blue man," a baliff's subordinate, is sent who installs himself on the spot and whose time they must pay for. Mercier cites a mechanic, named Quatremain, who, with four small children, lodged in the sixth story, where he had arranged a chimney as a sort of alcove in which he and his family slept...The garret and the hut, as well as the farm and the farm-house know the collector, the constable and the bailiff; no hovel escapes the detestable brood...Observe the system actually at work. It is a sort of shearing machine, clumsy and badly put together...In each parish, there are two, three, five or seven of these who, under the name of collectors...must apportion and collect the taxes. No duty is more onerous; everybody, through patronage or favor, tries to get rid of it...In Auvergne, where the able-bodied men expatriate themselves in winter to find work, the women are taken; in the election-district of Saint-Flour, a certain village has four collectors in petticoats. They are responsible for all claims entrusted to them, their property, their furniture and their persons...We can judge of their risks and sufferings. In 1785, in one single district of Champagne, eighty-five are imprisoned and two hundred of them are on the road every year. The collector, says the provincial assembly of Berry, usually passes one-half of the day for two years running from door to door to see delinquent tax-payers. "This service," writes Turgot, "is the despair and almost always the ruin of those obliged to perform it; all families in easy circumstances in a village are thus successively reduced to want." In short, there is no collector who is not forced to act and who has not each year eight or ten writs served on him. Sometimes he is imprisoned at the expense of the parish...People have seen with horror, the collector, in the country, disputing with heads of families over the costs of a sale of furniture which had been appropriated to stopping their children's cry of want. Were the collectors not to make seizures they would themselves be seized...the salt-tax, the excises and the customs are annually estimated and sold to adjudicators who, purely as a business matter, make as much profit as they can by their bargain. In relation to the tax-payer they are not administrators but speculators; they have bought him up. He belongs to them by the terms of the contract; they will squeeze out of him, not merely their advances and the interest on their advances, but, again, every possible benefit. This suffices to indicate the mode of levying indirect imposts...by virtue of the ordinance of 1680, each person over seven years of age is expected to purchase seven pounds [of salt] per annum, which, with four persons to a family, makes eighteen francs a year, equal to nineteen days' work...It is forbidden to divert an ounce of the seven obligatory pounds to any use but that of the "pot and the salt-cellar." If a villager should economize the salt of his soup to make brine for a piece of pork, with a view to winter consumption, let him look out for the collecting-clerks! His pork is confiscated and the fine is three hundred livres. The man must come to the warehouse and purchase other salt, make a declaration, carry off a certificate and show this at every visit of inspection...Judges are prohibited from moderating or reducing the penalties imposed in salt cases, under penalty of accountability and of deposition. I pass over quantities of orders and prohibitions, existing by hundreds. This legislation encompasses tax-payers like a net with a thousand meshes, while the official who casts it is interested in finding them at fault. We see the fisherman, accordingly, unpacking his barrel, the housewife seeking a certificate for her hams, the excise man inspecting the buffet, testing the brine, peering into the salt-box and, if it is of good quality, declaring it contraband because that of the ferme, the only legitimate salt, is usually adulterated and mixed with plaster. The wine is dispatched and the ferme prescribes the roads by which it must go; should others be taken it is confiscated and, at every step on the way some payment must be made. A boat laden with wine from Languedoc, Dauphiny or Roussillon, ascending the Rhone and descending the Loire to reach Paris, through the Briare canal, pays...from thirty-five to forty kinds of duty not comprising the charges on entering Paris...From Pontarlier to Lyons there are twenty-five or thirty tolls; from Lyons to Aigues-Mortes there are others...these charges fall on the wine-grower, since, if consumers do not purchase, he is unable to sell...according to Arthur Young, wine-grower and misery are two synonymous terms. The crop often fails, every doubtful crop ruining the man without capital...As to the salt-tax...this annually produces four thousand domiciliary seizures, three thousand four hundred imprisonments, five hundred sentences to flogging, exile and the galleys..."One of the leading causes of our prodigious taxation," says the provincial assembly of Auvergne, "is the inconceivable number of the privileged, which daily increases through traffic in and the assignment of offices... Observe, moreover, that an infinity of offices and functions, without conferring nobility, exempt their titularies from the personal taille and reduce their poll-tax to the fortieth of their income...The intention of His Majesty is not merely to arrest vagabonds traversing the country but, again, all mendicants...the penalty for able-bodied men is three years in the galleys; in case of a second conviction, nine years; in case of a third conviction, the galleys for life...Men and women are confined in the same prison, the result of which is, the females not pregnant on entering it are always so on their arrival at the depot...In Paris, says Mercier, the people are weak, pallid, diminutive, stunted, maltreated...The rich and the great who possess equipages, enjoy the privilege of crushing them or of mutilating them in the streets...Hundreds of victims die annually under the carriage wheels. "I saw," says Arthur Young, "a poor child run over."'

If one is a True Christian, if one has a Divine Law written on ones heart, then, one might argue, one will be teach religion with the authority of God. Jean Claude, a Protestant minister born in 1619 near Agen, wrote in his `Cruel Persecutions of the Protestants in the Kingdom of France' (Narcisse Cyr, 1893, tr. by M. Cyr),

`Dragoons...generally the basest Troops of the Kingdom...often enter'd with Sword in Hand, crying, Dye or be Catholicks...gutting them all their Money, Rings, and Jewels...they hung Men and Women by the Hair of the Head, or the Feet to the Roofs of the Chamber, or to the Racks in the Chimneys, and smoked `em with wisps of wet Hay, till they were no longer able to bear it...if they would not sign, they hung `em up immediately again...They pluck'd off the Hair of their Heads and Beards, with Pincers...They threw them on great fires...They ty'd Ropes under their Arms, and Plung'd them again and again in Wells...They stript them naked...stuck them with pins...lanc'd them with Pen-knifes...Bastinadoed them most cruelly, and then dragged them thus Bruised to the Churches...they kept them from sleeping, Seven or Eight Days together...They have tyed Fathers and Husbands to the Bed Posts, while before their Eyes they ravished their Wives and Daughters...They pluck off the Nails from the Hands and Toes of some...They Blew both Men and Women up with Bellows even till they were ready to burst...demolished their Houses...seized their wives and children to Imprison them in Monasteries...If some...endeavored to save themselves by flight, they were pursued and hunted in the Fields and Woods and shot at like Wild Beasts...If after this they scrupl'd to go to Mass, or did not assist at Processions, or omitted going to Confession, if they did not tell over their beads, or if a Sigh slip'd from them, signifying their unwillingness, they had immediately Fines laid on `em and were forc'd to receive again their Old Guests the Dragoons...the Dread of the Dragoons, the Horror of seeing their Consciences forc'd, and their Children taken from them...All these poor Prisoners...confined in Dungeons, loaded with heavy Chains, almost starved with hunger...They put many into Monasteries where they experienced some of the worst cruelties. [Some] have been so happy as to dye in the midst of their Torments...the taking away of their children, the Separation of Husbands and wives...New Torments are daily invented against those whom Force has made to Change their Religion...Compelle Intrare Luke XIV. 23. compel them to come in; has St. Augustin ever said, that we ought to deal perfidiously with those whom we esteem Hereticks.'

§ 5. Juan de Capistrano, Carlo Borromeo and Pius V.
John R. Alden informed us in his `A History of the American Revolution' (Knopf, 1972, p. 350) that Thomas Jefferson detested the Roman Catholic Church. We're also informed that John Adams felt the same way, though he hated all despotic hierarchies and nobilities not merely the Roman variety. From this information it would be unfair to infer that Jefferson and Adams lost their ability to use discrimination in their hatreds. Paragraph 2148 indicates to us that it is a blasphemy to detest the Roman Catholic Church. Catholicism teaches that blasphemy is a grave sin, and a grave sin becomes a mortal sin which leads the offending soul to hell when it is committed with full knowledge and complete consent.

Now if one detests the Roman Catholic Church of the 16th century, on account of, for instance, the sanguinary conquest of the New World, because, for instance, prior to the Law of Burgos, it was legal for Spaniards to compel Indian women more than four months pregnant to toil as slaves in the silver mines, and detest the Catholic Church for sanctioning the African slave trade, the Inquisitions etc., etc., but if one also loves the Roman Catholic Church of the 21st century, or at least if one loves that which is loveable in the Roman Catholic Church of the 21st century, then one is nevertheless committing blasphemy, according to the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church of the 21st century claims to be the same Church as the Roman Catholic Church of the 13th century, and of the 16th century, and of the 5th century, and claims to be the same Church as the Church which Christ founded upon a rock in the 1st century, and claims that this Church is the Bride of Christ, and that she will always be the Bride of Christ, and that it will always be blasphemy to detest the Bride of Christ, or detest any part of the Bride of Christ. It is not considered blasphemy to hate the evils committed by sinners, but it is considered blasphemy by the Catholic Church to hate the Catholic Church, or hate any part of the Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ, on account of any crimes, evils and injustices committed by the Catholic Church.

Non-Catholic Christians maintain that, even though Christ did establish His Church on a rock, the New Testament never mentions the Bishop of Rome. Non-Catholic Christians insist it is erroneous to believe that every Pope is the Vicar of Christ, and that the Church of Rome and only the Church of Rome is God's True Church. God promised Abraham that He would give the Holy Land to his progeny for an everlasting possession. Subsequent to this promise we see that the Jews were: 1) enslaved in Egypt for four centuries, 2) taken into captivity in Babylon for seventy years, and 3) evicted from the Holy Land in the 2nd century and prevented from returning en masse until the 20th. These facts do not invalidate God's promise to Abraham. That promise can only be invalidated if the Jews never inherit the Holy Land for an everlasting inheritance at some time in the course of world history. Christ's vow that He founded his Church on a rock means that the True Church will eventually prevail on earth, but, perhaps, one is all wrong if one insists that the Roman Catholic Church and only the Roman Catholic Church can be this Church which Christ founded upon a rock.

No Protestant sect has made John Calvin's sainthood an article of faith; no Protestant sect says that all who claim to be true Christians must venerate John Calvin. Calvin, like St. John of Capistrano, has some savagery on his theological rap sheet; nevertheless Calvin is generally numbered among the elect in evangelical circles. Gibbon asserted that he was more scandalized by Calvin's burning of Servetus than he was by all the hecatombs of the Spanish Inquisition. This makes some sense if savagery in a Christian reformer is more contemptible than savagery in Christians who are not reformers, but it doesn't seem terribly sane to be more scandalized by one evil human sacrifice than by thousands of evil human sacrifices. Peter De Rosa told us that Torquemada burned over 10,000 people at the stake.

A standard Catholic apologia for the papal sanction of slavery and inquisitional torments would run as follows: since the Catholic Church is the True Church, and since the Catholic Church is the only path to heaven, then, if pagans sunk in darkness and savagery were brought to the True Faith via the African slave trade, it is hardly reasonable to argue that the African slave trade was evil. The popes never taught that African slaves were to be treated with cruelty merely that slavery was justified provided it brought African pagans sunk in darkness, cannibalism and savagery to the True Church. If indeed the Roman Catholic Church provides the only means for souls to attain heaven, then, one might well argue, a little torment used by inquisitors in the endeavor to help heretics repent and find their way back to the true path to heaven and immortality, and away from the road to hell and eternal torment, is an action of mercy and can hardly be seen as an act of evil. Paragraph 2148 of the Catechism says it is a blasphemy to make use of God's name to reduce peoples to servitude. The African slave trade put millions into servitude. Protestants who took a hand in the African slave trade might suggest to modern Protestants that these pro-slavery Protestants had fallen away from the True Faith.

St. Augustine took a perverse interpretation of St. Luke in regards to: `compel them to come it.' Paul Johnson told us in A History of Christianity that Augustine wanted heretics beaten with rods to compel them to adopt orthodoxy. This was at least an humane improvement over the methods of the Catholic Roman Empire, which used iron instruments to furrow the flesh of misbelievers - a rather horrific departure from the methods the apostles used to teach the gospel!

One probably wouldn't be a Lutheran if one didn't believe that Martin Luther was a saint, but, nevertheless, no Lutheran denomination makes Luther's sainthood an article of faith. Luther did, 1) vilify the Jews in his later years, 2) call for the death penalty against the Anabaptists, and 3) various historians tell us Luther burned `witches' at the stake. The apostrophes are used to suggest that a woman burned as a witch might well have been a good Christian woman slandered as a witch. Under the Old Law witches were to be executed, but torture was never to be used to discover evidence. Under the New Law witches are to be excommunicated not burned. Luther wanted Anabaptists executed, an action hostile to the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Calvin was involved in the execution of the anti-Trinitarian Servetus. Calvin didn't want him burned alive, which he was, but he wanted him executed. It might be news to modern Calvinists that executing or burning alive anti-Trinitarians is a key feature of the New Law, but that is what 16th century Calvinism taught.

The Church of Rome has declared St. Thomas Aquinas to be not only a saint but a Doctor of the Church, and a Doctor of the Church is one who is said to be incapable of teaching heresy. Aquinas taught the doctrines that 1) the sign of the cross is to be worshipped with the same devotion that God is worshipped, 2) since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, the Church may take their property away from them, and 3) the `Holy Office,' the Inquisition, was indeed holy.

To this day Rome still insists the Inquisition was holy.

In Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok's Who's Who in Christianity (Routledge, 1998) we learn that Mary Daly of Boston College wrote a book in which she argued for the death of God the Father. Catholic professors at Catholic universities who argue for the death of God the Father might not qualify as a source of confusion to young Catholics, because they are obviously not teaching Catholicism, though they might nevertheless confuse those who are extremely naïve.

John Deedy informs us in his Facts, Myths and Maybes (Thomas More, 1993) that papal encyclicals are not ex cathedra documents and are not invested with the pope's infallible authority. He also asserts that they are `not unqualifiedly binding.' If we eliminate the double negative we see this means that they are qualifiedly binding. He states that, in 1950, Pope Pius XII., in Humani Generis, asserted that Catholics must abide by a pope's teaching in his encyclicals, and must presume that he is exercising the supreme power of his infallible teaching authority in his encyclicals. This evidently constitutes qualifiedly binding, or not unqualifiedly binding, the qualification being: the encyclical might have errors but one is nevertheless bound to presume it is infallible. Mr. Deedy also quotes from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, which states that one must use ones discretion, and judge by the circumstances and the language of the encyclical to determine the degree to which the infallible magisterium is committed. A rather subjective business indeed! One wonders if many young Catholics have the requisite discretion to accomplish the task. When 28 consecutive pontiffs said the sun moves round the earth, and said it was heresy to say the earth moves round the sun, one might speculate that `the infallible magisterium' was not greatly committed.

For centuries popes ignored St. Paul's clear words in Romans 11. 25-29, because, for centuries, the popes asserted that the Jews were a race forever accursed for the crime of murdering the Son of God. Apropos of this theme of intelligent Christians becoming terribly confused, Michelet has an interesting note in The Bible of Humanity, p. 313,

`BOSSUET, on this point, agrees with DESPOIS: "To condemn slavery is to condemn the Holy Spirit."

One would be very much mistaken to consider Bossuet, the Bishop of Mieux in the age of Louis XIV., a half-wit. He was one of the supreme orators in French history, and by his commanding eloquence he could move the most stoical people to tears. The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963) says of him,

`It is remarkable that a man so universally wrong should stand so high...[his] sermons explain why good judges among his own nation rate him as the most magnificent manipulator of the French tongue...The secret of Bossuet's appeal thus is largely poetic...Without Bossuet it is hard to see how Voltaire, Gibbon and Michelet could have achieved what they did.'

Michelet continues:

`DESPOIS has also, in support of his reasoning, the teaching of Ecclesiastical seminaries of our own days, which teaching "condemns the negro who escapes from his master."

Consider the judicial murders formerly fashionable in Christendom, Michelet writes in The Sorceress,

`Agrippa and others maintain that all Science is contained in Magic, white Magic of course, be it understood. But the terror of fools and the rage of fanatics make small distinction between white and black. Against Wyler, against genuine men of science, against light and toleration, a violent reaction of darkness and obscurantism arises from a quarter one would least of all have expected. The magistry, which for nearly a whole century had shown itself just and enlightened, now largely involved in the Catholic Bond of Spain and the fiercely bigoted Ligue, prove themselves more priestly than the priests. While driving the Inquisition out of France, they match it and would fain eclipse it with their own severities. Indeed, they went so far that on a single occasion and single-handed the Parlement of Toulouse burned four hundred human bodies at the stake. Imagine the horror of it; think of the thick, black smoke from all this burning flesh, picture the masses of fat that amid yells and howls melt in horrid deliquescence and pour boiling down the gutters! A vile and sickening sight such as had not been seen since the broilings and roastings of the Albingensians!'

Leo X. said there was nothing heretical about the papacy selling indulgences in order to liberate souls suffering in Purgatory, as well as to make a profit for the papacy in the process, and so it could build St. Peter's Basilica. For centuries the papacy used a forgery known as the Donation of Constantine to promote the power of the papacy. Popes and Protestants blessed the African slave trade and the witch hunts. For centuries the Catholic Church taught the doctrine that god was the sort of God who would torture the souls of infants in hell if these infants had the misfortune of dying before they were baptized. Pope John XXII. of the 14th century burned Spiritual Franciscans because of their insistence in defying Rome, in teaching that Christ and the apostles were poor men.

Burckhardt held that Pius II. and Nicholas V. were the best of the Renaissance popes. They didn't embezzle money sent by pious folk to be used in the crusade against the Turks, whereas other popes, such as Alexander VI., were simply thieves. Eugen Weber told us in A History of Europe (W. W. Norton, 1971), that Nicholas V. authorized King Alphonso of Portugal to enslave the natives of Africa for the sake of their conversion. One might wonder how committed the `infallible magisterium ' was when it blessed the African slave trade.

The Roman Catholic Church does not teach that its popes live sinless lives, rather, the Catholic Church teaches: 1) despite whatever errors or evils the Popes may or may not have committed, the Popes are the true leaders on earth of the Church which Christ founded upon a rock - they are the Vicars of Christ, 2) it is always evil to renounce the Church of Rome, because Rome and only Rome is God's True Church, 3) In the 20th century Pope Pius XII. reissued another statement of a doctrine which Rome had taught for centuries. In Nulla Sallus he stated there is no salvation for those who refuse to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

Still on the subject of all these theologically illiterate freshmen who descend upon Notre Dame every year, it might be helpful to review some of the Paragraphs in the Catechism which pertain to the authority of the Church of Rome. In Paragraph 862 of the Catechism, Rome teaches the doctrine that those who listen to the Catholic Bishops listen to Christ, and those who despise the Catholic Bishops despise Christ as well Him who sent Christ.

Paragraph 2034 of the Catechism,

`The Roman Pontiff and the bishops are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith...'

Paragraph 852. Missionary paths. The Holy Spirit is the protagonist, "the principal agent of the whole of the Church's mission. It is he who leads the Church on her missionary paths...'

Again we have the logic which says that if Church X perpetrates evil for centuries, and if one says that Church X is led by the Holy Spirit, then one is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Again, Lord Acton told us in his essay `Human Sacrifice':

`And yet, long after the last victim had fallen in honour of the sun-god of the Aztecs, the civilised nations of Christian Europe continued to wage wholesale destruction...Protestants and Catholics, clergy and laity, vied with each other for two hundred years to provide victims, and every refinement of legal ingenuity and torture was used in order to increase their number. In 1591... a girl was tortured twenty-three times before she confessed...Three years later... a woman suffered torture fifty-six times without confessing she was a witch...In the north of Italy, the great jurist Alciatus saw 100 witches burnt on one day...In England alone, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, the victims of this superstition amounted to 30,000. Yet, from the appearance of Spee's Cautio in 1631 to the burning of the last witch in 1783, all sensible men were persuaded that the victims were innocent of the crime for which they suffered intolerable torments and an agonizing death. But those who hunted them out with cunning perseverance, and the inflexible judges who never spared their lives, firmly believed that their execution was pleasing in the sight of God, and that their sin could not be forgiven by men.'

Again, Coulton and Johnson give us a date of 1080 AD as the time when the Roman Catholic Church, with the approval of popes and councils, persistently begins to forbid the laity to read the Bible. Violation of the decree against possessing Bibles was taken as proof of heresy by the Popes and the Inquisition. Will Durant assured us that inquisitional torture was used against girls as young as twelve and women as old as eighty. Under Pope Pius IX., and as late as 1852, victims of the Inquisition were still being dissolved in vats of lime (The Inquisition, Bachrach, p. 113).

Rome says all true Christians must venerate St. Pius V. Pius inflicted the rack and the stake upon baptized Catholics who sought to renounce their Catholic baptism so that they might obey only the Mosaic Law, or follow after Protestantism or Humanism, or worship only Allah. Again, Paragraph 2148 of the Catechism says that it is blasphemy to torture and kill in God's name. The enlightenment of this modern concept - though it was also known in the apostolic era - that is before Rome fell away from the True Faith - was seen as heresy in Catholicism for many medieval centuries. St. Louis said you refute a Jew by plunging a sword into his belly. Lea informed us that St. Louis ordered his underlings to imprison Jews and extort money out of them. Sachar said St. Louis introduced the pontifical Inquisition into his dominions and made it his business to keep it busy. Sachar also said St. Louis detested Jews to such an extreme degree that he couldn't bear to look at them. St. Charles Borromeo took part in torturing and executing many women accused of witchcraft. And Rome insists that everyone must venerate those she has canonized.

Leopold von Ranke wrote of St. Pius V. in his History of the Popes (The Colonial Press, 1901, translated from the German by E. Fowler):

"It would have been well if his energies had always been devoted to works so unquestionably legitimate, but this was not the fact; so exclusive, so imperious were his religious feelings, that he bore the very bitterest hatred to all who would not accept his tenets. And how strange a contradiction! the religion of meekness and humility is made the implacable persecutor of innocence and piety! But Pius V, born under the wings of the Inquisition, and reared in its principles, was incapable of perceiving this discrepancy; seeking with inexhaustible zeal to extirpate every trace of dissent that might lurk in Catholic countries, he persecuted with a yet more savage fury the avowed Protestants, who were either freed from his yoke or still engaged in the struggle. Not content with despatching such military forces as his utmost efforts could command, in aid of the French Catholics, he accompanied this with the monstrous and unheard-of injunction to their leader, Count Santafiore, to `take no Huguenot prisoner, but instantly to kill everyone that should fall into his hands.'

Again, as we saw earlier, it is unambiguous Catholic teaching that all the true Christians must venerate St. Pius V. Christopher Hare (pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Andrews) wrote in her `Men and Women of the Italian Reformation' (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York):

"On January 7, 1566, Michele Ghislieri, the fanatical Inquisitor, was elected Pope, under the title of Pius V, and from that moment every distinguished Italian who held reformed views was in peril of his life...Carnesecchi was taken a captive to Rome and lodged in the prison of the Holy Office...the rack was freely employed...Through fifteen long months of imprisonment and frequent torture, these awful examinations continued, until at length, on August 16, 1567, sentence was delivered by the tribunal of the Inquisition...Carnesecchi was borne to the Ponte St. Angelo, amidst the execrations and curses of the fanatical rabble which crowded round him, but he continued his courage and composure to the last. They clothed him in a "sanbenito," the garment of heresy, painted over with flames and devils...He was first beheaded, then burnt in the flames of the Inquisition...by means of spies and the seizing of all private letters and papers, the Inquisition had already the most intimate knowledge of all that Carnesecchi and his friends had ever said or written...It is true that the case of Giulia Gonzaga was already pre-doomed, for on the accession of Pius V (Michele Ghislieri) in 1566 he had come into possession of a chest containing a great number of letters to Carnesecchi and others. On reading these papers, the Pope had declared that "if he had seen these before her death, he would have taken good care to burn her alive."'

In Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction, J. A. Symonds reported:

`The pestilences of the Middle Ages, notably the Black Death of 1348...exceeded in virulence those which depopulated Italian cities during the period of my history...At Venice in 1575-77, a total of about 50,000 persons perished...in 1630-31, 46,490 were carried off...Milan was devastated at the same periods by plagues...At Naples, in the year 1656, more than 50,000 perished...Savoy was scourged by a fearful pestilence...In Val Moriana, forty thousand expired...In May 1599, the inhabitants of Turin were reduced by flight and death to four thousand...The streets were encumbered with unburied corpses, the houses infested by robbers and marauders...The infected were treated with inhuman barbarity, and retorted with savage fury...To miseries of pestilence and its attendant famine were added lawlessness and license, raging fires, and, what was worst of all, the dark suspicion that the sickness had been introduced by malefactors...The name given to the unfortunate creatures accused of this diabolical conspiracy was Untori, or the Smearers...They were popularly supposed to go about the city daubing walls, doors, furniture, choir-stalls, flowers, and articles of food with plague stuff...Hundreds of such Untori were condemned to the most cruel deaths by justice firmly persuaded of their criminality. Exposed to prolonged tortures, the majority confessed palpable absurdities. One woman at Milan said she had killed four thousand people. But, says Pier Antonio Marioni, the Venetian envoy, although tormented to the utmost, none of them were capable of revealing the prime instigators of the plot...The rack-stretched wretches could not reveal their instigators, because there were none...As in cases of witchcraft, the first accusation was founded upon gossip and delation. The judicial proceedings were ruled by prejudice and cruelty. Fear and physical pain extorted confessions and complicated accusations of their neighbors from multitudes of innocent people."

Apropos of the canonization of St. Charles Borromeo, Mrs. H. M. Vernon informed us in her book Italy From 1494 to 1790 (Cambridge at the University Press, 1909):

`Carlo Borromeo conducted a campaign against witchcraft no less terrible than his campaign against heresy, and hundreds of wretched women were burned...The horrors of the Plague were doubled by the persecution of the `Untori'...who were supposed to spread it.'

David Christie-Murray told us in A History of Heresy (Oxford, 1976) that St. Charles Borromeo burned at least eleven elderly women at the stake.

We read in The Jewish Encyclopedia,

`CAPISTRANO, JOHN OF: Franciscan monk; born at Capistrano, Italy, 1386; died 1456. Owing to his remarkable power as a popular preacher, he was sent by Pope Nicholas V. (1447-55) as legate to Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, with the special mission to preach against the Hussites...Knowing how easy it is to excite the masses by appealing to their prejudices, Capistrano, in his discourses, accused the Jews of killing Christian children and of desecrating the host...His admirers called him the "scourge of the Judeans"...In Silesia the Franciscan was most zealous in his work. When Capistrano arrived at Breslau, a report was circulated that one Meyer, a wealthy Jew, had bought a host from a peasant and desecrated it. Thereupon the local authorities arrested the representatives of the Breslau Jewish community and confiscated their houses and property for the benefit of the city. The investigation of the so-called blasphemy was conducted by Capistrano himself. By means of tortures he managed to wring from a few of the victims false confessions of the crimes ascribed to them. As a result, more than forty Jews were burned at the stake in Breslau June 2, 1453. Others, fearing torture, committed suicide, a rabbi, Pinheas, hanged himself. The remainder of the Jews were driven out of the city, while their children of tender age were taken from them and baptized by force. In Poland Capistrano found an ally in the archbishop Zbigniev Olesniczki, who urged Casimir IV. Jagellon to abolish the privileges which had been granted to the Jews in 1447...This led to persecutions of the Jews in many Polish towns. Capistrano was canonized in 1690.'

The Roman Catholic Church is not interested in any arguments concerning those whom she has canonized. These matters are closed. They are take it or leave it propositions. If one rejects the doctrine that St. John of Capistrano, St. Pius V., and St. Charles Borromeo are saints, that is, they are exemplary souls who practiced heroic virtue and have attained salvation, if one asserts that, perhaps, they are not saints, then, one might be a Cafeteria Catholic, but one is in no sense a Practicing Catholic. Paragraph 828 tells us the canonized practiced heroic virtue. Paragraph 1161 involves a command to display images of the saints. On p. 92 of The Catholic Encyclopedia, edited by Robert C. Broderick (Revised and Updated Edition, 1987, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, Thomas Nelson Publishers) we read that the faithful are not merely allowed to venerate the saints, but they are ordered to venerate them. The Catechism asserts, p. 902, that veneration is not adoration or worship, the latter two exalted forms of devotion are reserved for God alone.

Lord Acton writes of Pius V. in History of Freedom and Other Essays,

`The predecessor of Gregory had been Inquisitor-General. In his eyes Protestants were worse than Pagans, and Lutherans more dangerous than other Protestants. The Capuchin preacher, Pistoja, bore witness that men were hanged and quartered almost daily at Rome; and Pius declared that he would release a culprit guilty of a hundred murders rather than one obstinate heretic. He seriously contemplated razing the town of Faenza because it was infested with religious error, and he recommended a similar expedient to the King of France. He adjured him to hold no intercourse with the Huguenots, to make no terms with them, and not to observe the terms he had made. He required that they should be pursued to death, that not one should be spared under any pretense, that all prisoners should suffer death. He threatened Charles with the punishment of Saul when he forbore to exterminate the Amalekites. He told him that it was his mission to avenge the injuries of the Lord, and that nothing is more cruel than mercy to the impious. When he sanctioned the murder of Elizabeth he proposed that it should be done in execution of his sentence against her. It became usual with those who meditated assassination or regicide on the plea of religion to look upon the representatives of Rome as their natural advisors...A time came when the Catholics, having long relied on force, were compelled to appeal to opinion. That which had been defiantly acknowledged and defended required to be ingeniously explained away. The same motive which had justified the murder now prompted the lie. Men shrank from the conviction that the rulers and restorers of their Church had been murderers and abettors of murder, and that so much infamy had been coupled with so much zeal. They feared to say that the most monstrous of crimes had been solemnly approved at Rome, lest they should devote the Papacy to the execration of mankind. A swarm of facts were invented to meet the difficulty: The victims [in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew] were insignificant in number; they were slain for no reason connected with religion; the Pope believed in the existence of the plot [to murder the French king]; the plot was a reality; the medal was fictitious; the massacre was a feint concerted with the Protestants themselves; the Pope rejoiced only when he heard that it was over. These things were repeated so often that they have been sometimes believed; and men have fallen into this way of speaking whose sincerity was unimpeachable, and who were not shaken in their religion by the errors or vices of Popes. Mohler was pre-eminently such a man. In his lectures on the history of the Church, which were published only last year [1868], he said that the Catholics, as such, took no part in the massacre; that no cardinal, bishop, or priest shared in the councils that prepared it; that Charles informed the Pope that a conspiracy had been discovered; and that Gregory made his thanksgiving only because the King's life was saved. Such things will cease to be written when men perceive that truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.'

Henry White wrote of this Massacre of St. Bartholomew in The Great Events by Famous Historians (The National Alumni):

"Charles had learned to love the admiral; could he believe that the gentle Coligny and Rochefoucault, the companion of his rough sports, were guilty of this meditated plot? He desired to be king of France -of Huguenots and Catholics alike- not king of a party. Catherine, in her despair, employed her last argument. She whispered in his ear, `Perhaps, sire, you are afraid.' As if struck by an arrow, he started from his chair. Raving like a madman, he bade them hold their tongues, and with fearful oaths exclaimed: `Kill the admiral, if you like, but kill all the Huguenots with him...so that not one be left to reproach me hereafter. See to it at once -at once; do you hear?'...The murderous scheme must be carried out that very night, and accordingly the Duke of Guise was summoned to the Louvre...The conspirators now separated, intending to meet again at ten o'clock. Guise went into the city, where he communicated his plans to such of the mob leaders as could be trusted. He told them of a bloody conspiracy among the Huguenot chiefs to destroy the King and the royal family and extirpate Catholicism; that a renewal of war was inevitable, but it was better that war should come to the streets of Paris than in the open field, for the leaders would thus be far more effectually punished and their followers crushed...`The signal will be given by the great bell of the Palace of Justice. Then let every true Catholic tie a white band on his arm and put a white cross in his cap, and begin the vengeance of God.'...The houses on the bridge of Notre-Dame, inhabited principally by Protestants, were witness to many a scene of cruelty. All the inmates of one house were massacred, except a little girl, who was dipped stark naked in the blood of her father and mother and threatened to be served like them if she turned Huguenot. The Protestant booksellers and printers were particularly sought after. Spire Niquet was burned over a slow fire made out of his own books, and thrown lifeless, but not dead, into the river... Bianchi, the Queen's perfumer, is reported to have killed with his own hands a young man, a cripple, who had already displayed much skill in goldsmith's work. This is the only man whose death the King lamented, `because of his excellent workmanship, for his shop was entirely stripped.'...Mezeray writes that seven or eight hundred people had taken refuge in the prisons, hoping they would be safe `under the wings of Justice'; but the officers selected for this work had brought them into the fitly named `Valley of Misery,' and there beat them to death with clubs and threw their bodies into the river. The Venetian ambassador corroborates this story, adding that they were murdered in batches of ten...Coconnas, one of the mignons of Anjou, prided himself on having ransomed from the populace as many as thirty Huguenots, for the pleasure of making them abjure, and then killing them with his own hand, after he had `secured them for hell.'...Charles, who had just been telling his mother that `the weather seemed to rejoice at the slaughter of the Huguenots,' felt all his savage instincts kindle at the sight. He had hunted wild beasts; now he would hunt men, and, calling for an arquebuse, he fired at the fugitives, who were fortunately out of range...Marshal Tesse heard the story, according to Voltaire, from the man who loaded the arquebuse...Sully, afterward the famous minister of Henry IV, had a narrow escape. He was in his twelfth year, and had gone to Paris in the train of Joan of Navarre...`Having disguised myself in a scholar's gown, I put a large prayer-book under my arm, and went into the street. I was seized with horror inexpressible at the sight of the furious murderers, running from all parts, forcing open the houses, and shouting: `Kill, Kill! Massacre the Huguenots! The blood which I saw before my eyes, redoubled my terror. I fell into the midst of a body of guards, who stopped and questioned me, and were beginning to use me ill, when, happily for me, the book that I carried was perceived and served me for a passport...two inhuman priests whom I had heard mention `Sicilian Vespers,' wanted to force me from him, that they might cut me in pieces, saying the order was, not to spare even infants at the breast...If Mezeray is to be trusted, Charles broke down on the second day of the massacre. Since Saturday he had been in a state of extraordinary excitement, more like madness than sanity, and at last his mind gave way under pressure. To his surgeon...who kept at his side all through the dreadful hours, he said: `I do not know what ails me. For these two or three days past, both mind and body have been both upset. I burn with fever; all around me grin pale blood-stained faces. Ah! Ambrose, if they had but spared the weak and innocent'...Like Macbeth, he had murdered sleep...Charles had not been in bed two hours when he jumped up and called for the King of Navarre, to listen to a horrible tumult in the air; shrieks, groans, yells, mingled with blasphemous oaths and threats, just as they were heard on the night of the massacre...As for Catherine; knowing that strong emotions would spoil her digestion and impair her good looks, she kept up her spirits."

The Durants informed us about the ascetic wrath of St. Pius V: he pushed Charles IX of France and Catherine de Medicis to wage war against the Huguenots till these should be mercilessly destroyed. He praised the harsh measures of Alba in the Netherlands. He never lessened a harsh penal sentence; he never ceased to encourage the Inquisition to wage war on dissidents against Rome.

G. G. Coulton wrote in Inquisition and Liberty:

"It must be borne in mind that it is an essential of Roman Catholic faith to believe in the Pope's infallibility when he formally adds any name to the lists of Saints. At the head of these four canonizations of 1712 was Pope Pius V, a great champion of the Inquisition, who by excommunicating Elizabeth had made it the moral duty of every Roman Catholic in England to rebel; a man who (in Lord Acton's words) `held that it was sound Catholic doctrine that any man may stab a heretic condemned by Rome.'"

Pope Urban VI. had Roman Catholic Cardinals tortured - he would listen to their screams while he read his breviary. Pope John XXII. had a Bishop flayed alive. Pope John XII. raped female pilgrims to Rome. Pope Alexander VI. was a prolific poisoner. Innocent III said the popes were the true leaders of the world. If Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, then, we ought to be able to find evidence of this fall. Innocent III. launched a murderous crusade against the Albingensians; he compelled the Jews to wear badges and distinctive garb. Peter De Rosa said that Pope Paul IV. filled a house with state-of-the-art instruments of torture. Pope St. Pius V. was an inquisitor who tortured and burned people who had been baptized into Roman Catholicism, but who were also people who sought to renounce their Roman Catholic baptism so that they could obey the Mosaic Law, or be Muslims, or be Protestants. And we know that, to this day, all Roman Catholics are commanded by Rome to venerate St. Pius V. as a saint, as someone who practiced heroic virtue.

Dr. Lea writes in A History of the Inquisition in Spain,

"The Inquisition, however, regarded the conviction of a heretic as only the preliminary to forcing him to denounce his associates; the earliest papal utterance, in 1252, authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to discover accomplices, and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be tortured for this purpose...It was, in reality, the torture of witnesses, for the criminal's fate had been decided, and he was thus used only to give testimony against others. The Spanish Inquisition was, therefore, only following a general practice when it tortured in capu alienum, those who had confessed their guilt. No confession was accepted as complete unless it revealed the names of those whom the penitent knew to be guilty of heretical acts, if there was reason to suspect that he was not fully discharging his conscience in this respect, torture was the natural resort. Even the impenitent or the relapsed, who was doomed to relaxation [given over to the civil authority to be executed, e.g., burnt at the stake], was thus to be tortured and was to be given clearly to understand that it was as a witness and not as a party, and that his endurance of torture would not save him from the stake. The Instructions of 1561... much consideration should be exercised and torture in caput alienum was rather the exception in Spain, than the rule as in Rome. In the case of the negativo, against whom conclusive evidence was had, and who thus was to be condemned without torture, the device of torturing him against his presumable accomplices afforded an opportunity of endeavoring to secure his own confession and conversion. We have seen this fail, in 1596, in the Mexican case of Manuel Diaz, nor was it more successful in Lima, in 1639, with Enrique de Paz y Mello, although the final outcome was different...He was sentenced to relaxation and torture in caput alienum; it was administered with great severity without overcoming his fortitude, and he persisted through five other publications as fresh evidence was gathered. Yet at midnight before the auto da fe, in which he was to be burnt, he weakened. He confessed as to himself and others and his sentence was modified to reconciliation and the galleys, while good use was made of his revelations against thirty of his accomplices...At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-eight, who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far, and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted and was revived with difficulty. In 1607 at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla, aged seventy-six, after confessing...was accused by a new witness of being an alfaquí [a teacher of the Koran and Islamic law]; this he denied and was duly tortured...Isabel Madalena, a girl of thirteen, who was vaguely accused of Moorish practices, was tortured, overcame the torture and was penanced with a hundred lashes.'

The terms `Morisco' and `Marrano' are somewhat murky. The former implies a person who formerly worshipped Allah but who has accepted Catholic baptism. The latter implies a Jewish person who becomes a baptized Catholic. But the terms also pertains to people who were baptized as children, or who were forcibly baptized as adults, and who wished to renounce their Catholic baptism, so as to worship only Allah or Jehovah. During the centuries when the Inquisition was active, when those who sought to renounce their Catholic baptism were sent to the torture chamber, so that they might be persuaded by torments, after words had failed, to remain loyal to the Church of Rome, many people remained Catholic because they feared the Inquisition, not because they sincerely loved the Church of Rome. The terms Moriscos and Marranos are quite odd. The Moriscos included both people who hated Rome and people who loved Rome. The same holds for Marranos.

Dr. Lea wrote in his The Moriscos of Spain:

`There doubtless is some truth in the assertion that the terror of the Inquisition was less for the Moriscos than for Spaniards, since the former when punished were naturally regarded by their fellows as martyrs and were consequently held in high esteem. It was for them an honor to appear on the scaffold of an auto de fe...There is a story of a woman who, when the san benito was put on her, asked for another for her child, as the weather was cold...When, after the fall of the Roman Empire, heresy first became the subject of systematic persecution in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, confiscation was one of the penalties decreed for it under the canon law and princes who did not enforce this vigorously were threatened with the censures of the Church. The monarch who profited by the spoliation of his subjects could therefore, strictly speaking, not forego it without papal authorization, leading at times to some curious and intricate questions...In the case of Bartolomé Sanchez, who appeared in the Toledo auto de fe of 1597, cleanliness was regarded as a suspicious circumstance - doubtless from the Moorish habit of bathing - and though he overcame the torture he was finally brought to confess and was punished with three years in the galleys, perpetual prison and confiscation. Miguel Caneete, a gardener, for washing himself in the fields while at work, was tried in 1606; there was nothing else against him but he was tortured without success and his case was suspended.'

Dr. Lea writes in his The Moriscos of Spain (GreenwoodPress, 1968),

`They came to be known by the name of Mudéjares - the corruption of Mudegelin, an opprobrious term bestowed upon them by the Moors...No forcible conversion was allowed, but only persuasion, and the convert had all the rights of the Old Christians save eligibility to holy orders; he was never to be insulted but was to be held in honor...The Church, in fact, had long regarded with disfavor the careless indifference which led Alfonso VI. to style himself imperador de los dos cultos - which was satisfied to allow subject Moors to enjoy their religion in peace. When, in 1212, Alfonso IX., at the head of a crusade, won the great victory of Las Navas de Tolosa and advanced to Ubeda, where 70,000 Moors had taken refuge, they offered to become Mudéjares and to pay him a ransom of a million doblas. He accepted the terms but the clerical chiefs of the crusade, Rodrigo of Toledo and Arnaud of Narbonne, forced him to withdraw his assent, with the result that, after some further negotiation, the Moors were all massacred except such as were reserved as slaves. In a similar spirit Innocent IV., in 1248, ordered Jayme I. of Aragon to permit no Moors, save as slaves, to reside in the Balearic Isles...In 1266 Clement IV. returned to the charge in a brief urging upon him the expulsion of all Saracens from the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon. The pope told him that his reputation would suffer greatly if in view of temporal profit he should permit such opprobrium of God, such infection of Christendom as is caused by the horrible cohabitation of Moors and Christians, while by expelling them he would fulfill his vow to God, close the mouths of his detractors and show his zeal for the faith...Hernado de Talavera, the saintly Archbishop of Grenada used to say `They ought to adopt our faith and we ought to adopt their morals.'...There were no beggars among them, for they took affectionate care of their own poor and orphans...In short, they constituted the most desirable population that any land could possess...To the conscientious medieval churchman, however, any friendship with the infidel was the denial of Christ; the infidel was not to be forcibly converted, but it was a duty to lay upon him such burdens that he would seek relief in conversion. Accordingly the toleration and conciliation, which were the basis of the Spanish policy, were vigorously opposed in Rome...The Church was succeeding in gradually awakening the spirit of intolerance, but its progress was slow...the final policy of expulsion was suggested, in 1337, by Arnaldo, Archbishop of Tarragona, in a letter to Benedict XII, imploring the pope to order the King of Aragon to adopt it...the resistance of the nobles might be overcome by empowering them to seize and sell the persons and property of the Moors, as public enemies and infidels, while the money thus obtained would be serviceable for the defense of the kingdom - an inhuman proposition which we shall see officially approved by the Church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries...Morerías and Juderías were ordered to be established everywhere, surrounded by a wall having only one gate; any one who within eight days after notice should not have settled therein forfeited all his property, with personal punishment at the king's pleasure, while severe penalties were provided for Christian women entering the forbidden precincts. It was easier to enact than to enforce such laws and in 1480 Ferdinand and Isabella state that this had been neglected, wherefore they renewed it, allowing two years for the establishment of these Ghettos after which any Jew or Moor dwelling outside of them was subjected to the prescribed penalties and no Christian woman should be found within them. Under Ferdinand and Isabella laws were no longer neglected and these were enforced with their accustomed vigor...In 1598 the Venetian envoy, Agostino Nani, writes that expulsion is considered too prejudicial, as it would depopulate the land; that sometimes the idea has been entertained of a Sicilian Vespers [genocide], at others the castration of all male infants, and the former measure was advocated by Gomez Davila of Toledo in a long memorial addressed to Philip III...Hideous as was this project, it was resolved upon at one time and came near being attempted. In 1581, when Philip II. was in Lisbon, regulating his newly acquired kingdom of Portugal, a junta of his chief counselors, including the duke of Alva, the Count of Chinchon and Juan de Idiaquez, concluded to send the Moriscos to sea and scuttle the vessels...A variant of this was the proposition, in 1590, that the Inquisition should proceed against all the Moriscos of the crown of Castile, without sparing the life of a single one...Not much more humane was the suggestion of Archbishop Ribera to enslave all the males of proper age and send them to the galleys or to the mines of the Indies...Ferocious and inhuman as were all these projects, they evoked no scruples of conscience. Theologians there were in plenty to prove that they were in accord with the canons. By baptism the Moriscos had become Christians; as such they were subject to the laws of the Church, and as heretics and apostates they had incurred the death penalty...Even more outspoken was Fray Bleda, who proved by irrefragable authorities that the Moriscos could all be massacred in a single day...Bleda's work was...pronounced free from error, and Clement VII. read it with pleasure at the suggestion of his confessor, Cardinal Baronius. In the midst of all these conflicting projects the idea of expulsion gradually forged to the front...the last year of Philip's life. His end came at last, September 13, 1598...consumed by gout, strangled with asthma, for almost two months he lay near motionless and with but enough of life to render him capable of suffering. Covered with tumors and abscesses, which when opened continued to discharge till the stench in the death-chamber could not be overcome by the strongest perfumes, the long-drawn agony was greater than any of his executioners had invented for the torture-chamber...No spectre of Cazalla or Carranza, of Montigny or Egmont came to disturb the serenity of his conscience...When once this resolution was reached the Moriscos lost no time in converting into coin whatever movables they possessed. The land became a universal fair...The troops marched out to meet them and escort them to the galleys, which was necessary to protect them from the robbers who flocked thither...While thus all proper effort was made to smooth the path of the exiles it was impossible to restrain the savage greed of the Old Christians...They sallied forth in squads, robbing and often murdering all whom they encountered. Fonseca tells us that in going from Valencia to San Mateo he saw the roads full of dead Moriscos...It was a massacre rather than a battle...the well-armed Spaniards, who mowed them down, and, when they broke and fled, slaughtered them without sparing women and children. Three thousand Moriscos lay dead...The great mass of the insurgents found refuge on the top of the mountain, where they could get neither food nor water...gave themselves up...in numbers of which the estimates vary from 11,000 to 22,000, so starved with hunger, thirst and cold that even the soldiery were moved to compassion, although this did not prevent their stealing numbers of women and children and selling them as slaves. Mexia granted them their lives and escorted them to the port of embarkation...The estimates of the number of exiles vary greatly...Navarrete speaks of 2,000,000 Jews and 3,000,000 Moriscos having been at various times expelled from Spain...No computation, that I am aware of, has been attempted of the number of children taken from their parents and retained...The fate of the exiles was deplorable. Torn from their homes without time to prepare for the new and strange life before them, and stripped of most of their property, at best their suffering was terrible, but man's inhumanity multiplied it tenfold. In whatever direction they turned they were exposed to spoliation or worse. While the voyage to Africa, in the royal ships, was doubtless safe enough, the masters of the private vessels which they chartered had no scruples in robbing and murdering them...The Moslems of Tetuan were not so tolerant, and it adds a new horror to the whole unhappy business to learn that there the Christian Moriscos who were firm in their religion were lapidated or put to death in other ways for refusing to enter the mosques. The Church which had impelled them to martyrdom, however, took no steps to canonize these obscure victims.'

§ 6. Apparitions

Catholicism asserts that various visions of Mary, the mother of Jesus, such as what St. Bernadette saw at Lourdes, were true visitations from Mary, and perhaps so. One might recall that the Mormon religion is founded upon the contention that Joseph Smith received instructions from God via an angel named Moroni. J. N. D. Kelly's Oxford History of the Popes informs us that, not too many years ago, Pope Pius VI. saw a vision of Mary. She directed him to repair to Portugal. The materialist, one from the school of William James, who gave us Varieties of Religious Experience will argue that such visions are due to a malfunctioning pancreas, a hyperactive gall bladder etc. Ebenezer Scrooge would have said there was more gravy about these apparitions than the grave.

Sir Edward Creasy makes a strong case against Materialism and Atheism when he wrote in his Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,

`And the revolting details of the cruelties practiced upon this young girl may be left to those whose duty, as avowed biographers, it is to describe them. She was tried before an ecclesiastical tribunal on the charge of witchcraft, and on the 30th of May, 1431, she was burnt alive in the market-place at Rouen. I will add but one remark on the character of the truest heroine that the world has ever seen. If any person can be found in the present age who would join in the scoffs of Voltaire against the Maid of Orleans and the Heavenly Voices by which she believed herself inspired, let him read the life of the wisest and best man that the heathen nations ever produced. Let him read of the Heavenly Voice by which Socrates believed himself to be constantly attended, which cautioned him on his way from the field of battle at Delium, and which from his boyhood to the time of his death visited him with unearthly warnings. Let the modern reader reflect upon this; and then, unless he is prepared to term Socrates either a fool or imposter, let him not dare to deride or vilify Joan of Arc.'

For those willing to consider it possible that Joan of Arc, Socrates, Joseph Smith and Paul VI. were not hallucinating, and that they might have been visited by spirits from either the celestial spheres or the dark, illimitable abyss, we require a test to determine if these specters levitating before our gaze are kindly spirits or if they are fiends masquerading as friends. Many adduce I John 4. 1-3 as the best test to distinguish fair phantoms from foul. St. Martin of Tours is said to have put the masquerading fiend to flight by demanding: `if thou be the Christ where are the holes in thy hands where they nailed thee to the cross?' This was evidently tantamount to I John 4. 1-3. This test must apply only to incorporeal spirits. Cesare Borgia and Ivan the Terrible asserted that Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh, and yet they were certainly evil.

`Why Did She Cry? The Story of the Weeping Madonna', by George Papadeas, tells of three icons said to have wept real tears in St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church in Hempstead New York. Forty years ago the Ecumenical Patriarch declared these to be Divine Signs. The skeptic might simply assert that, they may well be Divine signs, but do some miraculous tears prove that Eastern Orthodoxy is the One True Religion? There are also scriptures such as 2 Thessalonians 2. 9, Revelation 13. 13, St. Matthew 24. 24, which assert that malevolent powers can perform signs and lying wonders. Joseph Smith may well have seen something supernatural, such as a ghost from beyond the grave. And if he did, does this prove we should all be Mormons? Jude 3 says the faith was delivered to the saints a long time ago. If one trusts Jude 3, why drag innovations into Christianity? Perhaps `articles of faith' which are not found in scripture are heresies?

1 John 4. 1-3 says,

`Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God: because many false prophets have gone out in the world. By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming; and is now already in the world.'

Thus, we have the question: even if this test found in 1 John 4. 1-3 was sufficient in the 1st century to distinguish benevolent spirits from malevolent spirits, is it sufficient in the 21st century? We know that patently evil men have asserted that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: Ivan the Terrible, Cesare Borgia, Eccelino the Tyrant, Henry VIII. etc. Perhaps I John 4. 1-3 works well for incorporeal spirits but not so well for the corporeal kind. If one is ever visited by a levitating specter, by a ghost from beyond the grave, one should always feel free to subject this specter to a whole battery of tests to determine if he / she is malevolent or benevolent. If, however, one if one enslaved to a malevolent delusion - if one is not in the True Church - if one has fallen away from the True Faith - one might have some difficulty discerning malevolent answers from benevolent answers.

Matthew 7. 7-9 is the main scripture which says that performing wonders and exorcisms in the name of Christ is no guarantee that one is in the True Church. Matthew 7. 7-9 has Jesus saying,

`"Many will say to Me in that day, `Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in your name?' And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

1 John 4. 1-3 was a necessary and sufficient test for distinguishing malevolent spirits from benevolent spirits 1900 years ago. But is it sufficient today? The problem with subjecting a levitating phantom to a battery of tests, to a series of religious questions, is that one has to know the right answers to ones own questions, or else one won't be able to correctly judge the results of the test one is administering. You just can't win if you don't have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on your heart.

§ 7. The Third Secret of Fatima

`New Oxford Review' might be the most pro-Roman Catholic magazine in the USA. It pushed the doctrine that American servicemen became murderers when they killed the enemy in Iraq, on the logic which runs as follows: since the Church of Rome declared the war the USA launched against Iraq in March of 2003 to be unjust, and since people who kill in unjust wars are murderers, hence US soldiers who kill their enemies in Iraq are guilty of the mortal sin of murder, a sin which leads offending souls straight to hell - and this position from `New Oxford Review', which is extremely unpopular in the USA, is however popular with those who say: Always Obey Rome - and popular with those who are anti-American, or pro-Iraq, or pro-Islam etc., etc. Whether or not the editorial board of `New Oxford Review' always obeys Rome is a matter I won't examine right now. The arguments for the war say that Saddam was just too evil to be allowed to retain power. Recall that Werner Herzog film `Lessons of Darkness' which showed all those instruments of torture Saddam used on any Iraqi who rebelled against him. Plus there was the environmental disaster which resulted when Saddam sett the oil wells on fire. Plus the UN said that 60,000 Iraqi children died every year because of the sanctions the UN leveled against Saddam's regime - Saddam was allowed to sell enough oil to buy food and medicine for children, but he sold the oil and then kept the money for himself - so 60,000 Iraqi children died every year because of the sanctions. So, it became an issue of either lift the sanctions or topple Saddam. We now know that Colin Powell was given inaccurate information about the strength of Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction when he gave his famous presentation which argued for war at the UN. James Risen in `State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration' gives us the rundown on what went wrong. The coalition soldiers were welcomed as liberators by the Iraqi people, at first, but then everything went wrong. It seems the US needed to quickly get out of Iraq after cutting a quick deal with the Baathists in 2003, a deal which said: the sanctions will be lifted but they will be put right back on Iraq if you ever let Saddam back into power. In any event, `New Oxford Review' has interesting articles on the Fatima visions. There's Mr. King's letter in the October 2007 edition. And there's Rev. James Anderson's article `The Timeliness & Urgency of the Third Part of the Secret of Fatima' in the July - August 2007 edition. In the February 2009 edition we find a book review from Dr. Arthur C. Sippo entitled `The Last Secret of Fatima'. The book he is reviewing is also entitled The Last Secret of Fatima by Cardinal Bertone, with a Foreward by Pope Benedict XVI. We are attempting to determine if the real Virgin Mary appeared in Portugal, or if a spirit masquerading as Mary appeared, or if there is some other explanation for the amazing phenomena. To review matters:

Dr. Sippo tells us that, on October 13, 1981 Pope John Paul II. was shot by a Turk hired by the Bulgarian secret police, probably at the request of Yuri Andropov, who was then the head of the Soviet KGB. This was exactly 64 years after the Miracle of the Sun. In the April 2009 issue of New Oxford Review Father Vladimir Kozina corrects Dr. Sippo by stating that Pope John Paul II. was shot on May 13, 1981 not October 13, 1981, and this was exactly 64 years after the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima - May 13, 1917. Now as to this Miracle of the Sun, Rev. Anderson tells us that on October 13, 1917, at Fatima, Portugal, 70,000 people witnessed the sun whirling and dancing, becoming blood-red, and rushing down upon these 70,000. They remained unharmed despite these solar eccentricities. On July 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto. Mary's message came in three parts. The first part is a terrifying vision of hell. Repent or else. The second part pertains to the conversion of Russia, i.e., the conversion of Russia to Roman Catholicism, or perhaps to some sort of Portuguese Catholicism, for Mary is said to have announced that the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved in Portugal. Is this dogma of the Faith in Portugal any different than Official Roman Catholicism? If it is different, how is it different?

It might be difficult to conclusively determine if Mary actually appeared to the three children. Even if she did, what does it prove? Rome would certainly have reason to be hostile to any information which leads people to think that the True Church is found in Portugal but not in Rome. The testimony of these 70,000 witnesses is certainly powerful evidence of a supernatural occurrence. But it is certainly not impious to at least explore the possibility of a malevolent imposture. Recall Revelation 13. 13. St. Martin, they say, once caught the devil trying to deceive him. The devil was saying that he was Jesus, and St. Martin wasn't so gullible as to believe everything he heard.

Mr. King, writing in `New Oxford Review' (October 2007, pp. 10-11) says it is an indisputable truth that Russia would have been converted to Catholicism, and our world would be enjoying the peace promised by the Virgin Mary, if, in 1960, Pope John XXIII. had done as Mary asked, and had explained to the world the Third Secret of Fatima, and had consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Well, it is not anti-Christian to say human beings can take steps to make the world a more peaceful place. But it is an anti-Christian doctrine to say that if only a Pope consecrates Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary then there will peace on earth. Start with John 14. 23-26. Those who love Christ keep His words. Those who keep Christ's words do not push the doctrine that if only John XXIII. had done such and such there would be peace on earth. The scriptures are perfectly clear in stating that the devil will bedevil the earth until the devil is finally crushed forever, and this happens after the Second Coming, indeed it happens at the conclusion of the Millennium, just before the New Jerusalem descends from the sky. The entire New Testament, and especially the Book of Revelation, are perfectly clear in saying that there will be no peace on earth until after the Second Coming, and until after the satanic rebellion at the end of the Millennium, when the New Jerusalem descends from the sky. It doesn't matter what Rome or Russia do or don't do - because there's not going to be peace on earth until other things happen. The Book of Revelation, in Rev. 22. 18-19, says one is accursed if one contradicts that book. To say that peace is possible on earth before the Second Coming is to contradict The Book of Revelation.

Those who reverence scripture can see this `promise of peace from the Virgin Mary' is counterfeit. So, obviously, or at least it is obvious to those who reverence the scriptures, it wasn't the real Mary who was making the counterfeit promise. And of course Rome will tend to be suspicious about any supernatural vision which says the True Church is found in Portugal, not in Rome.

Mr. King is upset with John XXIII., Paul VI. and John Paul II. - and charges them with perpetrating a cover-up, of covering up the apostasy which exists in high places in the Church of Rome. He charges the Curia of John Paul II. with blasphemy. `New Oxford Review' is not sounding super Catholic now, though of course there's a distinction between the articles a magazine publishes and the opinions of the editorial board of that magazine. Mr. King says that Cardinal Bertone daily tries to perpetuate a lie, by insisting that the entire Third Secret of Fatima was revealed in 2000. Mr. King reasons that if the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved in Portugal, this implies of course that the True Faith will not always be found in Rome. He says that God is about to destroy billions of people round the globe, both good and evil people. He finds powerful evidence of lies and apostasy in Rome, because, for one reason, Rome hasn't been trumpeting the whole truth about the Third Secret of Fatima - the part about the True Faith being found in Portugal and not in Rome.

In Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 - this is right at the beginning of the Russian Revolution which swept the Atheistic Bolsheviks into power and swept the Eastern Orthodox Romanovs out of power - Mary is said to have related a prophetic vision in the Third Secret of Fatima: the pope would pass through a city in ruins; he would pray for the souls of the dead that he saw there; he would crawl on his knees to the top of a large mountain, and there, at the foot of a huge Cross, he and many other Catholics would be gunned down and killed by a group of soldiers. Again, on May 13, 1981, John Paul II. was shot. This was exactly 64 years after, it is alleged, that the real Virgin Mary first appeared at Fatima, Portugal. Dr. Sippo tells us that John Paul II. died as a result of the wound he received years before from the Turkish assassin (who was sent by the Bulgarian and Soviet secret police). The many blood transfusions he required led to a virus which led to his death, though of course he lived for many years after being shot on May 13, 1981. John Paul II. devoted a good deal of time collecting data on all the Catholics who were killed by Communists in our era, as he believed their fates were miraculously revealed by the Virgin Mary in 1917 at Fatima.

To say that we must believe every supernatural event, on the logic that malevolent powers could not possibly have perpetrated this supernatural event, means one must convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, because three icons wept real tears, and then convert to Mormonism because Joseph Smith had a supernatural experience, and then convert to Portuguese Catholicism, certainly not Roman Catholicism, because of Fatima. We know that merely because an event is a supernatural event we must not jump to the conclusion that it is benevolent, albeit we must also not jump to the conclusion that it is malevolent!

In the April 2009 issue of New Oxford Review, we find many interesting letters regarding Fatima. Mr. King is insisting that the Second Vatican Council was heretical, and that Rome is covering up the full secret of Fatima to cover up Rome's apostasy. Dr. Sippo takes the Vatican party line: the Holy Spirit guides the Roman Catholic Church. If you have a problem with the way the Vatican conducts her affairs then you have a problem with the Holy Spirit. He acknowledges that Russia has not been converted yet, and he mentions that Mikhail Gorbachev was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church, not into either Roman Catholicism or Portuguese Catholicism. Father Vladimir Kozina has some interesting words to say about the `Unknown Light' prophesied at Fatima. This light, seen in 1938 by Father Kozina and many others all over Europe and North Africa, presaged the coming horrors of World War II. The Fatima revelation said that this Unknown Light would be a sign to the world to show the world that it was about to be punished by God, via World War II, for its crimes.

That part of the Fatima message pertaining to God being angry, because of all the sinning and evil in the world, the part about God destroying billions of people, good and evil people, is really nothing new. It looks rather startling but it is actually very old news. Christianity has been preaching, for 2,000 years now, that the world will end in a cataclysm, and preaching for 2,000 years that heaven and hell exist. The Book of Revelation has been in existence for 20 centuries, and everyone knows it paints a harrowing picture of the end of the age: hell fire, eternal torment, albeit it tells of a heavenly paradise as well. Psalm 2. has been in existence for more or less 30 centuries. Psalm 2. 7-12 doesn't make vague implications - it spells everything out in simple words,

`"I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, `You are My Son, Today I have begotten You, ask of Me and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.'" Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are those who put their trust in Him.'

Whenever we are talking about transgressors, and about a time when the transgressors have reached their fullness, the words of Gabriel in Daniel 8. 23-25 come to mind,

`And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their fullness, a king shall arise, having fierce features, who understands sinister schemes. His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power; he shall destroy fearfully, and shall prosper and thrive; he shall destroy the mighty, and also the holy people. Through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart. He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without human hand.'

And again Daniel 12. 1,

`At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people, and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.'

§ 8. The Confusion of Professor Brown and Cardinal Baum

Consider the confusion which must result for young Catholics struggling to comprehend what Catholicism teaches when they read books brandishing Nihil Obstats and Imprimaturs -the symbols of Catholic orthodoxy- but which are books which teach anti-Catholic doctrines. Professor Raymond E. Brown's Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine (Paulist Press, 1985, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur) is one such volume. On pages 52-3 the author says that he agrees with the theology of the prominent Roman Catholic theologian, William Cardinal Baum, Prefect of the Roman Congregation for Catholic Education, who maintains that the evidence of scripture can't tell us the meaning of the most fundamental tenets of Christianity: scripture can't tell us the identity of Jesus, the meaning of his life and death, the obligations which Jesus placed on his followers, and the nature of Christ's triumph.

The theology which Professor Brown and Cardinal Baum advocate is anathema to conservative Protestants, but isn't it also anathema to Roman Catholicism? Brown's book received the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, but the censor must have been sleeping on the job.

When one says the evidence of scripture can't tell us the meaning of the most fundamental tenets of Christianity \- one is saying one can't trust the scriptures - then, isn't one saying Christ might not have died upon a cross? Jerome said ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ. We know what John 14. 23-26 says. It's understandable why an agnostic would say what Brown and Baum say, and, obviously, censors, people who hand out Nihil Obstats and Imprimaturs, are human beings, and are therefore liable to make mistakes. But, perhaps the censor wasn't sleeping on the job, perhaps he had some sort of agenda, some sort of method to his madness.

As we've seen, Matthew 26. 28 plainly states: `For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.' If one says this scripture is false or untrustworthy, one has renounced Christianity.

The Catechism contains many Paragraphs which assert that scripture was inspired by God, such as Paragraphs 101-141. We read in Paragraph 105 that God is the author of Sacred Scripture. In Paragraph 107 we read that the inspired books teach the truth. Paragraph 127 presents us with the words of St. Caesaria the Younger and St. Thérèse of Lisieux extolling the purity and beauty of the Gospels. The Catholic Encyclopedia, edited by Robert C. Broderick (Revised and Updated Edition, 1987, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, Thomas Nelson Publishers), under the listing of Inspiration of Scripture, asserts the scriptures were written under Divine inspiration. Paragraph 133 of the Catechism could have been written by any number of Protestants. In it St. Jerome states that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ.

Professor Brown states that scripture can't tell us the meaning of Christ's life and death.

The scriptures only tell us in the most unambiguous words that Jesus gave His life and endured the agony of the cross in an atoning sacrifice so that all who believe in Him shall have eternal life.

The scriptures assert that blood is necessary to wash away sins. In Hebrews 9. 11-28 we read:

`But Christ came as high Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance...So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.'

Ezekiel 20. 24, 25 reads:

`Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised My statutes and polluted My sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good and judgments whereby they should not live.'

Thus we see more proof that the Old Covenant needed to be placed in suspension. Psalm 40: 6,

`Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened, burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.'

The whole Old Covenant system of animal sacrifice is not at all good in the estimation of most people today. Exodus 29. 20 tells us that God wanted the blood of a ram to be placed on the tip of Aaron's right ear, and on the tips of the right ears of his sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. This curious little ritual certainly appears to be an example of God mocking man, mocking him because of his incessant rebellions and eternal heart of stone. Yet scripture is clear that even an Old Covenant law of the most frivolous aspect must not be discarded until a New Covenant has been given, for dire curses would crush the children of Israel if they rejected the slightest element of the Old Covenant. `Cursed be thy basket and thy store...'

Since the Jews currently reject Christianity and insist it is not the new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then, as the Temple has long since been razed, as the daily sacrifices have long since been taken away, as prophecy and vision seem to have long since been sealed, or so it seems, what has become of the true religion? Where is the religion of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Elijah..............?

The fact that there is no sanctified altar or Temple in Jerusalem means that Jews can't offer any animal sacrifices, but if the Mosaic Law is still to be enforced, if it is not in abeyance, then, those who abide by it must, evidently, still execute adulterers (Leviticus 20: 10), kill blasphemers (Leviticus 24: 16), kill false prophets (Deuteronomy 13: 5), execute homosexuals (Leviticus 20: 13), execute witches (Leviticus 20: 27), and keep all the other statutes such as not wearing clothing of mixed cloth, e. g., wool and linen, and purchasing only new houses which have parapets.

It's true that we never read in the Old Testament of dire punishments falling on the children of Israel for the transgressions of wearing clothing of heterogeneous fabrics, of wearing garments without tassels, for building dwellings without parapets -all of which are transgressions against the Mosaic Law. The terrible chastisements resulted when the children of Israel perpetrated grievous sins: when they bowed down before the Baals and Ashtoreths, when they played the harlot by serving these pagan gods, and when they oppressed the poor and poured out the blood of the innocent. An important lesson to be learned from the Old Testament is that while one might find it impossible to obey every statute in a Divine Legal Code, one must strive to avoid idolatry, injustice and all of the more serious transgressions.

Christianity says the Mosaic Law is an eternal law, but, it is held in suspension, it is in abeyance. The Mosaic Law is not enforced but the New Law is enforced. If Jews wish to insist that the Mosaic Law is not only an eternal law, but it is also not in abeyance, then, though they can not offer sacrifices in a Temple in Jerusalem, they must execute homosexuals, execute adulterers and execute enchantresses and enchanters etc. But, as the Jews don't enforce these laws in the Mosaic Law, they have reason to say the Mosaic Law has been in abeyance, and has been in abeyance for roughly 2,000 years. And Christians say: if the Mosaic Law can be in abeyance for 2,000 years, it can be in abeyance for eternity. It can be on the books for eternity, and therefore it can be an eternal law, as the Old Testament clearly says, but, now, the New Law, the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 is enforced, and the Mosaic Law is not enforced, albeit there are elements of the Mosaic Law which are also part of the New Law: the Ten Commandments, the law commanding just weights and measures etc.

Hosea 4: 6 informs us that God's people, i.e., the Jews, are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Hosea was writing long after the Mosaic Law was given to the children of Israel, thus, what is this knowledge which the Jews require? Christians assert that, as the Jews don't worship Jesus, and don't understand that Christianity is the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah xxxi: 31-34, and as the Jews are in open rebellion against the doctrine that Jesus is God (Isaiah 9: 6, I Timothy iii: 16, Colossians ii: 8-10, John 1: 1-14, John v: 23, Hebrews i: 5-8, Acts iii: 22 etc.), perdition awaits all who refuse to worship Jesus as God - 2 Thess 1. 8. If a Jewish person rejects the doctrine that Christianity is this new covenant, then, as the Temple has long since been destroyed, as the daily sacrifices have long since been taken away, what has become of the true religion, the religion of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah? Some say it wise to look to the 2.5 million words in the Babylonian Talmud.

In Arthur Hertzberg's Judaism (George Braziller, 1962, pp. 222-3) we're given the thirteen articles of faith as defined by Maimonides in his commentary on the Mishnah, which, we're informed, is as close as Judaism comes to a catechism. Article 8 says that the Torah which is in our possession is the same Torah as the one given to Moses. The Torah is the same thing as the first 5 books of the Christian Bible. Article 9 says the Torah will never be replaced. Jeremiah 31. 31-34 clearly tells of a new covenant. The Mosaic Law says the Law of Moses is an eternal law. Yes, it is eternal but it is not enforced, it is in abeyance, whereas the new covenant is enforced. If one doesn't accept this, then Maimonides' thirteen articles inform us that, in Talmudic Judaism, the Mosaic Law is still binding. Thus, if one wants to live under the Mosaic Law, if one trusts Maimonides when he said it is still binding, why would one hesitate to execute mediums and witches, homosexuals and children who rebel against their parents?

We had been considering Professor Brown's statement that scripture can't tell us the meaning of Christ's life and death. We have given a few details explaining why a new covenant was required: who wants to serve the Creator of the universe by slaughtering bulls and goats? by executing adulterers etc?

Professor Brown states that scripture can't tell us the identity of Jesus. Again, Colossians 2. 8-10,

`Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.'

Isaiah 9: 6,

`For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.'

1 Timothy 3: 16,

`And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.'

Zechariah 12: 10,

`And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him...'

Isaiah 53: 3-9,

`He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not...But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed...he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is mute, so he opened not his mouth...And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.'

Professor Brown states that scripture can't tell us the obligations which Jesus placed on his followers. But every neophyte Christian knows that Christ articulated two commandments: Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Matthew 28: 16-20,

`Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed to them. And when they saw Him they worshipped Him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all things which I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always to the end of the age."'

Professor Brown seems to have forgotten John 14: 23-26,

`Jesus answered him and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings...But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'

Scripture has nothing to say about a great many doctrines of the Church of Rome. St. Paul said a bishop must be a man of one wife - I Tim 3. 2 - and that's certainly heresy in Roman Catholicism. The scriptures say nothing about such `fundamental tenets of Christianity' as priests being forbidden to marry, the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, Purgatory, the Dogma of the Assumption of Vary, the necessity of venerating and praying to saints, the Bishop of Rome being the one Bishop who can never descend into heresy etc. Scripture never states that Mary was sinless. Paragraph 411 of the Catechism states she was sinless. Paragraph 721 of the Catechism includes: `Mary, the all-holy, ever-virgin Mother of God, is the masterwork of the mission of the Son and the Spirit in the fullness of time...' Paragraph 2030 mentions `the all-holy Virgin Mary.' So, Case 1: Rome teaches the True Faith: Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition. Always obey Rome. Case 2. Rome has fallen away from the True Faith - recall 2 Thess 2 - Rome leads souls to perdition.

If you wish to always obey Rome you should recall that Paragraph 952 of the Catechism tells us the possessions of a true Christian must be considered the possessions of everyone. That is, the luxurious possessions of the Catholic industrialist belong also to the Atheist janitor who cleans the cathedral where the industrialist attends mass. Paragraph 837 tells us that those people in the Catholic Church who do not persevere in charity will not be saved. The right encapsulation of the New Testament's teaching, in my opinion at least, is that there is more or less equal sharing of the wealth in the True Church. The able-bodied are expected to work, and charity is given to those who are unable to work. Given what we read in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, given what we read in Matthew 25. 31-46, given what we read in all of the New Testament scriptures which deal with money, I think it is fair to say that in the True Church there is equal sharing of the wealth among those who labor. If one Christian decides to work 16 hours per day then he probably should earn 4 times as much as the Christian who labors only 4 hours per day. Acts 2. 44-45 and Acts 4. 32 certainly supports this sort of arrangement. This is not to say that no Christian charity is given to needy non-Christians, but the amount of charity given is left to individual Christians to decide what they wish to give.

Ephesians 4. 1-6 tells us there is one body (church), one faith and one baptism. When Professor Brown says scripture is inconclusive in helping us define the meanings of the most fundamental tenets of Christianity, he seems to be saying there might not be one body, one True Church. To say that Matthew 16. 13-19 can not tell us the meaning of a very fundamental tenet of Christianity is both anti-Christian and anti-Catholic.

Matthew 24. 27 tells of Christ's Second Coming, which will be as the lightning which shoots from east to west. Many hold that the doctrine which says that scripture can't tell us the fundamental tenets of Christianity is a malevolent doctrine, because, for one reason, it leads the naive to become disillusioned with scripture, and thereby leads the naive to perdition. It calls into question the validity of Matthew 24. 27, which, again, asserts that Christ's Second Coming will be as the lightning which shoots from east to west. If people don't believe scripture is trustworthy, then they will be inclined to follow charlatans, false messiahs, people who have not arrived on earth as the lightning which shoots from east to west.

The Catechism is clear in stating that scripture is inspired by God. Paragraphs 101 to 141 are clear on this matter. Paragraph 136 says, `God is the author of Sacred Scripture because he inspired its human authors...'

The Roman Catholic Church insists that her priests, monks and bishops, that is, bishops other than the Bishop of Rome, may descend into heresy - note Wycliffe, Luther and Donatus - but no Pope can ever be a heretic. The Roman Catholic Church is quite clear that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ and it will always be evil to excommunicate the Vicar of Christ. Therefore the Vicar of Christ, the Pope, can never be a heretic; he can never be someone who leads souls to hell: someone who must be excommunicated by the elect.

People such as Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and St. Ambrose, the Archbishop of Milan, rejected the assertion that the Bishop of Rome was the one Bishop in all of Christendom who could not fall into heresy. Therefore, these people were Catholics but they were not Roman Catholics, not if we define a Roman Catholic as someone who believes that the Church of Rome and only the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963, XI., p. 722) says that Pope Honorius I. was condemned as a heretic in 681 by the Third Council of Constantinople. Pope Leo II. confirmed this condemnation in 682. The Britannica (1963, VI., p. 636) says Pope Honorius was also anathematized as a heretic by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787

Philip Schaff and Henry Wace informed us of the following in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Eerdmans, Second Series, XIV., pp. 351, 352),

`Most Roman controversialists of recent years have admitted both the fact of Pope Honorius's condemnation (which Baronius denies)...I shall...simply supply the leading proofs that Honorius was as a matter of fact condemned by the Sixth Ecumenical Council. 1. His condemnation is found in the Acts in the xiijth Session...3. In the xvith Session the bishops exclaimed "Anathema to the heretic Sergius, to the heretic Cyrus, to the heretic Honorius, etc." 4) In the decree of faith published at the xviiith Session it is stated that "the originator of all evil...found a fit tool for his will in...Honorius, Pope of Old Rome, etc." 5) The report of the Council to the Emperor says that "Honorius, formerly bishop of Rome" they had "punished with exclusion and anathema" because he followed the monothelites...8. Pope Leo II. confirmed the decrees of the Council and expressly says that he too anathematized Honorius. 9. That Honorius was anathematized by the Sixth Council is mentioned in the Trullan Canons (No. j.)...12. The Papal Oath as found in the Liber Diurnus taken by each new Pope from the fifth to the eleventh century..."smites with eternal anathema the originators of the new heresy, Sergius, etc., together with Honorius..." 13. In the lesson for the feast of St. Leo II. in the Roman Breviary the name of Pope Honorius occurs among those excommunicated by the Sixth Synod. Upon this we may well hear Bossuet: "They suppress as far as they can, the Liber Diurnus: they have erased this from the Roman Breviary. Have they therefore hidden it? Truth breaks out from all sides, and these things become so much more evident, as they are the more studiously put out of sight."'

George Brantl's Catholicism (George Braziller, 1962) brandishes the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur, the signs and seals of Catholic orthodoxy. On page 167 we find the words of John Cardinal Newman on the credenda. We are enlightened that every Catholic priest and laymen must profess this credenda. And what is the credenda? Cardinal Newman explained that it consists of the canons of the Councils and all of the innumerable decisions of the Popes. The rationale behind professing the credenda runs as follows: if one believes that the authority of the Pope is from God, then one will trust the Pope.

An ardent Catholic will argue as follows: the Pope and the Bishops in communion with the Pope teach with the authority of Christ - Paragraphs 888 and 2034 - therefore, they are quite trustworthy in all matters concerning faith and morals.

When considering this falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2 it is natural to look to the 4th century, when Christianity ceased to be a persecuted sect and instead became a persecutor. Some version of Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, the religion of bloodthirsty barbarians. They were splashed with baptismal water but they remained barbarians. Kings and nobles were baptized, but they were, generally speaking, still barbarians at heart. Advance a few centuries and one finds only more evidence saying the Church of Rome had fallen away from the Faith practiced by Christ and the apostles. The 13th century bull of Innocent IV., Ad extirpanda, authorized inquisitors to use torture on people suspected of being rebels against the authority of Rome. The 16th century bull of Leo X.'s, Honestis (see Durant, The Renaissance, p. 527), resulted in the executions of thousands of people for the crime of disagreeing with Rome. Again, Will Durant assured us that the popes sanctioned the use of inquisitional torture against girls as young as twelve and women as old as eighty. Durant reminded us that as early as the seventh century the Council of Toledo decreed that if baptized Jews fell away from Catholicism and relapsed into Judaism, their children were to be taken away from them, and these parents were to then be sold into slavery. Under medieval canon law, the medieval Catholic Church removed Jewish children from the custody of their parents if these parents, whether forcibly or peaceably baptized into the Catholic Church, attempted to renounce their Catholic baptism. Heinrich Graetz told us in his History of the Jews (The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1894) that the Council of Mácon, in 581, ordered all Jews to stand before Catholic priests until they were bidden to sit. Malefactors who violated this decree were to be severely punished. The matricide King Clotaire was considered a model of Catholic piety in his time. His son, Dagobert, another `faithful son of the Church,' gave the Jewish population in his kingdom the ultimatum of either accepting baptism or suffering death. The Council of Narbonne forbade Jews to sing Psalms at funerals. The Council of Carthage made Jewish testimony against Christians inadmissable in court. The Council of Toledo authorized the persecution of forcibly baptized Jews who refused to abandon Jewish practices. Children were to be taken from backsliding parents and raised in monasteries. Salo W. Baron asserted that under Pope Paul IV. It was illegal to address a Jew as "Sir." Peter De Rosa said Pope Paul IV. filled a house full of `state-of-the-art instruments of torture.'

To look again at Professor Raymond E. Brown's Biblical Exegesis & Church Doctrine, we see a huge problem on pp. 52-3, where the author writes,

`Two quotations from prominent Roman Catholic figures embody my message in this chapter. William Cardinal Baum, Prefect of the Roman Congregation for Catholic Education, stated in the Jan 27, 1980 Washington Star: "The `evidence' of Scripture - both to the scholar and even to the believer - is of itself, inconclusive in determining the meaning of the most fundamental tenets of the Christian faith: the identity of Jesus, the meaning of his life and death, the nature of his triumph, the obligations imposed on his followers, the consequences of his life for us, etc." That recognition of the limits of the NT [New Testament] critically studied is complemented by the affirmation of Karl Rahner [The Shape of the World to Come p. 54] "The church cannot be a debating society: it must be able to make decisions binding on all within it...'

Scripture is inconclusive about the obligations imposed on Christ's followers? Matthew 25. 34-46,

`Then the King will say to those on His right hand, "Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in...inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to Me." Then He will also say to those on His left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in...inasmuch as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to Me. And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."'

"The `evidence' of Scripture - both to the scholar and even to the believer - is of itself, inconclusive in determining the meaning of the most fundamental tenets of the Christian faith: the identity of Jesus, the meaning of his life and death, the nature of his triumph, the obligations imposed on his followers, the consequences of his life for us, etc."

Jesus says in John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

Matthew 16. 13-19,

`When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the son of Man, am? So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'

2 Timothy 3. 16,

`All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.'

"The `evidence' of Scripture - both to the scholar and even to the believer - is of itself, inconclusive in determining the meaning of the most fundamental tenets of the Christian faith: the identity of Jesus, the meaning of his life and death, the nature of his triumph, the obligations imposed on his followers, the consequences of his life for us, etc."

St. Paul states in Colossians 2. 8-10,

`Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power.'

"The `evidence' of Scripture - both to the scholar and even to the believer - is of itself, inconclusive in determining the meaning of the most fundamental tenets of the Christian faith: the identity of Jesus, the meaning of his life and death, the nature of his triumph, the obligations imposed on his followers, the consequences of his life for us, etc."

A little epitome of scripture:

1) Jeremiah 31. 31-34, God will write His new covenant on the hearts of His people.

2) Matthew 26: 28, `For this is My blood of the new covenant....'

3) Hebrews 8: 8-13, Christianity is the new covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31. 31-34.

4) Ephesians 4. 1-6, There is one faith and one baptism. There is one body, one True Church.

5) Gal 1. 8, One is accursed if one alters St. Paul's doctrine.

6) 2 Cor 11. 13-15, Satan masquerades as an angel of light.

7) Jude 3, The faith was once delivered to the saints.

8) Romans 11. 25-29, The Jews are still God's people.

9) Luke 13, 3 - Repent or Perish.

10) Ezekiel 20. 25, Bad statutes - thus the need for a New Covenant.

11) Matthew 16. 13-19, the Church founded by Christ on a rock will prevail against evil.

12) Rev 14. 6-7, Angelic message to worship the Creator.

13) John 1. 1-14, Jesus created heaven and earth.

14) Isaiah 9. 6 - Old Testament evidence saying the Son is Divine.

15) Col 2. 8-10, Jesus is God.

16) I Tim 3. 16, Jesus is God.

17) Hebrews 1. 1-3, Jesus is God.

18) Phil 2. 5-11, Jesus is God.

19) Rev 13. 7, Saints conquered by a malevolent force.

20) Daniel 12. 2 - The clearest Old Testament verse regarding eternal life.

21) Isaiah 7. 14, the Messiah will be born of a virgin.

22) Micah 5. 2, the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.

23) Daniel 9. 24-27, the Messiah will be `cut off' before 70 AD.

24) Hosea 4. 6, Jews destroyed for lack of knowledge.

25) Hebrews 11, Faith is required to please God.

26) Hebrews 9. 11-28, Epitome of Christianity.

27) I John 2. 22-23, Those who deny the Son deny the Father.

28) Psalm 2, God has a Son who will rule the world with a rod of iron.

29) Proverbs 30. 4, God has a Son.

30) Daniel 3. 24-25, The Son of God.

31) Gen i. 2, The Spirit of God.

32) Gen 6. 3, The Spirit.

33) Psalm 51. 11, The Holy Spirit.

34) I Sam 16. 14, The Spirit.

35) Isaiah 61. 1, Spirit of God.

36) Isaiah 53., The Suffering Servant.

37) Psalm 22, A suffering servant.

38) Deut 18. 15-19, The promise of a Prophet.

39) Gen 49. 10, Jacob's prophecy of the Messiah.

40) Job 19. 25, Job's Redeemer shall stand on earth.

41) Matthew 24. 27, Christ's Second Coming will be as lightning.

42) Numbers 24. 9, One is blessed for blessing the Jews and one is cursed for cursing the Jews.

43) I John 4. 1-3, Test the spirits.

44) 2 Tim 3. 16, Scripture is inspired by God.

45) I Samuel 15. 23, Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

46) Daniel 7. 13-14, The Son of Man.

47) Isaiah 29. 10-14, Spiritual blindness of the Jews.

48) Job 17. 4, God hides understanding from mockers.

49) Psalm 118. 21-2, The Chief Cornerstone rejected.

50) Psalm 78. 2, Regarding parables.

51) Romans 1. 18-32, Wrath of God poured upon those who suppress the truth.

52) James 1. 27, True religion is looking after widows and orphans.

53) James 2. 20, Faith without works is dead.

54) Ephesians 2. 8, By grace are ye are saved...it is the gift of God.

55) Proverbs 3. 34, Grace is given to the humble.

56) Proverbs 10. 12, Love covers a multitude of sins.

57) Luke 7. 47, Love covers many sins.

58) I Peter iv. 8, love covers a multitude of sins

59) Malachi 3. 1, Prophecy regarding John the Baptist.

60) Haggai 2. 9, Second Temple more glorious than Solomon's Temple.

61) Luke 19. 47, Jesus taught daily in the Second Temple.

62) John 6. 53-58, Holy Communion.

63) 2 Tim 3. 7, Heretics always learning yet always lost.

64) I Tim 4. 1-3, Future heresies.

65) Luke 13: 3, 5, Repent or perish.

66) John 5: 23, One must honor the Son to honor the Father.

67) Job 18: 4, God hides understanding from mockers.

68) 2 Thes 2. The son of perdition, the falling away, strong delusion

69) Rev 22. 18-19, Curses for altering the Book of Revelation.

70) 2 Thess 1: 8, Fire for those who disobey the gospel and who do not know God.

71) Revelation 21: 8, Fire for unbelievers, for the immoral, for all liars.

72) Deut 6: 5, Commandment to Love God.

73) Exodus 20: 17, The Ten Commandments: i) You shall have no other gods before Me. ii) Prohibition against graven images. iii) Prohibition against taking God's name in vain. iv) Keep the Sabbath holy. v) Honor thy father and thy mother. vi) Thou shalt not murder. vii) Though shalt not commit adultery. viii) Though shalt not steal. ix) Thou shalt not bear false witness. x) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, wife, goods.

74) Zech 12, A suffering Messiah.

75) Ephesians 1: 4-5, Regarding predestination.
76) Romans 8: 29-30, Regarding predestination.

77) I Cor 2: 9, Wonderful rewards for those who love God.

78) Philippians 4. 8, Meditate on that which is noble and beautiful.

79) I Corinthians 6 - drunkards, fornicators, revelers, homosexuals etc. will be damned.

80) John 16: 7, The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.

81) John 20: 22, `He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit..."'

82) James 4: 4, A friend of the world is the enemy of God.

83) I John 2: 22-23, Whoever denies the Son is antichrist.

84) Ezekiel 36. 24-28 - regarding Zionism and the Divine Law

85) I Chronicles 29: 17 - God takes pleasure in the upright.

86) 2 Chronicles 12: 14 - Rehoboam did evil, he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord.

87) 2 Samuel 23: 3 "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.'

88) Job 28: 28, Fear of the Lord is wisdom.

89) Hebrews 13: 2, Do not neglect to entertain strangers, some are angels.

90) I Timothy 3: 2, Bishops must have only one wife.

91) I Timothy 4: 1-3 Heresies regarding the forbiddance of marriage and eating meat.

92) Daniel ix. 24-27 - Messiah cut-off before the destruction of the sanctuary, before 70 AD

93) Proverbs 3: 34 - God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

94) James 1: 27 - True religion is keeping oneself unsullied from the world and looking after widows and orphans.

95) I John 5: 3, `For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments

96) John 14: 15, Christ's words, `if ye love me, keep my commandments.'

97) John 14: 23-26, `Jesus answered him and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings...But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

98) We read the words of Jesus in John 15. 6-12,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified...If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.' And recall that in the Lord's Prayer we are reminded to pray for God's will to be done not our will - `Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'

99) Matthew 7: 15-21, `Beware of false prophets...you will know them by their fruits...Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire...Not everyone who says to Me "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.'

100) Acts 20: 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

101) Matthew 6: 14-15, `For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.'

§ 9. Professing the Credenda

Pope John Paul II. informed us in his Agenda for the New Millennia that true Christians have always been in tune with the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. The magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is the teaching authority of the pope and of those bishops who are in communion with the pope. Again, in `Catholicism', edited by George Brantl, 1962, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur (pp. 166-8, George Braziller) we find the words of John Cardinal Newman. He informs us that the true Christian must profess the credenda, that is, every priest and layman must profess as revealed truth all the canons of the Councils and the innumerable decisions of the popes. The reasoning for professing the credenda is that if one believes that the Roman Catholic Church is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, and if one believes that the pope is the Vicar of Christ, if one believes the authority of the Roman Catholic Church is from God, then one will profess the truth of all that the Church of Rome teaches. John Paul II.'s assertion that true Christians have always been in tune with the magisterium is equivalent to stating that all true Christians profess the credenda.

G. G. Coulton wrote in his Medieval Panorama (Cambridge at the Press, 1940):

`Innocent III...In 1205...laid down the principle that all Jews were doomed to perpetual servitude because they had crucified Jesus. Thus St Thomas Aquinas is on unassailable ground when he decides that, "since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, she can dispose of their possessions." In 1215 Innocent imposed upon their garments a perpetual badge of infamy; and Archbishop Langton enforced this in England (1218).'

Rome has declared St. Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church, which means Rome has declared that St. Thomas Aquinas has never taught a single heresy. One can decide for oneself if, in Coulton's extract above, he taught the truth or not. To profess the credenda one must profess that Innocent III. was right to have declared that the Jews are doomed to perpetual servitude.

St. Joan of Arc seems to have been out of tune with the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church when it burned her at the stake. St. Athanasius spoke of himself as sola contra mundum, and that he held firm to the Nicene Creed when Pope Liberius capitulated to the Arian point of view - the Son is not equal to the Father. St. Bridget was an enemy of the papacy (p. 120, Margaret Aston, The Fifteenth Century, W. W. Norton, 1979). We read that St. Bridget called the pope `a murderer of souls,' and said he was akin to Lucifer in his envy. Maria Luisa Ambrosini informs us that it was Clement VI. who St. Bridget saw as Lucifer (p. 116, The Secret Archives of the Vatican, Barnes and Noble, 1996.

R. W. Southern informed us that St. Anselm was hostile to crusading when the magisterium was in favor of it. When we speak of Cluny, St. Bernard, Leo IX., and Pope St. Gregory VII., we speak of a movement which sought to reform a long tradition in the Catholic Church in which men gave gold to princes to purchase episcopal offices. If we consider St. Bernard, Leo IX. and Pope St. Gregory VII. to be on the enlightened side on this issue, then these men were hardly in tune with the simoniacal magisterium which they inveighed against. St. Bernard was certainly out of tune with the pope whom he reproved for having Jewish ancestors. Gibbon told us that St. Bernard was an enemy of the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary -albeit it wasn't until the 19th century that this semi-official doctrine became an official Dogma. St. Thomas More was out of tune with those popes and bishops who reverenced Scholastic Philosophy, as More liken it to milking a billy-goat into a sieve. St. Anthony of Padua excoriated the clergy and the magisterium of his time (p. 158, Maurice Keen, The Pelican History of Medieval Europe, Penguin, 1985). We find St. Anthony of Padua proclaiming that only the laity are faithful. He casts the wicked prelates into smoky hells of never ending pain. Williston Walker writes in his A History of the Christian Church (p. 89, Revised edition, 1959, Scribner's) that St. Cyprian of Carthage `energetically resisted' the teaching of Pope Stephen (245-57) that baptism by heretics was effectual provided the baptism was done in correct form. In The Age of Faith, p. 810, Durant quotes St. Hildegarde of Bingen: she damned the Empire and the Papacy, saying they were both sunk in impiety and would crumble away. Durant informed us that in 897 Pope Stephen VI. had the corpse of Pope Formosus (891-6) exhumed and dressed in purple robes; the corpse was then given a trial before an ecclesiastical council, being accused of violating certain Church laws. The corpse of the late pontiff was condemned, stripped, mutilated, and finally hurled into the Tiber. Gregorovius eloquently described Pope St. Gregory VII., the enemy of the Emperor, aligning himself with the Normans and the Saracens, with the soldiers who sacked Rome and who slaughtered the Catholic citizens of Rome. E. R. Chamberlin, writing in The Bad Popes, chronicled Boniface VIII.'s crusade against the Colonna. Boniface gave his crusaders `divine sanction' to slaughter the Catholic vassals of that Italian family. These were ordinary Catholics who had nothing to do with Boniface's war against the Colonna, save that they were the peasants of the Colonna and bound by feudal ties to serve them.

Pope St. Celestine V. had resigned the papal throne. His successor, Boniface VIII., imprisoned St. Celestine, and, many speculate, had murdered. Gibbon repeated the old adage about Boniface: `he assumed power like a fox, ruled like a lion, and died like a dog,' Dante called him the Black Beast. And Dante, speaking of the papacy and the rapacious nobles with whom the papacy consorted, wrote, in The Inferno: `the beasts she weds herself to are legion.' Peter De Rosa said that Clement VI., who we recall was likened by St. Bridget to Lucifer, made love to his mistresses directly above his victims suffering in the papal torture chambers. Again, Peter De Rosa informed us in his Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy (Crown, 1988) that the ferocious Pope Paul IV. filled a house, at his own expense, with state-of-the-art instruments of torture. Protestants should remember that much of the ferocity of the Popes and their Inquisitions was directed against ordinary Catholics, people who were the guileless victims of a tyrannical machine. Mr. De Rosa said Benedict IX. was eleven years old when he was elevated to the papal throne in 1032. According to Monsignor Duchesne, Benedict was an offensive urchin. St Peter Damian called him a wretch and said he feasted on immorality during his entire pontificate. Benedict IX. sold the papacy to Gregory VI. and then tried to steal it back (Keen, p. 44). The Council of Pisa elevated Pope John XXIII. to the papal throne in the 15th century. Two popes have assumed the style of John XXIII., and neither one of them has been declared an anti-pope by the Catholic Church. The Council of Constance had accepted the abdication of the first pope John XXIII., doing so while it was preparing to depose him on the accusations of murder, rape, simony, fornication etc. Milman and Durant asserted he seduced 200 virgins, nuns, and matrons. The Council of Constance burned Jan Hus at the stake. His transgression? Having the infernal impudence to doubt the Christ-like authority of popes such as John XXIII. David Christie-Murray writes in his Oxford History of Heresy that, when the magisterium was keen on using inquisitional torments to force the stray sheep back into the Catholic fold, St. Francis de Sales, the Bishop of Geneva, was opposed to such cruelty. We read that via his novel tactic of non-violent oratory St. Francis de Sales converted 72,000 Calvinists back to Catholicism.

Thus, even if we were to stipulate that all people canonized by the Church of Rome are True Christians, it does not follow that all True Christians have been in tune with the magisterium.

Of course many people canonized by Rome were in tune with the Magisterium, such as Capistrano, Borromeo and Pius V. Mrs. H. M. Vernon informs us in her Italy From 1494 to 1790 (Cambridge at the University Press, 1909) that Michele Ghislieri, also known as St. Pius V., was responsible for reviving the horrors of Caraffa's [Pope Paul IV.] time. Carnesecchi was burned at the stake in 1567, Paleario in 1570. An Archbishop of Milan, St. Carlo Borromeo, later to be canonized, unleashed a reign of terror against `witches' and heretics. Hundreds of women were tortured and forced to `confess.'

Will Durant in The Age of Louis XIV said St. Pius V. ordered the Catholic princes to confine their Jews to ghettos so as to protect the Christian population. The Jews were ordered to wear distinguishing garb and badges. They were forbidden to own land. They were permitted only one synagogue per city. St. Pius V. issued a bull accusing the Jews of usury and procuring, witchcraft and magic arts. Christopher Hare (pseudonym of Marian Andrews) informs us in her Men and Woman of the Italian Reformation (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York) that the doctrine of the Antipodes - a radical doctrine which holds that the earth is a sphere - was condemned as a damnable heresy by Pope Zacharias. Much later, and due in part to their obstinate adherence to the doctrine of the Antipodes, Peter of Abano was condemned by the Inquisition in 1316, and Cecco d'Ascoli was burned alive in Florence a few years later. Graetz told us that Ferdinand III. of Castile is recognized as a Catholic saint because of his zeal in burning heretics with his own hands. Lea and Coulton said St. Leo I. was pleased with the torture and condemnation of Priscillian, the 4th century bishop of Avila, and the first Christian to be judicially tortured and executed for heresy by his fellow Christians. Southern reported that St. Olaf of Norway made a profitable post-baptismal career out of violence and destruction in the lands stretching from the Bay of Biscay to the Baltic (The Making of the Middle Ages, p. 26). The Britannica (1963) says of him:

`After his death his cunning and cruelty were forgotten, and his services to his church and country remembered. Miracles were worked at his tomb, and in 1164 he was canonized and was declared the patron saint of Norway.'

The standard criticism of St. Louis is that he once said: `you refute a Jew by thrusting a sword through his belly.' Gibbon asserted that St. Louis: `pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith.' In his History of Europe During the Middle Ages (The Colonial Press, New York, 1899) Henry Hallam said of St. Louis: `no man was ever more impressed with a belief in the duty of exterminating all enemies to his own faith.' Sachar said St. Louis detested Jews to such an extreme degree that he literally couldn't bear to look at them. Lea said St. Louis threw innocent Jews of Carcassonne into prison and ordered his guards to extort money from them. Caught between St. Louis and Pope Gregory IX., relates Sachar, the Jews of the 13th century dined upon the bread of affliction. Lecky stated that it was St. Louis who invented the custom in Christendom of desecrating the corpses of those who committed suicide.

Coulton tells us that St. Thomas Aquinas defined the relationship between the Catholic Church and the medieval Jews: `since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, she has the right to dispose of their property.' Solomon Grayzel said that St. Cyril of Alexandria organized bloody persecutions against the Jews (A History of the Jews, p. 249).

The Catholic Church in the 4th century did not see the Bishop of Rome as the one Bishop in all of Christendom who could not descend into heresy. The Dogma of Papal Infallibility, the Dogma of the Assumption of Mary, a celibate priesthood, the Inquisition, and papal supremacy had no part in the Catholic Church in the 4th century, albeit relic-worship was becoming fashionable. When St. Paul wrote his Epistles to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Thessalonians, the Ephesians etc., etc., the saints in these churches did not need the Bishop of Rome to tell them if these epistles were authoritative or not. Popes such as Gregory VII., Innocent III. and Boniface VIII. not only claimed the Bishop of Rome was the Supreme Bishop but also claimed he was the true ruler of the world. That makes perfect sense if Rome is the True Church. But if Rome is not...

Dr. Mackay writes in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,

`In the year 1459, a devoted congregation of Waldenses at Arras, who used to repair at night to worship God in their own manner in solitary places, fell victims to an accusation of sorcery. It was rumored in Arras that in the desert places to which they retired the devil appeared to them in human form, and read from a large book his laws and ordinances, to which they all promised obedience; that he then distributed money and food among them, to bind them to his service, which done, they gave themselves up to every species of lewdness and debauchery. Upon these rumors several creditable persons in Arras were seized and imprisoned, together with a number of decrepit and idiotic old women. The rack, that convenient instrument for making the accused confess anything, was of course put in requisition. Monstrelet, in his chronicle, says they were tortured until some of them admitted the truth of the whole accusation, and said, besides, that they had seen and recognized in their nocturnal assemblies many persons of rank; many prelates, seigneurs, governors of bailliages, and mayors of cities, being such names as the examiners had themselves suggested to the victims. Several who had been informed against were thrown into prison, and so horribly tortured, that reason fled...The poor old women, as usual in such cases, were hanged and burned in the market-place; the more wealthy delinquents were allowed to escape upon payment of large sums...John Baptist Cibo, elected to the papacy in 1485, under the designation of Innocent VIII., was sincerely alarmed at the number of witches...In order that criminals so atrocious might no longer pollute the earth, he appointed inquisitors in every country, armed with the apostolic power to convict and punish. It was now that the Witch Mania, properly so called, may be said to have fairly commenced...The Reformation, which in its progress had rooted out so many errors, stopped short at this, the greatest error of all. Luther and Calvin were as firm believers in witchcraft as Pope Innocent himself; and their followers shewed themselves more zealous persecutors than the Romanists.'

§ 10. Milman, Lea and Symonds

The degree of authority one ought to grant to various Church Fathers is a rather delicate issue. Consider the Nestorian Controversy. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, didn't like one of the standard honorifics for the Virgin Mary - `The Mother of God.' Nestorius agreed that Mary needed to be honored, and he professed the Nicene Creed, that is, the Son is equal to the Father, but, for one reason or another, the term: The Mother of God offended his sensibilities.

Milman writes of this and other matters in his `History of Latin Christianity',

`All Alexandria respected, honored, took pride in the celebrated Hypatia. She was a woman of extraordinary learning; in her was centered the lingering knowledge of that Alexandrian Platonism cultivated by Plotinus and his school. Her beauty was equal to her learning; her modesty commended both. She mingled freely with the philosophers without suspicion to her lofty and unblemished character. Hypatia lived in great intimacy with the prefect Orestes; the only charge whispered against her was that she encouraged him in his hostility to the patriarch...Some of Cyril's ferocious partisans seized this woman, dragged her from her chariot, and with the most indecency tore her clothes off, and then rent her limb from limb. The Christians of Alexandria did this, professing to be actuated by Christian zeal in the cause of a Christian prelate. No wonder, in the words of the ecclesiastical historian, that by such a deed a deep stain was fixed on Cyril and the Church of Alexandria. It was this man who now stood forth as the head and representative of Eastern Christendom, the assertor of pure Christian doctrine, the antagonist of heresy on the Episcopal throne of Constantinople...Cyril...followed up the blow with four epistles...The address to the Emperor commences in an Oriental tone of adulation, the servility of which would have been as abhorrent to an ancient Roman as its impiety to a primitive Christian. The Emperor is the image of God upon earth: as the Divine Majesty fills heaven and awes the angels, so his serene dignity the earth, and is the source of all human happiness. This emperor was the feeble boy, Theodosius II...Nowhere is Christianity less attractive, and, if we look to the ordinary and character of the proceedings, less authoritative, than in the Councils of the church. It is in general a fierce collision of two rival factions, neither of which will yield...Intrigue, injustice, violence, decisions on authority alone, and that the authority of a turbulent majority...detract from the reverence, and impugn the judgments, at least of the latter Councils. The close is almost invariably a terrible anathema, in which it is impossible not to discern the tones of human hatred, of arrogant triumph, of rejoicing at the damnation imprecated against the humiliated adversary. Even the venerable Council of Nicaea commenced with mutual accusals and recriminations, which were suppressed by the moderation of the emperor...The proceedings now commenced: the Nicene Creed was read, and then Cyril's letter to Nestorius...One after another the bishops rose, and in language more or less vehement, pronounced the tenets of Nestorius to be blasphemous, and uttered the stern anathema. All then joined in one tumultuous cry, `Anathema to him who does not anathematize Nestorius.' The church rang with the fatal and reëchoed word, "Anathema, anathema! The whole world unites in the excommunication: anathema on him who holds communion with Nestorius!'...An imperial letter arrived...strongly reproving the proceedings of the council, annulling all its decrees...The Oriental Bishops gradually began to separate the cause of Nestorius from their own. They insisted much more on the heresy of Cyril than on the orthodoxy of Nestorius. They accused him of asserting that the Godhead of the only begotten Son of God suffered, not the Manhood...The masculine but ascetic mind of Pulcheria, the sister, the guardian, the Empress, she may be called, of the Emperor, with her rigid devotion to orthodoxy and her monastic character, was not likely to swerve from the dominant feeling of the Church; to comprehend the fine Oriental Spiritualism which would keep the Deity absolutely aloof from all intercourse with matter, as implied in his possibility: least of all, to endure any impeachment on the Mother of God, the tutelary Deity, and the glory of her sex. The power of the Virgin in the Court of Heaven was a precedent for that of holy females in the courts of earth...Pope Leo addresses her as having expelled the crafty enemy from the Church: her name was constantly saluted in the streets of Constantinople as the enemy of heretics. Nestorius was quietly abandoned by both parties...The Eunuch minister, who had been his powerful supporter, died...the Eunuch had most impartially condescended to receive bribes from the opposite faction also. When the Emperor ordered his vast treasures to be opened, confiscated no doubt to the Imperial use, a receipt was found for many pounds of gold received from Cyril...'

Dr. Lea,

"On secular jurisprudence the example of the Inquisition worked even more deplorably. It came at a time when the old order of things was giving way to the new -when the ancient customs of the barbarians, the ordeal, the wager of law, the wergild, were growing obsolete in the increasing intelligence of the age, when a new system was springing to life under the revived study of the Roman law, and when the administration of justice by the local feudal lord was becoming swallowed up in the widening jurisdiction of the crown. The whole judicial system of the European monarchies was undergoing reconstruction, and the happiness of future generations depended on the character of the new institutions. That in this reorganization the worst features of the imperial jurisprudence -the use of torture and the inquisitorial process- should be eagerly, nay, almost exclusively adopted, should be divested of the safeguards which in Rome restricted their abuse, should be exaggerated in all their evil tendencies, and should, for five centuries, become the prominent characteristic of the criminal jurisprudence of Europe, may safely be ascribed to the fact that they received the sanction of the Church. Thus recommended, they penetrated everywhere along the Inquisition; while most of the nations to whom the Holy Office was unknown maintained their ancestral customs, developing into various forms of criminal practice, harsh enough, indeed, to modern eyes, but wholly divested of the more hideous atrocities which characterized the habitual investigation into crime in other regions. Of all the curses which the Inquisition brought in its train this, perhaps, was the greatest -that, until the closing years of the eighteenth century, throughout the greater part of Europe, the inquisitorial process, as developed for the destruction of heresy, became the customary method of dealing with all who were under accusation; that the accused was treated as one having no rights, whose guilt was assumed in advance, and from whom confession was to be extorted by guile or force. Even witnesses were treated in the same fashion; and the prisoner who acknowledged guilt under torture was tortured again to obtain information about any other evil-doers of whom he perchance might have knowledge. So, also the crime of `suspicion' was imported from the Inquisition into ordinary practice, and the accused who could not be convicted of the crime laid to his door could be punished for being suspected of it, not with the penalty legally provided for the offence, but with some other, at the fancy and discretion of the judge. It would be impossible to compute the amount of misery and wrong, inflicted on the defenseless up to the present century, which may be directly traced to the arbitrary and unrestricted methods introduced by the Inquisition and adopted by the jurists who fashioned the criminal jurisprudence of the Continent. It was a system which might well seem the invention of demons, and was fitly characterized by Sir John Fortescue as the Road to Hell."

John Addington Symonds writes in Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction (Smith, Elder & Co, London):

`Paul III. empowered Caraffa in 1542 to re-establish the Inquisition in Rome upon a new basis resembling the Spanish Holy Office...At the same time the Jesuits, devoted by their founder in blind obedience - perinde as cadaver - to the service of the Papacy, penetrated Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the transatlantic colonies...While he was still a young man of twenty-five, he was raised to the Cardinalate by Alexander VI. This advancement he owed to the influence of his sister Giulia [Giulia Farnese], surnamed La Bella, who was then the Borgia's mistress...His sister was the Du Barry of the Borgian Court. He was himself the father of several illegitimate children...Caraffa [Pope Paul IV.] complained to Paul III. that `the whole of Italy is infected with the Lutheran heresy, which had been embraced not only by statesmen but also by many ecclesiastics.' Pius V. was so panic-stricken by the prevalence of heresy in Faenza that he seriously meditated destroying the town and dispersing the inhabitants...`At Rome,' writes a resident in 1568, `some are burned daily, hanged, or beheaded; the prisons and places of confinement are filled, and they are obliged to build new ones.'...A memorable massacre took place in the year 1561 in Calabria within the province of Cosenza. Here at the end of the fourteenth century a colony of Waldensians had settled in some villages upon the coast. They preserved their peculiar beliefs and ritual, and after three centuries numbered about 4,000 souls. Nearly the whole of these, it seems, were exterminated by sword, fire, famine, torture, noisome imprisonment, and hurling from the summits of high cliffs...An eye-witness gives a heart-rending account of these persecutions; sixty thrown from the Guardia, eighty-eight butchered like beasts in one day at Montalto, seven burned alive, one hundred old women tortured and then slaughtered...'

As we've seen, Bishop Priscillian was the first Christian to be judicially murdered by his fellow Christians, specifically by the Catholic usurper Maximus. Pope St. Leo the Great approved of this execution. St. Martin and St. Ambrose were appalled by it. The Council of Ephesus in 449 was the first Christian Council to be defiled by bloodshed. Bishop Flavianus died a few days after being struck by the blows, it is said, delivered by Bishop Dioscorus.

Dr. Milman, Dean of St. Paul's in London, in his History of Latin Christianity, (1903), gave us a sampling of these sanguinary early Christian centuries,

`At Ephesus met that assembly which has been branded by the odious name of the "Robber Synod"...On the first mention of the two natures in Christ an angry dispute arose...the assembly broke out with one voice, "Away with Eusebius! banish Eusebius! let him be burnt alive! As he cuts asunder the two natures in Christ, so be he cut asunder!" The President put the question, "Is the doctrine that there are two natures after the incarnation to be tolerated?" The sacred council replied, "Anathema on him who so says!"...The first great religious war [the first great religious war between Christians]...emperils the tottering throne of Anastasius. The Thracian Vitalianus is in open rebellion; obtains a great victory over the Imperial general Hypatius; wastes Thrace, depopulates the whole country - the whole realm - up to the gates of Constantinople. He is before the city at the head of 60,000 men. His banner, his war-cry, is that of religious orthodoxy; he proclaims himself the champion, not of an oppressed people, of a nobility indignant at the tyranny of their sovereign, but of the council of Chalcedon. Cries are heard within the city (not obscurely traced to the clergy and the monks) proclaiming Vitalianus Emperor; and the army of this first religious war in Christendom is composed chiefly of Huns and Barbarians, a great part of them still heathens. But Vitalianus had allies in the West: from some obscure quarrel, or from jealousy of the Emperor of the East, he boasts the alliance of Theodoric, the Arian Ostrogoth; as the champion of orthodoxy he boasts too the countenance of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome...If we are to credit the monastic historians, the end aimed at and attained by this insurrection, which desolated provinces and caused the death of thousands of human beings, was a treaty which promised the reestablishment of Macedonius and Flavianus on the archiepiscopal thrones of Constantinople and Antioch...Gregory of Tours describes without emotion one of the worst acts which darken the reign of Clovis [Clovis was the first Catholic king of a barbarian tribe, all the others being either Arian or heathen]. He suggested to the son of Sigebert, King of the Ripuarian Franks, the assassination of his father, with the promise that the murderer should be peaceably established on the throne. The murder was committed in the neighboring forest. The parricide was then slain by the command of Clovis, who in the full parliament of the nation solemnly protested that he had no share in the murder of either; and was raised by general acclamation on a shield, as King of the Ripuarian Franks. Gregory concludes with this pious observation: "For God thus daily prostrated his enemies under his hands, and enlarged his kingdom, and did that which was pleasing in his sight."'

§ 11. De Rosa, Gibbon and Galileo

Matthew 10. 34 -42 has Jesus saying,

`Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes will be those in his own household. He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it...And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.'

When a pagan girl was converted to Christianity by one of the apostles, she naturally wanted to convert her parents, siblings and friends - she loved them - she wanted them to go to heaven and not to hell - so naturally she wanted to convert them. This led to conflict and hostility if these parents, siblings and friends wanted to continue to worship Jupiter and Venus etc. It's always a little difficult to know what arguments are the best arguments for converting someone to Christianity. We certainly know that splashing some baptismal water on a barbarian does not make him a member of the True Church, and it does not write the New Law on his heart.

Peter De Rosa is the author of Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy. To paraphrase Mr. De Rosa: in about the year 58 AD St. Paul wrote his famous epistle to the Romans. He greeted entire households and mentioned twenty-nine individuals by name. Paul did not address or mention Peter, a curious omission indeed if Peter was Bishop of Rome. Mr. De Rosa reminds us that Eusebius of Caesaria, in History of the Church, circa 300 AD, stated: `Peter is reported to have preached to the Jews throughout Pontius, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia and, about the end of his days, tarrying at Rome, was crucified.' St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons from 178-200, was a disciple of St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was a disciple of John the apostle, and Polycarp enumerated all the Roman bishops up to the twelfth, Eleutherius. According to St. Irenaeus, the first bishop of Rome was neither Peter nor Paul but Linus. The Apostolic Constitution, in the year 270, also named Linus as first bishop of Rome, having been appointed by St Paul. After Linus came Clement, chosen by Peter. Eusebius never spoke of Peter as Bishop of Rome.

Sir Nicolas Cheetham in his Keepers of the Keys: A History of the Popes from St. Peter to John Paul II (Charles Scribner's Sons 1983) writes of St. Peter. He tells us: scholars seem to agree that in 48 AD the former Galilean fisherman, St. Peter, was arrested by Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem; he escaped from prison; he conducted his own missions in Asia; he and St. Paul had a famous dispute over the Gentiles and the New Law, in Jerusalem, perhaps in 49 AD; St. Peter then disappears into mystery; many scholars, such as Marsilius of Padua (1326), doubt he was in Rome at all.

Geoffrey Barraclough tells us in his book The Medieval Papacy that the first lists of the bishops of Rome date from AD 160-85. These make Peter and Paul the co-founders of the Roman church. None of these lists assert that St. Peter himself was bishop. In about AD 220, during the time of pope Callistus, we find the beginning of the practice of honoring St. Peter as the first pope.

To continue the paraphrase of Mr. De Rosa's Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy: the letters are five feet high, running round the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, the English translation being: `Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.' None of the Early Fathers saw any connection between these words from Christ to the Bishops of Rome. Cyprian, Origen, Cyril, Hilary, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine etc., all analysized the scripture. They all rejected the papal claim that the Bishops of Rome are the successors of St. Peter. Augustine calls on synods to settle disputes. Pope Stephen attempted to settle a baptismal controversy for the African church. Stephen's opinion was rejected. St. Augustine said it was right his opinion was rejected. St. Vincent of Lerins, in 434, laid down the canons of Catholic doctrine. He made no mention of the Bishop of Rome. Pope Honorius was condemned by a General Council for heresy. Pope Liberius (352-66) had been forced into exile. He was allowed to return on the condition that he condemn St. Athanasius. Liberius cursed Athanasius, and he cursed Athanasius' doctrine: the Son is equal to the Father. St. Hilary of Poitiers then cursed Pope Liberius. "Anathema to thee, Liberius," were Hilary's words. Every orthodox bishop repeated them. Pope St. Gregory the Great said that unbaptized babies who perish unbaptized go straight to hell and suffer there for all eternity. The Spanish Inquisition was authorized in Spain by Pope Sixtus IV., in 1480. During the reign of King Philip II. of Spain, who we recall was the husband of Queen Mary I. of England -Bloody Mary- the victims of the Inquisition may well have exceeded by many thousands all of the Christians who had suffered under the Roman emperors. Napoleon conquered Spain in 1808. A Polish officer in his army, a Colonel Lemanouski, discovered that the Dominicans had blockaded themselves in their monastery in Madrid. Lemanouski's troops forced an entry; the monks inside denied the existence of any torture-chambers. But the soldiers persisted in their search and soon discovered them beneath the floors. Crammed with naked prisoners, many of them insane, the French rescued the tortured souls and then proceed to lay charges of gunpowder about the monastery, to destroy it from the face of the earth. The Roman Inquisition was established by Pope Paul III., July 21, 1542. Carafa, later known as Paul IV., elected pope in May of 1555, is generally seen as the most ferocious of the Inquisitor-Popes. Mr. De Rosa informs us that he was an ascetic like Torquemada, and that he detested Jews. The Roman Inquisition continued its savage priestcraft well into the nineteenth century. Until 1870 political offenders were tried by the Santa Consulta. As the armies of the new Italy liberated the prisons in the Papal States, the wretchedness and misery of prisoners inside them could no longer be hidden. Mr. De Rosa concludes: for more than six centuries without an interruption the papacy was the avowed enemy of justice. Eighty straight popes, from the thirteenth century on, approved the theology and apparatus of Inquisition.

Innocent VIII. issued the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus in December 1484, asserting that witches had supernatural powers to destroy crops, make people infertile etc. The infliction of torture on people accused of witchcraft, on the evidence of a wart, was given papal sanction. As it was unlikely that an investigator would find any cauldrons containing the remains of sacrificed children, even a tendency to cast her gaze downwards became sufficient cause to put a woman to the torture, to determine if she was a witch, i. e., to extort a confession out of her.

Again, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition, 2000, Imprimi Potest, Libreria Editrice Vaticana) gives us the official teachings of Catholicism. John Paul II. assured us that it is sound and authoritative in teaching the Catholic faith, p. xv. Paragraph 411 of the Catechism says Mary was and is sinless: she was conceived free of original sin and she never sinned, not even once, during her life on earth. Protestants of course see this as heresy, holding that Jesus and only Jesus lived a sinless life on earth. Paragraph 881 of the Catechism tells us the Popes and the other Catholic Bishops have inherited the power to bind and loose which Christ gave to St. Peter and to the other apostles. Today, Rome does not emphasize the doctrine of Gregory VII, Innocent III., Boniface VIII. and many other Popes: the Pope is the true ruler of the world. But, if Paragraph 881 is true, then, what other conclusion can a sensible person arrive at save: the pope is the true ruler of the world? Paragraph 882 informs us the Pope has supreme power over the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, a power which he may exercise unhindered at any time. Paragraph 883 asserts that the Bishops have no authority unless they are united with the Pope. Paragraph 888 assured us that the Pope and the Bishops in communion with the Pope are authentic teachers endowed with the authority of Christ. Paragraph 936 affirms the Pope to be the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth. Paragraph 937 asserts that the Pope wields, by divine institution, universal power in the care of souls.

Dr. Lea wrote in History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages,

`Thus habituated to the harshest measures, the Church grew harder and crueller and more unchristian. The worst popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries could scarce have dared to shock the world with such an exhibition as that with which John XXII. glutted his hatred of Hughes Gerold, Bishop of Cahors...he was partially flayed alive and then dragged to the stake and burned...When, in 1385, six cardinals were accused of conspiring against Urban VI. the angry pontiff had them seized...When it came to the turn of the Cardinal of Venice, Urban intrusted the work to an ancient pirate...with instructions to apply the torture till he could hear the victim howl; the infliction lasted from early morning till the dinner-hour, while the pope paced the garden under the window of the torture-chamber, reading his breviary aloud...The strappado and rack were applied by turns but though the victim was old and sickly, nothing could be wrenched from him save the ejaculation, "Christ suffered for us!'...Urban's competitor, known as Clement VII. [the anti-pope Clement VII. of the 14th century -not pope Clement VII. of the 16th century] was no less sanguinary. When, as Cardinal Robert of Geneva, he exercised legatine functions for Gregory XI., he led a band of Free Companions to vindicate the papal territorial claims. The terrible cold-blooded massacre of Cesena was his most conspicuous exploit, but equally characteristic of the man was his threat to the citizens of Bologna that he would wash his hands and feet in their blood.'

In Inquisition and Liberty (Heinemann, 1938), by G. G. Coulton, we read:

`Deeds speak more decisively than words; and this has been emphasized by Cardinal Lápicier, Professor at the Gregorian University of Rome, with the express approval of Pius V. After arguing, in the fashion familiar to medieval schoolmen, for the Church's eternal and inalienable power over the bodies of obstinate heretics, he clinches all these abstract philosophical pleas by a blunt appeal to the fait accompli. He insists that the attempts of modern Roman Catholics to ignore or deny this principle are not "compatible with the constitution of the Church or with historical facts." He proceeds: "Perhaps this doctrine (of St. Thomas Aquinas) will seem too severe to our age, which neglects the spiritual order and is prone to sensible goods....But why do we require further proof for this point? Ought not unquestioned historical fact to stand for all proof? The fact, I mean, that many heretics have been condemned to death by the just judgment of the Church....The naked fact that the Church, of her own authority, has tried heretics and condemned them to be delivered to death, shows that she truly has the right of killing such men, as guilty of high treason to God and as enemies of society." These things have been done; and "who dares to say that the Church has erred in a matter so grave as this?"

G. G. Coulton, in his Medieval Studies: The Death Penalty for Heresy quotes a speech delivered by the Irish statesman Daniel O'Connell, in September of 1843:

"The man who, for the enforcement of his own doctrines, has recourse to the soldier's bayonet or the policeman's staff, affords by his conduct the strongest possible presumptive evidence to show that he has no conscientious conviction of the genuine and intrinsic superiority of the opinions he professes. When he thinks it necessary to have recourse to the soldier, the constable, the executioner, or the gaoler he shows that he has no very strong confidence in the intrinsic superiority of the opinions he professes, and that he suspects they have not truth or reason to support them. I care not who is the man who pursues such a course -I care not who may be the prosecutor, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Presbyterian- in my mind he is no Christian at all."

O'Connell articulated the doctrine of religious tolerance quite eloquently. And, from the above, it is erroneous to consider O'Connell a Practicing Catholic, because, a Practicing Catholic believes that the one who uses force to impose his religious beliefs upon another is a good Christian if the pope has sanctioned this use of force. O'Connell erred in some of his details. People who use force to suppress dissent almost always have supreme confidence that they are in the right. Some are insecure, and some pursue despotic policies for ulterior motives, but most religious and political totalitarians are very secure in their beliefs. They have strong confidence in the intrinsic superiority of the opinions they profess. Loyola admitted that he was once tempted to stab a man who scoffed at the idea that Mary was a virgin. This impulse didn't arise because Loyola was insecure in his beliefs: it arose because he believed the scoffer was being willfully obstinate to the truth and maliciously insulting to Mary.

G. G. Coulton wrote in The Inquisition (Jonathan Cape, 1929):

`This subject has been so fully and scientifically studied during the last fifty years that we may speak with something like absolute certainty as to nearly all of the most important facts. The reader will see that my bibliography rests mainly upon the Quaker Lea..Lord Acton, the greatest Roman Catholic historian who has written in the English language; a French canon; a French Catholic professor; and a distinguished French lawyer...as early as about 430, the law of Theodosius II. proclaimed death, in the last resort, against certain heretics...in 385, the Emperor Maximus had tortured and executed the heretic Priscillian, with six of his followers...Pope Leo I., in 447, justified the act and wished that it might be repeated in other cases...it was cited again with the express commendation, as a laudable precedent, by Hadrian VI. to the princes of Germany in 1522...St. Augustine, who began by protesting against persecution in the case of the Donatists, ended by retracting; he thought force was necessary, in some cases, to bring men to a sense of the truth...Many heretics, in different parts of Europe, were put to death between 1020 and 1150; but more often by princes or by lynch-law than by regular ecclesiastical authority...in the second half of the twelfth century, the plot thickens. Heretics are more regularly burned, and prelates are more prominent in the executions; moreover, there is no bishop, I believe, who protests. The first formal laws which prescribed the stake (except those of the earlier Roman emperors, which were gradually being unearthed and emphasised) emanated from two or three sovereigns...The King of Aragon claimed to be acting here "in obedience to the decrees of the Holy Roman church, which have prescribed that heretics should....be everywhere condemned and prosecuted...And, by 1231, there is no longer any possible doubt of the papal attitude...between 1230 and 1233, Gregory IX. put the finishing touches to what modern scholars call the Papal Inquisition. Lucius III., by a decree of 1184, had already created the Episcopal Inquisition...counts, barons, and civil magistrates must take a solemn oath to execute this edict, under pain of deposition, confiscation, and excommunication...the whole forces of Church and State were solemnly mobilized against heresy. But even these were found insufficient, and Innocent III. presently began the practice of sending commissioners of inquiry...Then, at last, came those stricter laws of Gregory IX...The Pope now regularly deputed inquisitors, nearly always chosen from the new and enthusiastic Mendicant Orders...Gregory IX...is quite certain that they are to be burned, and who musters and drills the orthodox against them, not only to the last man, but to the last child. For, under the Inquisition, just as the court has all the advantage of secret procedure, and concealment of witnesses, and torture not only of the suspect, but even of witnesses through whom there is any hope of securing a condemnation, so also an unfree man, or a criminal, is permitted or compelled to testify, and an infant not yet in his teens may be heard in evidence against his parents...Preachers and philosophers taught, and men in general believed, that the majority of mankind would find their way to hell. They believed that, whereas heaven meant an eternity of bliss beyond all conception, hell meant an eternity of unthinkable horror and torment...Innocent III. publicly proclaimed, that the heretic deserves the same punishment as the man who betrays his sovereign; or, indeed, much more, "since it is far worse to offend the Eternal Majesty than a temporal ruler." And the deductions from these premises were worked out, once for all, by St. Thomas Aquinas...any baptised Christian who pertinaciously dissents from the official teaching becomes thereby a traitor of the blackest dye, to be punished by death. And here St. Thomas speaks practically as the unchallenged representative of scholastic philosophy...at the present day, while Aquinas's are the orthodox conclusions, yet almost all the orthodox are concerned to bury them in oblivion...four devoted Franciscans were burned at Marseilles in 1318 for what was, in effect, a refusal to abjure an essential point in St. Francis's teaching...The man who first combined charcoal, salt-petre, and sulphur made a new and devastating compound; so also this medieval combination of many scattered juridical tyrannies formed a compound of unexampled violence. 1)...The Inquisition assumed his guilt unless he could prove his innocence...2) His judges were purely ecclesiastical...3) The procedure was secret. 4) The names of witnesses were also generally concealed...5) Indeed, infamous persons were expressly allowed to testify...children were heard, even against their parents. This, however, was only in favour of the prosecution; neither infamous persons nor infants might be heard in defense. 6) Advocates were nominally allowed at first; but it was made a punishable crime to appear in defense of a guilty person...7) witnesses for the defense...practically certain to be suspected of complicity as abettors of the heretics. 8) Torture might be inflicted not only on the suspect, but also on any witnesses...9) It was, indeed, forbidden to "repeat" torture; the man who had been racked on Monday might be racked again on Tuesday under colour of the word "continuance." 10) A very small nonconformity might be magnified into a crime punishable by death....11)...the Inquisition compelled every man to spy upon his neighbor's secrets...we have a pathetic complaint from the Inquisitor Eymeric in 1375: "In our days there are no more rich heretics; so that princes, not seeing much money in prospect, will not put themselves to any expense; it is a pity that so salutary an institution as ours should be so uncertain of its future"...women and children and old men were tortured. In Italy, they were more indulgent with children; these were spared up to the age of nine, and, after that age, beaten with a rod...We may see now why Sir John Fortescue, in 1470, reckoned the absence of torture in England as one of our most precious national assets; for the Inquisition had...worked among us only for a few months, in the matter of the Templars...When once well-meaning folk like the Waldenses and Fraticelli had been driven underground, it was easy to invent any lies about them. Men accused them of promiscuous lust in their secret conventicles; or of an abomination called barilotto, which added to this promiscuity the crime of roasting a new-born child in public at a fire and drinking a sacramental cup mingled with the ashes...Lord Acton noted that Lea, in his anxiety to be impartial, was sometimes over-indulgent to the persecutors...St. Bernard had heartily disapproved of lynch-law: `Faith must be persuaded to men, and not imposed upon them.' Historians have been too prone to quote that noble word, mainly at second-hand from each other, without ever reading the next sentence, in which St. Bernard foreshadows plainly the choice that lay finally before Innocent III. For he adds: `Yet it would be better that they were coerced by the sword of that [magistrate] who beareth not the sword in vain, than that they should be suffered to bring many others into their own error. "For he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."...The argument of St. Thomas Aquinas runs as follows: 1) All baptised Christians are, ipso facto, subjects of the Roman Catholic Church; 2) that Church is a "Perfect Society" in the medieval philosophical sense; 3) therefore she has full rights of coercion and punishment over all her subjects; 4) not only of spiritual punishment, such as excommunication, but also of corporal punishment; 5) not excluding the extreme penalty of death. 6) Heresy - formal as apart from mere material heresy is a crime; 7) and therefore punishable in proportion to its sinfulness and to the damage it causes. 8) Formal heretics are all who, not being invincibly ignorant, refuse pertinaciously to accept the Roman Catholic faith when put before them. 9) It is not for the individual to judge the point at which this refusal becomes criminally pertinacious, nor for the State, nor for society in general: the sole judge here is the Church....The Summa Theologica was being composed in about 1250. Nearly eighty years before this, Pope and Emperor, in concert, had begun the systematic burning of heretics. In 1204, again, there had been the Albingensian Crusade, with its wholesale slaughter ending in a good deal of disillusionment for Innocent III. himself. St. Thomas knew that, in spite of all this bloodshed, hundreds or thousands of people were still being born and nurtured in heresy...and he knew that these were most numerous in the most civilised districts of Europe - Northern Italy, Southern France, and the great trade-routes like the Rhineland...St. Thomas must have known, almost as well as any modern philosopher, that the taking even of a single human life can be justified only in the last resort, and that anything like wholesale slaughter requires far stronger justification. Yet his logic drove him, from his own premises, to the conclusion that it is part of a Christian's duty...to burn his fellow Christians.'

Apropos of the Dogma of Papal Infallibility and 28 consecutive Popes damning the doctrine that the earth moves round the sun, we might glance at the trial of Galilleo. Sir Oliver Lodge, whose work can be found in The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 5 (The National Alumni), wrote of Galileo:

"The infirm old man was instantly summoned to Rome. His friends pleaded his age -he was now seventy- his ill-health, the time of the year, the state of the roads, the quarantine existing on account of the plague. It was all of no avail; to Rome he must go, and on February 14th he arrived. His daughter at Arcetri was in despair; and anxiety and fastings and penances self-inflicted on his account dangerously reduced her health. At Rome he was not imprisoned, but he was told to keep indoors and show himself as little as possible. He was allowed, however, to stay at the house of the Tuscan ambassador instead of in jail. By April he was removed to the chambers of the Inquisition and examined several times. Here, however, the anxiety was too much, and his health began to give way seriously; so, before long, he was allowed to return to the ambassador's house; and, after application had been made, was allowed to drive in the public garden in a half-closed carriage. Thus in every way the Inquisition dealt with him as leniently as they could. He was now their prisoner, and they might cast him into their dungeons, as many others had been cast. By whatever they were influenced ªperhaps the Pope's old friendship, perhaps his advanced age and infirmities- he was not so cruelly used. Still, they had their rules; he must be made to recant and abjure his heresy; and, if necessary, torture must be applied. This he knew very well, and his daughter knew it, and her distress may be imagined. Moreover, it is not as if they had really been heretics, as if they hated or despised the Church of Rome. On the contrary, they loved and honored the church. They were sincere and devout worshippers, and only on a few scientific matters did Galileo presume to differ from his ecclesiastical superiors: his disagreement with them occasioned him real sorrow; and his dearest hope was that they could be brought to his way of thinking and embrace the truth. This condition of things could not go on. From February to June the suspense lasted. On June 20th he was summoned again, and told he would be wanted all next day for a rigorous examination. Early in the morning of the 21st he repaired thither, and the doors were shut. Out of those chambers of horror he did not reappear till the 24th. What went on those three days no one knows. He himself was bound to secrecy. No outsider was present. The records of the Inquisition are jealously guarded. That he was technically tortured is certain; that he actually underwent the torment of the rack is doubtful. Much learning has been expended upon the question, especially in Germany. Several eminent scholars have held the fact of actual torture to be indisputable -geometrically certain, one says- and they confirm it by the hernias from which he afterward suffered, this being a well-know and frequent occurrence. Other equally learned commentators, however, deny that the last stage was reached. For there are five stages all laid down in the rules of the Inquisition, and steadily adhered to in a rigorous examination, at each stage an opportunity being given for recantation, every utterance, every groan, or sigh being strictly recorded. The recantation so given has to be confirmed a day or two later, under pain of a precisely similar ordeal.

The five stages are: (1) The official threat in the court; (2) the taking to the door of the torture-chamber and renewing the official threat; (3) the taking inside and showing the instruments; (4) undressing and binding on the rack; (5) territo realis. Through how many of these ghastly acts Galileo passed I do not know. I hope and believe not the last.

There are those who lament that he did not hold out, and accept the crown of martyrdom thus offered him. Had he done so we know his fate - a few years' languishing in the dungeon, and then the flames. Whatever he ought to have done, he did not hold out - he gave way...The next day, clothed as a penitent, the venerable old man was taken to the convent of Minerva, where the cardinals and prelates were assembled for the purpose of passing judgment upon him....he next had to read word for word the abjuration which had been drawn up for him, and then sign it...`I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy, being brought personally to judgment, and kneeling before your Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords Cardinals, General Inquisitors of the universal Christian republic against heretical depravity...I held and believed that the sun is the centre of the universe and is immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and is movable...I abjure, curse and detest the said errors and heresies...if I shall know any heretic, or anyone suspected of heresy, that I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor..."

Those who believe the story about his muttering to a friend, as he rose from his knees, "E pur si muove" ("And yet it does move"), do not realize the scene. There was no friend in the place. It would have been fatally dangerous to mutter anything before such an assemblage. He was by this time an utterly broken and disgraced old man; wishful, of all things, to get away and hide himself and his miseries from the public gaze; probably with his senses deadened and stupefied by the mental sufferings he had undergone, and no longer able to think or care about anything ªexcept perhaps his daughter - certainly not about any motion of this wretched earth.'

§ 12. The Tridentine Profession of the Roman Catholic Church

Paragraphs 192 and 193 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church state that none of the Creeds used in Catholicism's past have been superseded or made irrelevant. The supreme articulation of the Roman Catholic faith would be the Tridentine Profession of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church, which dates from 1564 and the Council of Trent, with amendments pertaining to papal infallibility from Pope Pius IX. made in 1877. The Tridentine Profession (Bettenson's Documents of the Christian Church, pp. 266-8) runs as follows:

"I, (Name), with firm faith profess each and every article contained in the symbol of faith which the Holy Roman Church uses; namely: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son of God, light from light, true God from true God; begotten not made, of one substance with the Father; through whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was made incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, died and was buried; and he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven; He sits at the right hand of the Father, and He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and of His kingdom there will be no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who equally with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified; who spoke through the prophets. And I believe that there is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins; and I hope for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

"I resolutely accept and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other practices and regulations of the same Church. In like manner I accept Sacred Scripture according to the meaning which has been held by the holy Mother Church and which she now holds. It is her prerogative to pass judgment on the true meaning and interpretation of Sacred Scripture. And I will never accept or interpret it in a manner different from the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.

"I also truly acknowledge that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the New Law, instituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord, and that they are necessary for the salvation of the human race, although it is not necessary for each individual to receive them all. I acknowledge that the seven sacraments are: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony; and that they confer grace; and that of the seven, baptism, confirmation, and holy orders cannot be repeated without committing a sacrilege. I also accept and acknowledge the customary and approved rites of the Catholic Church in the solemn administration of these sacraments. I accept and embrace each and every article on original sin and justification declared and defined in the most holy Council of Trent.

"I likewise profess that in the Mass a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice is offered to God on behalf of the living and the dead, and that the Body and the Blood, together with the soul and the divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, and that there is a change of the whole substance of the wine into Blood; and this change the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. I also profess that the whole and entire Christ and a true sacrament is received under each separate species.

"I firmly hold that there is a purgatory and that the souls detained there are helped by the prayers of the faithful. I likewise hold that the saints reigning together with Christ should be honored and invoked, that they offer prayers to God on our behalf, and that their relics should be venerated. I firmly assert that the images of Christ, of the Mother of God ever Virgin, and of the other saints should be owned and kept, and that due honor and veneration should be given to them. I affirm that the power of indulgences was left in the keeping of the Church by Christ, and that the use of indulgences is very beneficial to Christians.

"I acknowledge the holy, catholic, and apostolic Roman Church as the Mother and teacher of all Christians; and I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff, vicar of Christ, and successor of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles.

"I unhesitatingly accept and profess all the doctrines (especially those concerning the primacy of the Roman Pontiff and his infallible teaching authority) handed down, defined, and explained by the sacred canons and ecumenical councils, and especially those of this most holy Council of Trent (and by the ecumenical Vatican Council). At the same time, I condemn, reject, and anathematize everything that is contrary to those propositions, and all heresies without exception that have been condemned, rejected and anathematized by the Church. I promise, vow, and swear that, with God's help, I shall most constantly hold and profess this true Catholic faith, outside which no one can be saved and which I now freely profess and truly hold. With the help of God I shall profess it whole and unblemished to my dying breath; and, to the best of my ability, I shall see to it that my subjects or those entrusted to me by virtue of my office, hold it, teach it and preach it. So help me God and His holy Gospel."

A few problems arise with the clause in the Tridentine Profession: `And I will never accept or interpret it [scripture] in a manner different from the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.'

Dr. Littledale informed us in his Plain Reasons Against Joining the Church of Rome:

`Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis...declares that Roman Catholics cannot establish the Petrine privilege [the contention that the Popes inherit St. Peter's authority] from Scripture because of the clause in the Creed of Pius IV., consent of the Fathers. And he adds that there are five different patristic interpretations of St. Matt. xvi. 18: (1) that St. Peter is the Rock, taught by seventeen Fathers; (2) that the whole Apostolic College is the Rock, represented by Peter as its chief, taught by eight; (3) that St. Peter's faith is the Rock, taught by forty-four; (4) that Christ is the Rock, taught by sixteen; (5) that the Rock is the whole body of the faithful...So it is not lawful for any Roman Catholic, in the face of the Creed of Pope Pius IV., to maintain the Ultramontane view of these three texts [St. Matthew 16: 18; St. Luke xxii: 31, 32; St. John xxi: 15-17]. Thus, the following Fathers explain the rock to be Christ, or faith in Christ, and not St. Peter: Origen; St. Hilary, Doctor; St. Chrysostom, Doctor; St. Isidore of Pelusium; St. Augustine, Doctor; St. Cyril of Alexandria, Doctor; St. Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor; St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor; Venerable Bede; St. Gregory VII., Pope;...As to St. Luke xxii. 31, 32 no Father whatever explains it in the modern Ultramontane fashion, which is not even found till Cardinal Bellarmine invented it about A. D. 1621. The germ, however, is in St. Thomas Aquinas...'

Again, in trying to decide if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, one will be like a dog chasing his tail until one finally makes a firm determination on the question: have the popes inherited St. Peter's authority as it is described in Matthew 16. 13-19? If they have, then Cafeteria Catholicism makes no sense. If they haven't, Cafeteria Catholicism still makes no sense!

As late as 1907 a Catholic girl was sentenced to prison (the sentence was however commuted) in a Catholic nation for saying that Mary had other children after having Jesus. The Bible explicitly mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus, for instance Matthew 13. 55-56 and Galatians 1: 19, but the Catholic Church has long declared that only the Catholic Church is authorized to interpret scripture, and the Catholic hierarchy says that Jesus had no brothers or sisters, that Mary had no other children, and that is what the Catholic flock is commanded to believe.

The Tridentine Profession and The Dogma of the Assumption of Mary both insist that Mary was ever Virgin. Matthew 1. 25 is perfectly clear,

`And he [Joseph] did not know her [Mary] till she had brought forth her firstborn Son...'

The Catholic teaching on the Eucharist and Transubstantiation is basically derived from a very literal interpretation of John 6. 51-56. If one believes in the literal truth of John 6. 51-56, then one might also wish to believe in the literal truth of Matthew 1. 25 and John 7. 5. The latter scripture speaks of Jesus having brothers. But the Catholic Church insists it is a damnable heresy to say Mary was not always Virgin. Indeed, Rome insists Mary was sinless, and Rome says it is heresy to say that Mary was not sinless.

For centuries popes declared the Jewish race was forever accursed for killing Christ. This declaration was made in either defiance or in ignorance of Romans xi. 25-29. The most significant event to transpire in modern times has been the re-establishment of the State of Israel, in 1948, after roughly 1,900 years of exile. St Pius X., the most recent pope to be canonized, refused to give his support to Jewish efforts to create the modern State of Israel, reasoning that the Jews must first convert to Roman Catholicism or else Zionism was not in accordance with God's will. Naturally, non-Catholics do not believe that God will ever write Roman Catholicism on the hearts of the Jews. But if one believes that God is Roman Catholic, and if one believes in Ezekiel 36. 24-28, then, it makes no sense to demand that the Jews convert to Roman Catholicism before one will support Zionism. Ezekiel 36. 24-28 is clear. First, God will gather the Jews in the Holy Land, and then, later, He will put His Spirit within them. Ezekiel 36. 24-28

`For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.'

§ 13. The Supreme Architect of the Pontifical Monarchy: Pope St. Gregory VII.

As we saw earlier, the Dogma of Papal Infallibility specifically states that those who reject that Dogma are anathema, that is, accursed, damned. William Manchester told us in A World Lit only by Fire, p. 291, that 28 consecutive popes damned as absurd and heretical the doctrine that the earth moves round the sun. Rome threatened Galileo with torture and death if he didn't retract and start to teach what Rome taught: the sun revolves round the earth.

For a time Rome taught the doctrine that the souls of infants who perished unbaptized suffered in hell. Lecky pours some scorn on the `infallible' popes who taught that doctrine,

`That a little child who lives but a few moments after birth and dies before it has been sprinkled with the sacred water is in such a sense responsible for its ancestors having 6,000 years before eaten some forbidden fruit, that it may with perfect justice be resuscitated and cast into an abyss of eternal fire in expiation of this ancestral crime, that an all-righteous and all-merciful Creator in the full exercise of those attributes...has from eternity irrevocably destined to endless, unspeakable, unmitigated torture...Such teaching is in fact simply daemonism, and daemonism in its most extreme form...Those who embrace these doctrines do so only because they believe that some inspired Church or writer has taught them...They accordingly esteem it a matter of duty, and a commendable exercise of humility, to stifle the moral feelings of their nature, and they at last succeed in persuading themselves that their Divinity would be extremely offended if they hesitated to ascribe to him the attributes of a fiend.'

Mr. De Rosa writes in Vicars of Christ: the Dark Side of the Papacy (Crown 1988),

`In all the Greek Fathers there is not one word about the prerogatives of the Bishop of Rome, no suggestion he had jurisdiction over them. No one, Greek or Latin, appeals to the bishop of Rome as final and universal arbiter in any single dispute about the faith. As a point of fact, no Bishop of Rome dared decide on his own a matter of faith for the church. Roma locuta est, causa finita est. St. Augustine's phrase, "Rome has spoken, the dispute is at an end," is quoted endlessly by Catholic apologists. With reason. Out of ten huge folios of his work, that is the one phrase which proves that the Bishop of Rome has, on his own, the right to settle controversies in the church. But does it? The context shows Augustine arguing that after two synods, with the bishop of Rome concurring, it is time to call a halt...Gregory the Great said that unbaptized babies go straight to hell and suffer there for all eternity...Everywhere, the rule of celibacy triumphed at the expense of chastity. The efforts of Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine were to produce ever more bitter fruit. Jerome was not afraid to admit that he regularly saw clerics who passed their entire lives in female company, surrounded by beautiful girl slaves...In the eighth century, St. Boniface went to Germany. He found such depravity among bishops and priests that he begged Pope Gregory III to let him wash his hands of the whole crowd...Young men who spent their youth in rape and adultery were rising in the ranks of the clergy...A large part of the history of celibacy is the story of the degradation of women - an invariable consequence - frequent abortions and infanticide...Since the end of the Roman Empire, historians say that infanticide was probably not practiced in the West on any great scale - except in the convents. The Council of Aix-la Chapelle in the year 836 openly admitted it...Children, the fruit of incest, were killed by the clergy, as many a French prelate put on record...The matter was finally settled by Urban II at Piacenza in the year 1095. A council of 400 clerics and 30,000 laity condemned clerical marriages once and for all. To prove the evangelical impulse of this measure, they sold priests' wives into slavery.'

The Britannica (1963) gives us the following:

`Innocent III (Lotario de' Conti di Segni), pope from 1198 to 1216, son of Trasimund, count of Segni, and of Claricia, a Roman lady of the noble family of Scotti...As he wrote to the Tuscan rectors, in Christian society the sacerdotium stood to the regnum as did the sun to the moon. Likewise to the patriarch of Constantinople he wrote: "The Lord has left to Peter the governance not of the Church only but of the whole world."...Other popes before Innocent - notably Gregory VII - had maintained the doctrine that the pope had eminent dominion over secular princes; but it was reserved for Innocent to make it a reality...by a bull of Oct. 12, 1204, Innocent permitted crusaders to fulfil their vows by assisting the Knights of the Sword in the conquest of Livonia for the church...Innocent IV (Sinibaldo Fieschi), pope from 1243 to 1254, belonged to the noble Genoese family of the counts of Lavagna...Innocent went beyond his predecessors in claiming for the papacy a direct temporal sovereignty over all earthly kingdoms.'

Paragraphs 881, 882, 883, 884, 936, 937, 2034 in the Catechism don't phrase matters in quite such explicit terms, but, nevertheless, those Paragraphs essentially state that the authority of the Roman Catholic Church surpasses the authority of every other institution on earth - Republics, Kingdoms, Parliaments, Universities - rather as the luminosity of the sun surpasses the luminosity of a lump of coal - because, obviously, the True Church of the Creator of the Universe - the Bride of Christ - must far outshine all institutions which are not the True Church, which are not the Bride of Christ.

St. Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

Jesus says in Matthew 13. 49-50,

`So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth and separate the wicked from the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.'

Daniel 12. 1 is clear in stating that the Jews will be delivered when the archangel Michael arrives on the scene, not when the Messiah arrives,

`At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people, and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.'

Recall the prophetic vision seen in Revelation 14. 6-7:

`I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on earth - to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people - saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has arrived; and worship the Creator of heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water."'

John 1. 1-14,

`In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made...and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory...'

Herbert Muller wrote in his prologue to Freedom in the Western World (Harper & Row, 1963) than there is nothing more extraordinary in religious history than the rapid conquest of Islam in the 7th century. Where do we read in the Koran of prophecies which state that Islam will conquer widely with extraordinary swiftness? The Old Testament contains prophecies which state that the Jews will survive throughout the course of history as a unique people, that they will be scattered among the nations, and that they will return to the Holy Land in latter times. This is exactly what has happened, therefore, an extraordinary event which was foretold is far more extraordinary than a rapid conquest which was not foretold.

If, as Muller suggested, celerity in slaughter is the standard by which we measure greatness in religious history, then the sack of Rome by the Norman and Saracen allies of Gregory VII., in the 11th century, might or might not have been as great a religious event as the barbarian sack of the 5th century. The sack of Rome in the 16th century was evidently insignificant in religious history because it dragged on for many months. Gibbon wrote in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

"The Barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks of the Danube, were less destructive, than the hostilities exercised by the troops of Charles the Fifth, a Catholic prince, who styled himself Emperor of the Romans. The Goths evacuated the city at the end of six days, but Rome remained nine months in the possession of the Imperialists; and every hour was stained by some atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine...the death of the general removed every restraint of discipline from an army which consisted of three independent nations, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the Germans. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the manners of Italy exhibited a remarkable scene of the depravity of mankind. They united the sanguinary crimes that prevail in an unsettled state of society, with the polished vices which spring from the abuse of art and luxury; and the loose adventurers, who had violated every prejudice of patriotism and superstition to assault the palace of the Roman pontiff, must deserve to be considered as the most profligate of the Italians. At the same era, the Spaniards were the terror both of the Old and New World; but their high-spirited valor was disgraced by gloomy pride, rapacious avarice, and unrelenting cruelty. Indefatigable in the pursuit of fame and riches, they had improved, by repeated practice, the most exquisite and effectual methods of torturing their prisoners: many of the Castilians, who pillaged Rome, were familiars of the holy inquisition....The Germans were less corrupt than the Italians, less cruel than the Spaniards...had imbibed, in the first fervor of the reformation, the spirit, as well as the principles, of Luther. It was their favorite amusement to insult, or destroy, the consecrated objects of Catholic superstition; they indulged without pity or remorse, a devout hatred against the clergy of every denomination and degree, who form so considerable a part of modern Rome; and their fanatical zeal might aspire to subvert the throne of Antichrist, to purify with blood and fire, the abominations of the spiritual Babylon."

Pope St. Gregory VII., the pre-eminent architect of the Pontifical Monarchy, the enemy of priestly marriage and lay investiture, was the author of The Dictatus Papae, which asserted that all duly elected popes are saints, that the popes are the true rulers of the world, that princes must kiss the feet of popes, that the Roman Catholic Church has never erred and can never err. The reader will recall that there was a famous incident at Canossa where Pope St. Gregory VII. (a.k.a.,Hildebrand, son of the flame) made the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV., wait outside in the winter's frost for three days before accepting the Emperor's apology. Yet it was imposing celibacy on the then married priesthood, and overthrowing a thousand years of Christian tradition in having a married priesthood, not in confronting and humiliating an Emperor, which was Gregory's boldest gamble. If the Emperor deposed him he would still have the devotion of the clergy. But if he had alienated the married clergy to the point that they were able to launch a successful revolt against him, then all of his dreams for the Pontifical Monarchy would have come crashing down.

Dr. Lea writes in History of Sacerdotal Celibacy,

`Hildebrand was the son of a poor carpenter of Soano, and had been trained in the ascetic monachism of Cluny. Gifted by nature with rare sagacity, unbending will and indomitable spirit, imbued with the principles of the False Decretals, and firmly believing in the wildest pretentions of ecclesiastical supremacy, he had conceived a scheme of hierarchical autocracy, which he regarded not only as the imprescriptible right of the Church, but also as the perfection of human institutions. To the realization of this ideal he devoted his life with a fiery zeal and unshaken purpose that shrank from no obstacles, and to it he was ready to sacrifice not only the men who stood in his path, but also immutable principles of truth and justice. All considerations were as dross compared with the one object, and his own well-being and life were ventured as recklessly as the peace of the world. Such a man could comprehend the full importance of the rule of celibacy, not alone as essential to the ascetic purity of the Church, but as necessary to the theocratic structure which he proposed to elevate on the ruins of kingdoms and empires. The priest must be a man set apart from his fellows, consecrated to the one holy purpose, reverenced by the world as a being superior to human passions and frailties, devoted, soul and body, to the interests of the Church, and distracted by no temporal cares and anxieties foreign to the welfare of the great corporation of which he was a member...Sprung from so humble an origin, he may have sympathized with the democratic element, which rendered the Church the only career open to peasant and plebian. He may have felt this was a source of hidden power, as binding the populations more closely to the Church, and as enabling it to press into service an unknown amount of fresh and vigorous talent belonging to men who owed everything to the establishment which had raised them from nothingness, and who would have no relationships to embarrass their devotion. All this would be lost if, by legalizing marriage, the hereditary transmission of benefices generally resulting should convert the Church into a separate caste of individual proprietors, having only general interests in common, and lazily luxuriating on the proceeds of former popular beneficence...When even the humblest priest came to be regarded as a superior being, holding the keys of heaven in his hand, and by the machinery of confession, absolution, and excommunication wielding incalculable influence over each member of his flock, it was well for both parties that the ecclesiastic should be free from the ties of family and the vulgar ambition of race...The clergy protested in the most energetic terms that they would rather abandon their calling than their wives; they denounced Gregory as a madman and a heretic, who expected to compel men to live as angels, and who in his folly, while denying to natural affection its accustomed and proper gratification, would open the door to indiscriminate licentiousness; and they tauntingly asked where, when he had driven them from the priesthood, he expected to find the angels who were to replace them. Even those who favoured celibacy condemned the means adopted as injudicious, contrary to the canons, and leading to scandals more injurious to the Church than the worst heresies. Gregory paid little heed to threats or remonstrances, but sent legate after legate to accuse the bishops of their inertness, and to menace them with deposition if they should neglect to carry out the canon to the letter...A contemporary writer, whose name has been lost, but who is supposed by Dom Martène to have been a priest of Trèves, gives us a very lively picture of the horrors which ensued, and as he shows himself friendly in principle to the reform attempted, his account may be received as trustworthy. He describes what amounted almost to a dissolution of society, slave betraying master and master slave; friend informing against friend; snares and pitfalls spread before the feet of all; faith and truth unknown. The peccant priest suffered terribly. Some, reduced to utter poverty, and unable to bear the scorn and contempt of those from whom they had been wont to receive honour and respect, wandered off as homeless exiles; others, mutilated by the indecent zeal of ardent puritans, were carried around to exhibit their shame and misery; others, tortured in lingering death, bore to the tribunal on high the testimony of blood-guiltiness against their persecutors...When such was the fate of the pastors, it is easy to imagine the misery inflicted on their unfortunate wives. A zealous admirer of Gregory relates with pious gratulation, as indubitable evidence of divine vengeance, how, maddened by their wrongs, some of them openly committed suicide...The count [Count Manigold of Veringen] had put in force the orders of Gregory with strict severity throughout his estates in the Swabian Alps. One miserable creature, thus driven from her husband, swore that the count should undergo the same fate, and, in the blindness of her rage, she poisoned the Countess of Verigen...The saintly virgin Hercula saw in a vision the Saviour, with his wounds profusely bleeding, and was told that if she desired to escape a repetition of the horrifying spectacle, she must no longer be present at the ministrations of Father Richard, the officiating priest of her convent - a revelation which she employed effectually upon him and his parishioners. The same holy maiden, being observed staring intently out the window, declared, upon being questioned, that she had seen the soul of the priest of Rota carried off by demons to eternal punishment; and, on sending to his habitation, it was found that he had expired at the very moment...It cannot be a matter of surprise if men who were thus threatened with almost every worldly evil should seek to defend themselves by means as violent as those employed by their persecutors. Their cruel intensity of fear is aptly illustrated by what occurred at Cambrai in 1077, where a man was actually burned at the stake as a heretic for declaring his adhesion to the Hildebrandine doctrine that the masses of simoniacal and concubinary priests were not to be attended by the faithful...'

In Bettenson's Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford, 2nd edition, pp. 104-110) we find a letter written in 1081 A. D. from Pope St Gregory VII. to the Bishop of Metz. St. Gregory VII. quotes St. Gregory I.,

`"Indeed, when a man disdains to be like to men, he is made like to be an apostate angel. Thus Saul, after having possessed the merit of humility, came to be swollen with pride when at the summit of power. Through humility, indeed, he was advanced; through pride rejected - God being witness who said: `When thou wast small in thine own eyes, did I not make thee head over the tribes of Israel?'"'

St. Gregory VII. continues:

`Let them also carefully retain what God says in the gospel: "I seek not my own glory"; and, "He who will be first among you shall be the servant of all"...by humbly doing these things, and by observing the love of God and of their neighbor as they ought, they may hope for the mercy of Him who said: "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart." If they have humbly imitated Him they shall pass from this servile and transitory to a true kingdom of liberty and eternity.'

St. Gregory VII., quoting St. Ambrose, informed us in his letter to the Bishop of Metz that the dignity of the Catholic hierarchy excels the dignity of Catholic royalty rather as the glory of gold exceeds lead.

Michelet writes via Kelley's translation in History of France,

`The Norman envoys came before the pope: Harold was in default, and England was given to the Normans. This bold decision resulted from the instigation of Hildebrand, against the advice of several cardinals. The judgment was sent with a blessed standard and a hair of St. Peter. The invasion therefore assuming the character of a crusade, a multitude of soldiers flooded in and around William from all of Europe. They came from Flanders and the Rhine, from Burgundy, from Piedmont, from Aquitaine...'

The nature of the Norman invasion of England was one where many thousands of Catholics slaughtered many thousands of other Catholics in a fight to gain control of England. As the Christians of the early Church were not in the habit of slaughtering each other, therefore, we see evidence which says that a falling away transpired in Christendom many centuries ago. No doubt that hair of St. Peter was powerful magic in the eyes of those warriors, those Christians who couldn't quite understand that Christians were not supposed to slaughter other Christians.

William the Conqueror was a Christian in some sense, but, like many other medieval rulers, he was a cruel warlord. Benjamin Terry writes in A History of England: From the Earliest Times to the Death of Queen Victoria,

`He [William] spent Christmas in his northern capital [York], and then with grim determination gave his attention to the work of rendering the northern shires incapable of another revolt. For a hundred miles the country was systematically laid waste. Houses were burned; crops, stores, ploughs, and carts were destroyed; all cattle were slaughtered. The people were left in the dead of winter to die of cold and hunger...When seventeen years later the Doomsday Survey was made up, only one mournful word, but often repeated, was needed to describe the condition of these northern lands, once so fertile and so populous: "Waste!" "Waste!" "Waste!"...Streams of gaunt fugitives, starving men, women and children, found their way southward begging for food...On the continent kings had monopolized hunting as their own special sport, but in England it had been the right of any man to slay wild beasts on his own lands. William claimed this exclusive privilege for himself and to those whom he gave special license and "forbade the harts and also the boars to be killed." The forest laws were very severe; the penalty for killing a hart or hind was blinding.'

Let us also consider Hildrebrand, Pope St. Gregory VII., amid the 11th century sack of Rome. The reader will recall that it was Hildebrand who led the charge in throwing down 1,000 years of marriage among priests within Roman Catholicism in favor sacerdotal celibacy. It was Hildebrand who called Normans and Saracens to aid him against his enemies, who were, curiously enough, the Catholic citizens of Rome. The drama is admirably described by Ferdinand Gregorovius in his History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages (Trans by Mrs. Hamilton),

`While Henry was retiring, Guiscard's horse had already reached the Lateran gate. The Norman had come by forced marches along the Latin Way through the valley of the Sacco...The Romans kept the city barricaded. Their manly resistance against Guiscard honorably fills a short chapter in their medieval history. Their distress deserved genuine compassion; their emperor, to whom they had surrendered the city, had abandoned them, and after the sufferings of a three years' siege, the unhappy city found herself exposed to the avarice of the Normans and Saracens who had been summoned by the pope. Robert held negotiations with traitors and Gregorians within the walls, headed by the consul Cencius Frangipane. In the dawn of May 28, his knights scaled the gate of S. Lorenzo, and having entered, hastened to the Porta Flamina and broke it open. The army, which then stood ready, thus made its way into the city. The Romans, it is true, threw themselves against the Normans, but the duke finally drove through the flames of the Field of Mars over the bridge to the other side of the Tiber, released the pope from S. Angelo, and led him to the Lateran. The capture of Rome, a glory which adorns but few heroes, shines in the history of this great soldier prince, to whom fortune was more constant than to Pompey or to Caesar. He had defeated the army of the emperor of the East in Albania, had put to flight the emperor of the West, and he now replaced the greatest of popes on the throne of Christendom. Gregory VII, standing beside his preserver Guiscard, presents a spectacle so remarkable as seldom to be met with in history. As the pope gratefully clasped the hero of Palermo and Durazzo in his arms, he may have remembered Leo IX, and Guiscard himself may possibly have surveyed with astonishment the altered aspect of affairs, and, while he now saved a pope from the hands of ruthless enemies, may have called to mind the battlefield of Civita, where he knelt before another pope who was his prisoner.

`The unhappy city, however, which was surrendered to his soldiers for plunder, became a scene of more than Vandal horrors. The Romans rose on the third day, and with furious indignation attacked the barbarous conquerors. The imperial party, which had reassembled, hoped by a desperate onslaught to rid themselves of their oppressors; the young Roger hurried from the camp with a thousand men at arms to the aid of his father, now reduced to the direst straits. The city fought valiantly but in vain; the despair of the people was stifled in blood and flames, for, in order to save himself, Robert had set fire to a portion of the city. When both flames and the tumult of battle had subsided, Rome lay a heap of smoking ashes before Gregory's eyes, burnt churches, streets in ruins, the dead bodies of Romans formed a thousand accusers against him. The pope must have averted his eyes, as the Romans, bound with cords, were led in troops into their camp by Saracens. Noble women, men calling themselves senators, children and youths were openly sold like cattle into slavery: others, and among them the imperial prefect, were carried as prisoners of state to Calabria...The brutal fury of the victors satisfied itself for some days in robbery and murder, until the Romans, a cord and a naked sword round their necks, threw themselves at the feet of the duke. The grim conqueror felt compassion, but he could not make good their losses. The sack of Rome remains a dark stain on Gregory's history, as also on that of Guiscard. It was Nemesis that compelled the pope, however hesitatingly and reluctantly, to gaze upon the flames of Rome. Was not Gregory VII in the burning city (and it burned on his account) as terrible a man of destiny as Napoleon calmly riding over bloody fields of battle? Leo the Great, who preserved the sacred city from Attila and obtained alleviation for her fate from the anger of Genseric, forms a glorious contrast to Gregory, not one of whose contemporaries has recorded that he made any attempt to save Rome from the sack, or ever shed a tear of compassion for her fall. What to this man of destiny was the destruction of half Rome in comparison with the idea for which he sacrificed the peace of the world?...Rome had become the poorer by many thousand inhabitants through war, flight, death, and imprisonment. For centuries she had suffered no such violent blow: twenty years of civil war, storms within and without, and lastly fire, had added their ravages to those inflicted by the first hostile destruction which she had actually suffered since the time that Totila had torn down her walls...The horrors committed by his liberators condemned Gregory VII henceforward to an eternal exile, which was his just punishment in the highest sense of earthly destiny. His career ended in the ruins of Rome. Although the Romans had promised submission, he must nevertheless have foreseen that, as soon as the Normans had withdrawn, he would fall a victim to their revenge. Robert took hostages, placed a garrison in S. Angelo, and in June departed with the pope into the Campagna, where he attacked Tivoli in vain, but destroyed other fortresses. From some of these heights on the Campagna, Gregory must have turned a last painful look on Rome, in order to take farewell of the theatre of his struggles, of the Eternal City, which he left in ruins behind him...The departure of the great pope from ruined Rome amid the swarms of Normans and Saracens, against whose fellow-believers he had formerly preached a crusade, his sorrowful journey to Monte Casino and Salerno, where he went to eat the bread of exile at the hand of his friend Desiderius, form a tragic end to the drama of his life...Gregory was the heir of the ancient aims of the papacy. But his unexampled genius as ruler and statesman in his own, and no one, either in ancient Rome or in modern times, has ever attained to his revolutionary daring. This monk did not shrink from the thought of overthrowing the order of things existing in Europe, in order to raise the papal throne upon its ruins. His true greatness, however, lies behind his papacy. As pope he aimed too high, thinking in his brief moment of power to compass at once the work of centuries. He who desires the impossible must appear a visionary, and as that of a visionary Gregory's attempt to seize the dominion of the political world must be regarded. Marvelous was the strength with which he won the freedom of the church, and founded the dominion of the hierarchy. The realm of priests, who bore in their hands no other weapons than a cross, a gospel, a blessing and a curse, is more remarkable than the united empire of Roman or Asiatic conquerors. As long as the world lasts this spiritual empire will remain a unique, unexampled phenomenon of moral power. Gregory VII was a hero of this priestly empire alone. His purpose, it is true, embraced mankind as a church, but the church only existed for him in the form of the papal monarchy. The idea of setting up a mortal as an infallible and God-like being, holding the keys of heaven and hell, and of submitting to him, at once the apostle of meekness and the vicar of God, the whole world, is so astonishing, that it will continue to awake the surprise of the latest generations of mankind. The idea was the outcome of an age of slavery, of barbarism and necessity, when suffering humanity desired to have the principle of good embodied in a personality before its eyes, a personality which to its comfort it could always see and reach. The transference to a human being of the power to bind and loose in moral affairs is perhaps the most wondrous fact in the history of the world...History, however, has not ratified his unchristian ideal, for this ideal remained below the loftier conception of humanity. The teaching of the apostles endures; time has long overthrown the hierarchical principles of Gregory, or culture, becoming universal, has turned them to derision as the belated dreams of the obscurantist and the fanatic. We may reproach Gregory with having severed the church into two halves; into the profane laity, deprived for ever of all rights of election, and the sacred and self-elective priestly caste. The conception of the Christian republic was indeed falsified by the Gregorian principles, for the hierarchy usurped the place of the church. Into this hierarchy Gregory infused a spirit of Caesarism. If this system, perfected on his lines, united in itself all political forms - democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy - it must, nevertheless, be granted that its machinery, directed by a single will, and the centralization of all dogmatic power in a caste, engendered all the evils of clerical despotism and tyranny; and we can understand that the work of Gregory VII necessarily entailed the German reformation. The best work that Gregory accomplished was a result undreamed of by himself, the awakening of intellect in the world, by means of a struggle which for the first time stirred all the moral depths of life. From this one man proceeded a movement, immeasurable in its extent, which spread through every circle of church and state. The gigantic struggle between these two forms, which together represent the social whole, their original barbarous feudal blending, their gradual separation, their permanent division, constitute the historic life of the Middle Ages. And even now we are occupied with the problem of how to render church and state completely independent powers, how to rescue them from their hierarchical rigidity, to equalize them in the principles of freedom and justice, to make them work together, and thus at last to build up a universal empire of culture and peace. In the age of physical force and barbarism, mankind was incapable of grasping the lofty ideas of Christianity. Was the church of Gregory VII and of the Middle Ages the realization of Christianity? Are these pure ideas, the expression of nature in its eternal personal and social aspect, even now realized? The extinction of the Frankish feudal state, and the decline of the power of the Gregorian church, have rather begun to denote a new phase in the history of the human race. Those still gigantic ruins of the Middle Ages sink one after the other before our eyes into the great stream of the harmony of life, which, after countless struggles, still encompasses this hard and tedious world, and bears us onward to a happiness, the anticipation of which must gladden every noble spirit.'

Chapter 6 - The United States of America: The World's Oldest Republic

§ 1. The Guardian Angel of Government. § 2. Christianity vs. Liberalism. § 3. The Supreme Court Tries to Please the Antichrist. § 4. The Labyrinths of the Liberal Mind. § 5. Some People! - They Don't Even Know How to Speak with the Authority of the Creator of the Universe. § 6. More Religion for the Huddled Masses. § 7. Madness in America. § 8. Incoherence from the Supreme Court. § 9. Capital Punishment. § 10. Rape May be Regulated by the Feds under the Commerce Clause? § 11. `Marbury v. Madison'. § 12. The Supreme Court Goes Insane: `Escobedo v. Illinois', `Miranda' v. Arizona' and `Brewer v. Williams'. § 13. Strict Constructionism is Stupid: Here's Why You Want to Break the Law. § 14. Satanic Oaths and Terminator Presidents. § 15. Free Speech in Amerika. § 16. The Electoral College. § 17. Yellow Dogs. § 18. Dogs Must Learn the Law under the Tyranny of Ex Post Facto Laws. § 19. R.I.P. Amendment X. § 20. The Homogenation of the American Nation. § 21. `As God is My Witness, I Swear I Will Never Go Hungry Again'. § 22. The Mexican Connection. § 23. The Attorney for the Defense: A Foreign Lawyer Cries Out in Favor of the USA. § 24. The Case for the Prosecution Resumes: Porn, Abortion, Nukes, the Tawana Brawley Hoax etc. § 25. Stealth Candidates. § 26. The Sexual Revolution in the USA. § 27. Chicago. § 28. Good Complexity and Bad Complexity. § 29. Healthcare. § 30. Private Sector vs. Public Sector. § 31. Minneapolis - St. Paul. § 32. Symbolism in Literature and the Modern Cinema. § 33. Crushing Pressure upon the Psyche: The Desperate Struggle to Stay Sane. § 34. What Art is Anti-Christian Art? § 35. Joe McCarthy. § 36. America's Place in the Cosmos: Where Exactly Does the USA Stand with the Deity?

§ 1. The Guardian Angel of Government

In the USA, and in every other nation on earth, most people feel trapped to some extent. There are lots of ways to feel trapped, to feel life has got you down: trapped in loveless relationships, trapped in dead end jobs, trapped in houses that depreciate in value day by day, trapped in poverty, in debauchery, in dissipation, trapped in mindless materialism, in the clutches of drugs or alcohol, trapped in ill-health, trapped by having to watch family members or friends suffer and die from wasting diseases, trapped in prostitution, in ghettos, trapped with a boss who is either a surly punk or a sullen brute, trapped in gambling addictions, trapped in hopelessness and despair, trapped in delusions and madness etc., etc. The Ancient Greek `Democracy' was an oligarchy of wealthy white men. Everyone else was trapped in some form of servitude. Ancient Rome was a world ruled by a few aristocrats who dictated laws to a huge slave empire. In the Middle Ages the priests were literate, as were many kings and some nobles, but the peasants were illiterate. The peasants were 95% of the population. What good would it do to educate the lower orders? They don't need to read the Bible or any other books. The Church of Rome will tell them everything they need to know. What do the peasants need to know? First, obey your betters, peasant! Second, too much book learning soon makes peasants dissatisfied with their life as laborers. That's no good. Can't have that. And the priests and aristocrats who knew God so well certainly knew that God certainly wanted the peasants to remain illiterate toilers. Why would God want some peasant to become educated enough to read the Bible? What good would that do him? We've already been over the fact that the Roman Catholic Church would teach him everything he needs to know. Getting back to more modern sorts of traps, the tyranny of the aristocrats in Russia led to the Revolution of 1917, which led to Soviet genocide, tyranny and gulags. Arrogance on both the Allied and the German side led to World War I, which led to economic woes which led to the criminal class taking control of Germany, which led to the Nazi death camps. The Jews, fleeing from centuries of hatred from people under the sign of the cross were led to Israel where they are now caught in a new trap, being surrounded by hundreds of millions of Muslims who want to wipe Israel off the map. To be alive means to be stuck in some sort of predicament. How does one escape the trap of death? Some people push various Christian Churches as God's True Church. Others push Islam. The Atheists push a creed which says: when you die you become a rotting corpse, and then you become a pile of dust and bones, and that's the end of you!

To get out of a trap one might look to Government for some assistance. Everyone says they admire JFK's words: `Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,' but, in reality, if we judge by actions and not by words, JFK's sentiments are spat on with bitter contempt by nearly everyone in America. And not everyone is terribly enthusiastic with JFK's words about fighting every foe and bearing every burden either. Quite naturally, if people feel trapped, then, though JFK said one shouldn't do it, people will nevertheless petition their country for some help.

If a government is weak, then its power to help people will be weak. If a government is powerful, yet insanely mismanaged, then it will not spring people from traps, but rather it will create more traps and drive more people to despair. The key, then, is to have very sane and very powerful governments, so that these governments can deliver people from whatever traps that great and good and powerful governments are capable of liberating people from.

Those who rail against Big Government might be akin to those who rail against the internal combustion engine, while they pine for a return to those lazy days when we rode horses and drove buggies. We need a powerful government to make sure that chickens and pigs and cattle are slaughtered humanely - though one is forever hearing horror stories that they are not killed humanely. We need a powerful government to make sure that building contractors don't build cheap housing complexes which collapse in moderate breezes. Even if they are strong enough you don't want to live in a complex so cheaply constructed that you must listen to your neighbors in their most intimate moments. One is always hearing about apartment complexes which are so cheaply built that you hear all the passionate action in the most uninhibited of actions involving heterosexuals, bisexuals, homosexuals, threesomes, foursomes etc., etc. Where's your government with some sane construction codes and regulations when you need them?

We want the nation to have magnificent forests and lakes and seashores and we don't want the USA to be a huge concrete jungle of a nation run by politicians who take pay offs from the Consolidated Asphalt Workers Union of America and the United Brotherhood of Concrete Masons! It will take a powerful government, legislators and judges with vision and integrity, intelligent men and women capable of controlling those forces which would put money and special interests above sound sense. A powerful government is required to stop these corporate farms and laboratories from inflicting hell on millions of poor farm animals and animals used in medical experiments. The USA seems to have thousands of deranged people who fill their houses with dogs and cats which are then treated with cruelty. Therefore a powerful government is required to rescue these poor little animals from the deranged humans. 1.5 million women are battered by their husbands and boyfriends every year in the USA. Can government help the women caught in this trap? Can government help to free men who are also trapped, either because they hate their jobs, or because they hate something else about their lives, but who are caught in some sort of trap which breeds such high levels of frustration that they bash the women they love? Obviously, if the men didn't love these women to some degree they wouldn't stay with them. Yet when they stay with them they become insanely frustrated and they brutalize their women. The women are trapped because - call them crazy if you must \- they love the brutes who bust then up. They can't leave their volatile tormentors. What can government do to make men less frustrated, less inclined to burst out in violent and insane rages?

The universe is wonderful and sublime, but, like a monster behind the mask of a beautiful girl, to borrow a phrase from Michelet, the universe can also be a lethal Enchantress, a Lorelei full of wiles and seductive charms which lure us to our destruction. The world provides no end of examples of people being led into traps which lead straight to destruction. The desire to help anti-Communists led to death and despair for thousands of young Americans fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. The desire to help the working classes in the USSR led to the murder of tens of millions of people in all classes in the USSR. The desire to force the rebellious sheep back into the Roman fold led to centuries of torment under the Inquisition. We might think everything is fair skies and tranquil horizons, but a multitude of unimagined perils lurk all round to ensnare and destroy us. To some, the insistence that the Creator of the Universe was crucified by man, and that a Divine Law is written on the hearts of True Believers, is the Epitome of Idiocy. To others it is obvious that all those lost souls who reject Christianity will be damned.

As we've seen from scriptures such as Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Isaiah 59. 20-21, Christianity and Judaism are concerned with a Divine Law which is written on human hearts. We have some logic which says: if one has this Divine Law written on ones heart, then, one would be able to recognize evil laws and unjust government policies. But if one is a big fan of evil laws and idiotic government policies, then one is deluded if one thinks one has a Divine Law written on ones heart, and again 2 Thess 2 deals with people suffering under delusion.

Of course there's the argument which says that, provided one is right on the main issues: if one has not fallen away from the True Faith, if one is not in a church which has fallen away from the True Faith, if one is not following after some heresy which leads souls to perdition, if one obeys the gospel, if one knows God, if one opposes evil laws, then it might not be too serious if one descends into a little folly now and then. Everyone knows the New Testament is infinitely more demanding in demanding that one have love in ones heart than it is in demanding that one know the perfect line of reasoning to win every legal argument. We don't read in the New Testament that one will be damned if one does not have a well-reasoned, perfectly equitable, and thoroughly coherent philosophy pertaining to Constitutional Law, tax law, criminal law, tort law, oil and gas offshore drilling laws, banking regulations, patent law, labor law, product liability law, First Amendment Law, Fourth Amendment Search and Seizure Law, class action litigation etc., etc.

Still, it seems reasonable to say that if in fact one had a Divine Law written on ones heart, then, one would not be a fan of any evil or any truly idiotic human laws. And if one is a fan of evil or idiotic laws, then, this is powerful evidence saying one does have the Divine Law written on ones heart, and therefore one has fallen away from the True Faith, to recall again 2 Thess 2.

If crazy or idiotic words are flying out of ones mouth, then, the prophecy made in Isaiah 59. 20-21 has not been fulfilled in ones particular case! Again, Isaiah 59. 20-21 says,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

§ 2. Christianity vs. Liberalism

Most Americans never attempt to comprehend the surface much less the details of the code known as American Constitutional Law, though the essence of this code - the Supreme Court decisions - can still be encapsulated in less than 1,000 thick volumes. Not every foreigner will pay money to buy books on the subject. And just try to entice the typical American with a simple epitome of the lines of demarcation which divided and subdivided the judicial philosophies articulated by the warring factions on the Supreme Court, on the topics of standing in general and the nonjusticiability of tax payer suits in particular, in `Frothingham v. Mellon' (1923) and `Flast v. Cohen' (1968). For in Frothingham an impenetrable barrier was built to cage and control tax payers, to confine the same to legal strait jackets from whence they would be powerless to sue Congress for alleged invasions or clear violations of their inalienable Constitutional Rights - and yet that supposedly impenetrable barrier was breached in Flast. You might have to talk fast to inspire people to listen to all of your learned elucidations. You might mention the rhetorical and intellectual pleasures of studying Constitutional Law but you must certainly mention that it is every citizen's civic duty to scrutinize the Pillars of the Supreme Law of the United States of America, to inspect the structural integrity of the bridge, to ensure that it is strong and stable, to ensure that it will serve its function in transporting American Society to a prosperous and happy future, to ensure that it will not collapse under tons of judicial chaos and incoherent legalese or be pulled down by unscrupulous men filled with greed and insatiable self-serving ambition. But the typical citizen will become impatient under your mild tutelage, and he will soon become disgruntled and scream out: ENOUGH LAW! He will rebel against you rather as the rebel angels rebelled against God, when they first dragged chaos and anarchy into the universe. Woodward was no doubt reasonably accurate when he estimated that, outside of love-making and money-making, three minutes was the upper limit of the typical American's attention span on subjects such as the Supreme Law of the United States of America.

In studying American Constitutional Law one deals with the same issues over and over: Justice and Injustice, Coherence and Incoherence, Sanity and Insanity. To understand the equal protection clause of Amendment XIV., which played so prominent role in `Brown v. Topeka Board of Education' (1954), which marked the beginning of the end for segregation in the USA, one might care to know what the words `equal protection under the law' actually mean. Every sane person knows that we can't treat everyone equally! If everyone paid an equal amount in taxes, then paupers would have to pay the same amount in taxes as the super-rich. If a legal code contained only laws which treated everyone equally, then, if 45-year-olds were permitted to buy whiskey, 5-year-olds would be permitted to buy whiskey. If we have a 21-year-old American who likes to spit on the American flag, and if we have a 20-year-old American who is a combat veteran, who risked his neck in battles fighting for the USA, then, the man who spits on the flag may legally buy beer in America, whereas the 20-year-old hero and combat veteran becomes an outlaw when he tries to buy beer in America. If we have an 18-year-old American who is mentally retarded and has never heard of George Washington and Abe Lincoln, and if we have a 17-year-old American who is a genius who knows everything worth knowing about Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Taft, Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ, Reagan, Clinton, the Bushes, Obama etc., etc., then, nevertheless, in America, it is legal for the retarded person to vote, but it is illegal for the genius to vote. In America it is illegal for a man to pay money to a woman to buy sex. But some porn stars are paid millions of dollars in America for having sex in front of a camera. All of this is not to imply the Equal Protection Clause is incoherent or that it can not be applied fairly, it is merely to state something remedial: it makes no sense for the law to treat everyone equally, but it does makes sense to have a system which is as just and as fair as possible. The way the system basically works is the Supreme Court makes its decisions, and then the Supreme Court justices can be impeached if they make corrupt rulings - but impeachment is very rare, whereas corrupt rulings are not so rare. The Executive and the Legislative branches might ignore the Supreme Court's rulings if they care to, but the Executive might be impeached by Congress if Congress sides with the Supreme Court, and legislators who ignore Supreme Court rulings will be voted out of office if the voters side with the Supreme Court.

During Sandra Day O'Connor's Senate confirmation hearing, she said that a judge had no right to impose his or her personal views into the adjudication of the law. One has a lot to learn about American law and government if one buys this. To say that one can interpret the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV., or interpret the equal protection clause of the latter, and apply these to particular cases without interference from ones personal views, is rather like saying that one has the ability to take ones brain out of ones head - and set it aside - and then render judgments which are free from all biases. To say that one can interpret Amendment IV. and determine how it applies to a particular case involving a seizure of property by the police, without interjecting ones personal opinions about what is a reasonable seizure and what isn't a reasonable seizure, is rather like saying that one can read the Bible and make judgments about it without letting ones personal religious opinions interfere with ones judgments about the Bible. The Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV. means that when Minnesota marries gays and lesbians then the State of Utah, and the State of Arizona, and the State of Alabama, and the State of Louisiana etc., etc., must recognize as married the gay and lesbian couples that Minnesota marries. Even if the people in Alabama or Arizona believe that marriage is a sacrament and gay marriage is a sacrilege, nevertheless, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV. compels them to recognize something they believe is sacrilegious. Civil unions between gays and lesbians would be an easy solution to a fairly simple problem to solve. I grant you the issue is a little complex. Even if you insist Christianity is a falsehood, at least try, for a minute or two, to try see the issue from a Christian's point of view. Christ and St. Paul tell Christians to obey the secular authorities, render unto Caesar what is Ceasar's etc., and the secular authorities at that time are pagan authorities. This has Christians thinking that Christ and St. Paul were speaking in general terms not in absolute terms: they wanted Christians to obey the secular authorities when the secular authorities ordered Christians to do things which were not evil or anti-Christian, but all of the New Testament tells Christians to resist evil and to not do things which are anti-Christian. Certainly the apostles were not going to worship the image of a Roman Emperor if ordered to worship such an image. If Christians did owe absolute obedience to the secular authorities, then Christians in Nazi German would have to always obey the Nazis such as when the Nazis ordered Christians to betray Jews. If Christianity says Christians must always obey the secular authorities, then Christians living under Lenin and Stalin would have to always obey Lenin and Stalin, such as when they ordered children to betray their parents if their parents did something pro-Christian but anti-Communist. But this is idiocy. Christianity doesn't tell Christians they must always obey the secular authorities. Prior to the civil War, Christian living in free states of the USA would be doing something anti-Christian if they obeyed the law which commands people to return runaway slaves to the slave states. So, long story short, it is rather insane to think that Christians are commanded by God to always obey the secular authorities. Ever since the 4th century the secular authorities are also Christian spiritual authorities. The scriptures say good Christians are to excommunicate evil Christians, and the evil Christians can be very evil indeed, take your kings and nobles of the Middle Ages. If the peasants tried to excommunicate them for their evil deeds, the peasants would be tortured to death in hideous ways, in any event, a Christian justice of the peace, when ordered to marry gay people, feels, or senses, or understands perfectly, that he is participating in a ceremony which leads people to perdition, he feels, or senses that he is participating in a sacrilege, he feels he is defiling something sacred. Recall that part about how true marriage turns fornication, a sin which leads to perdition, into lawful sex within lawful marriage, which is not a sin. So, if a Christian Justice of the Peace is commanded by his employer, the State, to perfom a sacrilege / gay marriage ceremony, then he must never officiate at such a sacrilege / gay marriage ceremony, and when he tells his boss that he refuses to marry gays, then he might be fired from his job, and this might send his family into chaos. And if gay marriage champions say: Good! Send the bastard's family into chaos! Then this just breeds hatred and violence. People will say, oh that's your attitude is it, well let me just get my shotgun and I'll blow your head off to show you what my attitude is! If Liberals are all about using thug tactics to shove sodomy and gay marriage and abortion and repeal of the 2nd Amendment and the Liberal Agenda down the throats of Americans, then there might be some people in some Red States that will declare open season on Liberals. Now of course Christians are commanded to be good and to not do anything evil, but when the pressure within the human psyche builds up and up and up, and up and up, when the rage just gets too red-hot in the Red States, or in the Blue States, when the hatred and the rage and the fury build up and up and up and up and up and up, then there tends to be an explosion. Christians of course don't want to find themselves under attack whenever they say they oppose gay marriage. They don't want their children to be hounded on the streets by angry mobs of Liberals. They don't want to be hassled or threatened on the street by thugs who follow orders from some Gay Marriage boss. To support gay marriage is to support something which Christians believe leads people to perdition, and Christians don't want to be dragged to perdition themselves for supporting heresy and sacrilege. When a Christian says he supports gay marriage then he is saying that gay sex – sodomy – is not a sin, he is saying that it is OK in the eyes of God, and so he is leading himself to perdition, because he is supporting a heresy, and heresy leads people to perdition, so the Christian has fallen into heresy, so he's on the road to perdition, and he knows it, and that makes him, as you might imagine, very uncomfortable. Now a gay marriage activist might say various things about my analysis, two possibilities come quickly to mind: 1) We must drive the Christians to Civil War and we must destroy the Christians in this Civil War. Let there be killing and bloodshed! 2) Civil Unions, not Civil War, are the way to proceed. Civil Unions, ceremonies which give gay couples all the temporal benefits of marriage but not the spiritual benefits, ceremonies which do not say that sodomy is OK in the eys of God - are so much less stressful for everyone, so let's push for Civil Unions and stop pushing for Gay Marriage.

Everyone agrees that the Founding Fathers erred right from the beginning, at the Founding in the Colonial Age. Dr. Johnson expressed a sad situation quite succinctly:

`How is it we hear the loudest yelps for Liberty from the drivers of the negroes?'

Prior to the ratification of Amendment XIII., which arrived after the Civil War, in 1865, Article IV. was perfectly clear in giving a warm embrace to slavery. If a slave escaped from his chains in Georgia, or South Carolina, and fled to Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania, then, under Article IV., prior to the ratification of Amendment XIII., the Northern authorities were bound by the Constitution to return the slave to his Southern masters.

The issues of slavery and abortion are similar in that they both pertain to evils. They both pertain to the question: who is a person? They both pertain to Amendments V. and XIV., which say that no person is to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. In `Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit', Garry Wills informs us, p. 221, that there is a natural morality argument favoring abortion which is within the grasp of people of normal intelligence and good-will. How generous! Pro-lifers will be thrilled to know that we are neither inherently vile nor incredibly stupid - merely below normal! Wills argues that pro-lifers are perverse because we refuse to confess that women have a right to an abortion, and perverse because we refuse to confess that the American Law Institute, The American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, all of which profess the pro-choice position, are wiser than we. Wills assures us that all of the deans of California's medical schools, and that the American Civil Liberties Union, and no end of professors of law and medicine hold that women have a Constitutional right to an abortion. Who dares to disagree with these deities? He writes, p. 229, that abortion is not murder, without making any distinction as to the stage of the pregnancy at which the abortion is performed.

Mother Theresa said abortion is murder, plain and simple. Some other leaders on the pro-life side include Father Pavone and Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some in Academia insist one must be a Right-Wing hatemonger if one is pro-life, but other Academicians are now revising this view and concluding that pro-lifers are simply below-average rather than hate-filled. Journalists in the USA are usually as incestuous as Academics in never looking outside the Liberal Family for their opinions. But we have at least one confirmed case of a Jewish-Atheist-Socialist-Journalist who is pro-life. Nat Hentoff, a Jewish-Atheist-Socialist who wrote for `The Village Voice' for over 50 years is pro-life. The late John Cardinal O'Connor once said the pro-life movement could not afford to lose him - `National Review' (2.11.08, p. 10). One does find organizations such as Feminists for Life, but Feminists are almost exclusively pro-choice, and no doubt most Feminists insist that one can not be a Feminist if one is pro-life, rather as an animal can't be a bird if it can't fly.

Again, George Will, in a column he wrote in 1995, gave us the following account of a partial-birth abortion as witnessed by a Dayton Ohio nurse:

`The mother was six months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms - everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby's head just inside the uterus. The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby's brains out.'

A partial-birth abortion is actually an example of one of the more humane varieties of the various abortion procedures. A stab to the back of a baby's skull is indeed brutal but at least death arrives quite swiftly and there is less pain for the aborted child in a partial birth abortion than in some other types of abortion, types which the Supreme Court has not outlawed, abortions which the American medical profession performs every day with the blessing of the American government.

John Whitehead told us in `The Stealing of America', pp. 57-8, that there are four principal ways to abort a child. After giving the mother chemicals which impair heart function and circulation, the child will either be born dead or close to death. Sharp curettage involves mutilation with a knife. Suction curettage uses a pump which dismembers the child and sucks out his or her body parts in pieces. These latter two methods are generally used during the first trimester. During the second and third trimesters the child is often killed with a saline solution. Mr. Whitehead says the unborn child might feel all the pain that we feel as early as 77 days after conception. When killed via the saline method the child may suffer pain similar to being burned in acid, for the skin of the dead baby resembles skin burned in acid, and intense pain may linger for up to two hours before death arrives.

The Britannica (1963), in its article on human embryology states:

`The heart begins to beat at toward the end of the third week. The voluntary muscles are able to contract in response to external stimuli (touch or pin prick) after the eighth week and spontaneous movements may begin as early as 9 1/2 weeks.'

Approximately 70 million abortions have been performed in America since `Roe v. Wade' (1973). If the reader is interested in the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 he might also be interested in some other verses from the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 1: 5 has God saying,

`Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.'

Jeremiah 2. 33-34 has God saying,

`Why do you beautify your way to seek love? Therefore you have also taught the wicked women your ways. Also on your skirts is found the blood of the poor innocents. I have not found it by secret search, but plainly on all these things.'

Concerning wicked men, we read in the Book of Ecclesiastes some words which are relevant to the world's predicament,

`He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver...the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.'

We certainly know that a Christian judge or Christian politician is not thinking with 100% sharpness and clarity if he says to himself: `It is far far better that I should spend eternity in perdition for supporting the pro-choice philosophy, rather than do anything which might displease pro-choice voters, or do anything which might cost me the next election. Yes, it is much much better that I go to perdition rather than displease pro-choice people. There is no doubt about this!'

The pro-choice position, at least to pro-lifers, is similar to the pro-slavery position, because, 1) both deal with the question: who is a person? 2) both slavery and abortion pertain to the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. which say the government can not deprive a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and 3) the pro-choice mantra sounds rather like the pro-slavery mantra: if you don't like slavery then don't own slaves, but don't tell slave-owners they can't own slaves, if that is their choice. A pro-choicer argues like a pedophile who says that if you don't like pedophilia then don't be a pedophile, but don't tell him he can't be a pedophile.

Romans 14. 12 says everyone will have to give an account of himself to the Creator of the Universe. One of the strongest reasons to be a pro-lifer, in my opinion, is the reason that says: as soon as you try to defend the pro-choice position when you stand before God, God will send you straight to hell. The typical pro-choicer says: `f*ck Christianity.' That's what the typical pro-choicer says to religious arguments against the pro-choice position.

We are here, in this chapter to explore a line of logic. We have people under the sign of the cross who claim to have a Divine Law written on their hearts. But if it can be proven that they have confusion written on their hearts, if it can be proven that these people under the sign of the cross have a mass of conflictiong opinions written on their hearts, then it can be proven that they are delusional when they claim to have a Divine Law written on their hearts.

We went over my pro-Christian but anti-cross logic in Chapter 1. Even if a professor of Women's Studies rejects the premise that Jesus is God, we would like her to try to suspend her disbelief at least for a few hours, to see what conclusions one might draw from this premise. Let us all accept the premise that Jesus is God, at least for a little while. We certainly know that should the Democratic Part adopt an official plank in its official party platform saying that Romans 9. 5, John 1. 1-14, Isaiah 9. 6, Psalm 45. 5-6, Psalm 2, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16, Matthew 1. 23 and Hebrews 1. 8 are all a pack of lies, well, we know this anti-Christian plank is not going to help Democrats win elections in the USA. Obviously, either Jesus is the Creator of the Universe or else Jesus isn't the Creator of the Universe. If Jesus is God then it is blasphemy and sacrilege to say Jesus is not God. If Jesus is not God then it is blasphemy and sacrilege to say He is God. I'm pushing the doctrine that Jesus is God, the Divine Son – though I'm also pushing some anti-cross logic. Though I spent all of Chapter 5 and huge parts Chapters 1 and 2 dealing with the Roman Catholic Church, it doesn't hurt to review a few salient points. Recall that Christ said in Matthew 16. 13-19 that He has founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Now if Rome is this Church which Christ founded on a rock, then there is simply no reason to ever risk hellfire by rebelling against the Roman Catholic Church. You might think Rome has erred in any number of ways, but, nevertheless, if you will always be led to heaven, and will never be led to hellfire, if you always profess and obey Rome's official doctrines, and if you might be led to hellfire if you rebel against God's True Church, Rome, then it makes no sense to ever rebel against Rome. That's scenario 1. Scenario 2 says Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Scenario 2 says Rome has fallen into heresy and therefore Rome leads people away from heaven and drags them down to perdition. So, in Scenario 2 you want to make sure you get out of the Roman Catholic Church. And in Chapter 1 I explained how this info pertains to the Roman Catholic crucifix. As you will recall St. Paul, in 2 Thess 2 mentions a man of sin and a son of perdition. This is presumably the Antichrist mentioned in 1 John 2. 18, and the beast mentioned in Revelation 19. 19. And then we have these 3 angels mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11. Now an angel from hell might preach a set of doctrines which are 99% true, but if 1% of what he teaches is heresy which leads people to perdition, then you have to be sharp enough to understand that most of what he is saying is true, but, nevertheless, he still leads people away from heaven and drags them down to perdition with the evil 1%. Now, suppose Protestant pro-choicers are wise to reject Rome. But just because they are wise to reject Rome doesn't prove they are wise to promote of the pro-choice philosophy. There are several very conscicuous ways that Protestants have fallen away from the teachings of the New Testament. And again, you have no way to distinguish an angel from hell from and angel from heaven unless you are 100% competent in knowing exactly what the True Faith is. And how can you be 100% competent, unless the prophecy made in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 comes true in your case, and you have the Divine Law written on your heart? The New Testament is very harsh against rich people. Recall that Revelation 18. 23 likens merchants to sorcerers. I suppose the reasoning is that merchants use advertising to stir up covetousness in people, and covetous people are idolators according to the scriptures. It's understandable why a rich guy we try to find a strategy whereby he could hold on to his riches and also avoid damnation, but, all the same, a person seems rather simple-minded - rather retarded! – if he can not understand John 14. 23-26, Matthew 25. 31-46, Luke 16. 19-31, Acts 2. 44-45 , 1 Timothy 6. 10 – `for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil' – James 1. 9 - `the rich man passes away' etc., etc. In earlier drafts of my books I made a big deal of the scriptures which damn the rich, but lately I've come to think that the prophecies made in Revelation 18 – economic collapse, famine etc., - will have to come true before the vast majority of rich Christians start to see sense on this issue. The ignorance of rich Christians is akin to the ignorance or Roman Catholics who point to alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary and think these apparitions are somehow proof that Rome is God's True Church. It's as if these Roman Catholics have never read Matthew 7. 15-16, Matthew 7. 22-23, Galatians 1. 8-12, Ephesians 6. 12, 1 Timothy 4. 1-3 – recall the part about giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. In Galatians 1. 8-12 St. Paul tells us that even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters the doctrines which he learned from Christ. If you have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on your heart then you ought to know if devotion to the `Immaculate Heart of Mary' is consistent with the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 or not. 1 Timothy 2. 5 – there is One Mediator.

Let's all assume that Jesus is God. If you can't do this, then assume it just for a few moments, for the sake of argument. Let's assume Romans 9. 5, John 1. 1-14, Isaiah 9. 6, Psalm 45. 5-6, Psalm 2, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16, Matthew 1. 23 and Hebrews 1. 8 are accurate. Recall that in Acts 26. 13-18 St. Paul describes how he was converted from being a persecutor of Christians to being an apostle of Christianity. Let's accept the premise that this account from St. Paul is trustworthy. Let's assume that what St. Paul wrote in Galatians 1. 8-12 is also trustworthy. Here again St. Paul tells us, in so many words, that he learned his doctrines directly from God / Jesus, and one is accursed – damned – if one alters these doctrines. St. Paul was not an apostle for the hedonistic lifestyle! Note 1 Timothy 5. 6 - `she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.' Let's you some logic to evaluate 1 Timothy 2. 12, where St. Paul says he does not allow women to teach or have authority over men. Now if a Church with a male-only clergy leads people to heaven, then it makes no sense for women to reject this Church because it has a male-only clergy. That would be cutting off your nose to spite your face, to use an old expression. And if a church with only men for priests or pastors has fallen into heresy and leads people away from heaven and drags them down to perdition, then why would any sensible woman want to be a priestess in that worthless church? We might theorize that God wanted to keep women out of the clergy, because God knew that the churches under the cross would fall away into heresy, and since women are the main defenders of young children, and since young children can't think for themselves they need competent religious teachers to think for them. It's just easier to be a competent religious teacher if you are not a priestess in a church which has fallen into heresy. There's always a tendency to defend a vested interest, even if that vested interest has fallen into heresy. If you are a priestess in a church which leads people away from heaven and drags them down to perdition, then you will have a tendency to deny that your church drags people down to perdition, even though it does just that. Recall 2 Thess 2 and Revelation 14. 6-11. How is one supposed to distinguish between the Antichrist from some angel from heaven if one is not 100% competent in religious matters? The Antichrist might be right in 99% of all that he teaches, but he still drags souls to perdition because of the 1% that is heresy. If St. Paul is trustworthy in 2 Thess 2 why would he be untrustworthy in 1 Timothy 2. 12, or in 2 Thess 1. 8? 2 Thess 1. 8 – Fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In John 15. 6 Jesus tells us those who do not abide in Him are like sticks which are gathered and tossed into the flames. We don't have to rehearse all of the New Testament scriptures which deal with hellfire: Matthew 25. 31-46, Matthew 5, Luke 16. 19-31, Revelation 20. 12-15 etc. Once you accept the premise that the scriptures are trustworthy in teaching us that Jesus is God then it seems terribly idiotic to say these same scriptures are untrustworthy when they teach about hellfire. One is always reading about some little kid being kidnapped and raped and murdered, we're forever reading about some little kid spending his or her last moments on earth in horror and torment. This leads Atheists to doubt God's existence and benevolence. Why doesn't God intercede and save those poor little kids? Revelation 20. 12-15 deals with the Last Judgment. This is especially the time when you need mercy from God. On the one hand we have scriptures which tell us those who are lost in heresy will be damned. But don't you think God will have mercy at the Last Judgment on the soul of some little kid who spends his last hours on earth suffering torment even though this little kid doesn't know very much about the True Faith? I imagine mercy is given in the afterlife to little kids who die young, even though these kids do not uphold the True Faith, but what excuse do adults have for falling away from the True Faith? The whole abortion procedure just seems evil and anti-Christian to my mind. Don't you think those churches which celebrate communion with pro-choice people have fallen away from the True Faith? Recall the falling away and the strong delusion mentioned by St. Paul in 2 Thess 2. Recall 1 Corinthians 11. 27 where St. Paul says it is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner.

Pro-choice Christians must argue as follows: Pro-choice Christians can indeed be True Christians. Being pro-choice does not mean one has fallen away from the True Faith, recall the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2: Pro-choice Christians can indeed have the Divine Law written on their hearts, because God is pro-choice: God is hostile to pro-life laws. God might not love abortion, but God is hostile to pro-life laws which attempt to save the lives of unborn babies.

If the pro-choice Christian denies Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and Christ's words at the Last Supper, then he denies Christianity. Therefore, the pro-choice Christian must insist he has a Divine Law written on his heart, and he must insist that God is pro-choice. And how trustworthy is his heart? Can one have the Divine Law written on ones heart when one says sodomy between two men married in a gay marriage ceremony is lawful and consistent with the Gospel in the eyes of God? If one says: `God is OK with gay guys sodomizing each other provided they are married in a gay marriage ceremony,' then, is there anything here that might be seen as heresy with this statement? Is there anything here which contradicts what St. Paul wrote in Galatians 1. 8-12, 1 Corithians 6. 9-10, Ephesians 5. 5, 1 Corithians 11. 27 etc? Anything here that might be considered anti-Christian? Anything here which leads people away from heaven and to perdition? If the pro-choice Christian who advocates Gay Marriage is preaching heresy on the issue of Gay Marriage, could it be possible that he doesn't have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on his heart? If a pro-choice Christian is deluded enough to believe he has a Divine Law written on his heart when he does not, is it possible he is also deluded enough to preach heresy on the issue of abortion?

Conservatives, seeing that the Liberals are the creators of the Culture of Death, to use Pope John Paul II.'s succinct term for the West's infatuation with abortion, hold that there is nothing mysterious about modern American politics. William F. Buckley, Jr. knew long ago that the most dangerous enemy to Conservatism was not Liberalism, but, rather, a mutant version of Conservatism, such as the Know-Nothing, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Black, John Birch Society version of Conservatism. And what are the mutant versions of Modern Liberalism? JFK and RFK, unlike their little brother, were not fans of legal abortion. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was hostile to the pro-choice philosophy. James Watt informed us in his `The Courage of a Conservative', p. 93, of Dr. Virginia Abernathy, a psychiatrist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. In Dr. Virginia Abernathy's professional opinion, abortion is never wrong, furthermore, she concludes, a child only becomes a human being around the age of three or four. Now Dr. Abernathy, though she wouldn't appear to be a friend of Conservatism, is great a friend of Conservatism, because she makes Liberalism look insane in the eyes of Conservatives. A man might vote only for Republican candidates, but, if this man is a profane, tobacco-spitting, black-hating, anti-Semitic Republican, then he is no friend of the Republican Party. Similarly, a professor at Vanderbilt University Medical School might vote only for Democrats, but, if she states in public that children under the age of three or four are not human beings, then she is no pal of the Democratic Party. One might suspect her of being a Republican spy. She's purposely trying to make all Democrats look like dingbats! Therefore she simply has to be a Republican spy! Mr. Watt writes, p. 81, that a man was convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 1974. He was convicted again of the same offense in 1980. After serving seven months he was convicted of molesting a seven-year-old, and while out on bail he molested yet another child. Now if he had molested children under the age of three or four, Dr. Abernathy could have been summoned as an expert witness for the defense, to testify that no crime against a human being had been committed, for, in her expert opinion, children under the age of three or four are not human beings.

Is God pro-choice or is God pro-life? If you have not fallen away from the True Faith, if you have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on your heart, you would probably know the answer.

Arland K. Nichols writes in `New Oxford Review' (Dec, 2010, p. 35),

`A woman eighteen weeks pregnant was lying on the operating table before a young female doctor. By coincidence, the doctor was also eighteen weeks pregnant and would, in a matter of months, welcome her child into the world. Turning to the patient, she dutifully began the surgery that had been scheduled - an abortion. This physician, by means of a popular pro-abortion blog, described the graphic and shocking details of her experience: "I realized that I was more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts when I was done, since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus. I went about doing this procedure as usual...I used electrical suction to remove the amniotic fluid, picked up my forceps and began to remove the fetus in parts, as I always did. With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick - a fluttery `thump, thump' in my own uterus...There was a leg and a foot in my forceps, and a 'thump, thump' in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body..."...Abortion...is one thing and one thing alone - murder of the most gruesome sort. And yet, this doctor and mother's experience did not hinder her from continuing to dismember and kill not only this one but other innocent, vulnerable, and dependent human beings. She writes, "Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder." To think that this mother continues to directly participate in the murder of innocent children dependent upon the nurturing and loving care of their mothers is perfidious...'

§ 3. The Supreme Court Tries to Please the Antichrist

Should American public schools be permitted to explain to kids the reasons - both the secular and the religions reasons - for the American-Israeli alliance? 3,000 of our countrymen and countrywomen were murdered on 9.11.2001. According to Osama bin Ladin, the reason for the attack was retaliation against the Americian-Israeli alliance. American kids obviously have a right to know both the religious and the secular reasons for this American-Israeli alliance. But the American courts say: No! It is verboten to teach religion in the public schools, even in classes which are not required for graduation.

To do an adequate job of explaining the religious reasons for the American-Israeli alliance, a teacher has to explain the basics of Christianity, one has to explain this connection between Christ's words at the Last Supper with Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If a teacher explains these matters the students will soon demand answers to some other questions: what is the New Law? What is the True Church? To answer these questions a conscientious teacher would have to explain some of the pros and cons of the major sects within Christianity, sects which compete for the prize of being the True Church and the True Faith, and this could lead to bitter anger and resentment, such as when a teacher told a youngster that his or her parents are deluded heretics bound for hell unless they repent and amend their damnable religious beliefs, so as to bring these into conformity with the New Law and the True Church. If the parents' vision of the Divine Law does not conform with the teacher's vision of the Divine Law, one can expect a lack of charity to ensue, and perhaps even some foul and filthy words to be exchanged between the parents and the teacher, especially if the teacher insists on teaching religion to the kids of these parents.

The American Courts have indeed banned the Bible from the public schools in the USA. No doubt the Armies of Political Correctness would want to ban John Buchan's autobiographical collection of essays `Memory Hold-The-Door' (Musson Book Co, 1940) from the public schools, as it contains religious material,

`I am of Blake's view: "Man must and will have some religion; if he has not the religion of Jesus he will have the religion of Satan." There have been high civilizations in the past which have not been Christian, but in the world as we know it I believe that civilization must have a Christian basis, and must ultimately rest on the Christian Church. To-day the Faith is being attacked, and the attack is succeeding. Thirty years ago Europe was nominally a Christian continent. It is no longer so. In Europe, as in the era before Constantine, Christianity is in a minority. What Gladstone wrote seventy years ago, in a moment of depression, has become a shattering truth: "I am convinced that the welfare of mankind does not now depend on the State and the world of politics; the real battle is being fought in the world of thought, where a deadly attack is made with great tenacity of purpose and over a wide field upon the greatest treasure of mankind, the belief in God and the gospel of Christ.'

If courts decreed Buchan's book banned from the public schools, because it preaches a little Christian Fundamentalism, even though 99% of the book has nothing to do with Christian Fundamentalism, perhaps the courts would want to ban books which teach the ancient Greek and Roman myths, which are still religious books. If so, Buchan's `Memory-Hold-the-Door' would, strangely enough, be banned for doing this as well, because it has some curious words on the Greek deity known as Pan,

`Just as sailing a small boat brings one close to the sea, so mountaineering lays one alongside the bones of Mother Earth...I never took kindly to snow and ice work, but I found a strong fascination in rock-climbing, whether on the granite slabs of Chamonix aiguilles, or the sheer fissured precipices of the Dolomites, or the gabbro of the Coolins...I was fortunate to have the opposite of vertigo, for I found physical comfort in looking down from great heights. Bodily fitness is essential, for there are always courses which you must have the strength to complete or court disaster...Then there are the moments of illumination...on a rock mountain, when, after hours spent hugging the framework of the earth in cracks and chimneys, one comes out at the top to a spacious sunlit universe. I always felt the drama of transition most sharply in Skye, when, after a course among difficult chimneys or over faces with exiguous holds, one reached the ridge and saw the Minch, incredibly far below, stretching its bright waters to the sunset and the ultimate isles. Such moments gave me the impression of somehow being outside the world in the ether to which clouds and birds belong, of being very nearly pure spirit - until hunger reminded me that I had still a body...I had one experience which I shall not soon forget. It was in 1910 in the Bavarian Wettersteingebirge above Partenkirchen. There is a small rock peak in the neighborhood called Alpspitze which I set out to climb about two one June morning, with, as my companion, a young forester called Sebastian. We duly reached the summit, and about nine, after breakfast at a little mountain inn, began our walk of six miles or so to the valley. It was a brilliant summer day with a promise of great heat, but our road lay through pleasant shady pine woods and flowery meadows. I noticed that my companion had fallen silent, and, glancing at him, was amazed to see that his face was dead-white, that sweat stood in beads on his forehead, and that his eyes were staring ahead as if he were in an agony of fear, as if terror were all around him so that he dared not look one way rather than another. Suddenly he began to run, and I ran too...Terror had seized me also, but I did not know what I dreaded...we ran like demented bacchanals, tearing down the glades, leaping rocks, bursting through thickets, colliding with trees, sometimes colliding with each other, and all the time we never uttered a sound. At last we fetched up beside the much-frequented valley highway, where we lay for a time utterly exhausted. For the rest of the road home we did not speak; we did not even dare look at each other. What was the cause? I suppose it was Panic. Sebastian had seen the goat-foot god...I have never had a similar experience, but a friend of mine had something like it in Norway. He was alone, climbing in the Jotunheim, and suddenly in a wild upland glen the terror of space and solitude came upon him. He ran for dear life, crossed a considerable range of mountains, and at last reached a saeter'.

We will consider John Buchan, also known as Lord Tweedsmuir, in some detail in this chapter. He was a statesman and writer of spy novels: a lawyer, philosopher, historian and a biographer, and a lot of other things as well. His place in the pantheon of great 20th century writers fluctuates a good deal. Indeed he seems almost unknown in the USA.

Resuming the theme of the courts banning books from America's schools, `History of the Peloponnesian War' by Thucydides is of course one of the greatest books ever written. It gives one the impression that superhuman energy was required to conduct the immense research that it took to write that book. And then many of the speeches in that book, though not perfectly historical - being fictions to some degree which were invented by Thucydides - are nevertheless unsurpassed models of eloquence and clear thinking. There is mention of gods and oracles in it, but it is not a religious book. Thucydides was an enemy of the arrogance so often found in statesmen and warriors, but one can read his book from beginning to end and never find the faintest suggestion that, should a great nation be attacked by a weaker one, the great nation should let the attack go unpunished. It is a book filled with accounts of Greek statesmen, generals, and warriors, who all seem to be in agreement that a great nation has become a cowardly and corrupt nation if she lets an inferior nation kill her soldiers with impunity. If what we read in the newspapers is correct, if Iran is indeed responsible for bombs which kill American soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere, and if it is true that a great nation is a cowardly and corrupt nation if she lets a weaker nation attack her with impunity, then what are we to conclude about the USA? Biblical precepts such as `blessed are the peacemakers,' `turn the other cheek,' `forgive and pray for your enemies,' `thou shall not kill' and `the meek shall inherit the earth' form some part of the American character, though it might not always seem so, and it is a good thing for Iran and some other countries that this is so, because, if it wasn't so, if the USA was to embrace the war-like philosophy taught in `History of the Peloponnesian War', the USA would not waste much time in reducing Iran and some other nations to heaps of radioactive rubble. The USA is neither completely pagan nor is she completely Christian. But the USA is Christian enough to reject the fierce militarism of pagans like Thucydides. Strange to report, it is Christianity which saves some Muslim nations from annihilation. A highly rational, anti-arrogant, and yet a decidedly pagan and war-like mentality infuses `History of the Peloponnesian War'. No doubt the Liberals on the Supreme Courts will want to ban that dangerous book from the libraries of the public schools in America.

The Liberals on Supreme Court would certainly want to ban both Eusebius -The Father of Church History - and Josephus - one of the great historians from antiquity. They inform us of amazing prodigies just before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Eusebius wrote in `The History of the Church', Penguin Classics, p. 65,

`After the Saviour's Passion, and the cries with which the Jewish mob clamoured for the reprieve of the bandit and murderer and begged that the Author of Life should be removed from them, disaster befell upon the entire nation...the overruling power of God was still patient, in the hope that at last they might repent of their misdeeds and obtain pardon and salvation; and besides this wonderful patience, it granted miraculous warnings from God of what would happen to them if they did not repent...Turn then to Book VI of Histories, and read what he [Josephus] says,

"First a star stood over the city, very like a broadsword...at three in the morning so bright a light shone round the Altar and the Sanctuary that it might have been midday...a cow brought by the high priest to be sacrificed gave birth to a lamb in the middle of the Temple courts, while at midnight it was observed that the east gate of the inner Sanctuary had opened of its own accord - a gate made of bronze and so solid that every evening twenty strong men were required to shut it...a supernatural apparition was seen...what I have to relate would have been dismissed as an invention had it not been vouched for by eyewitnesses...Before sunset there was seen in the sky over the whole country chariots and regiments in arms speeding through the clouds and encircling the towns...One Jesus son of Ananias, a very ordinary yokel, came to the feast at which every Jew is expected to set up a tabernacle for God. As he stood in the Temple he suddenly began to shout: `A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the Sanctuary, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, a voice against the whole people!' Day and night he uttered the cry as he went through the streets...though scourged till his flesh hung in ribbons, he neither begged mercy nor shed a tear, but lowering his voice to the most mournful tones answered every blow with: `Woe to Jerusalem!'"'

There are a great many books besides the Bible, such as `The Histories' by Herodotus and Plutarch's `Lives' which make powerful arguments for the existence of supernatural powers. To dismiss all of these accounts of the supernatural in these books as nonsense is simply blind materialistic bigotry. Plutarch told us that Lycurgus heard a voice from heaven and that Numa lived in some sort of union with a goddess. Thucydides was not a great believer in oracles but he did tell us in `History of the Peloponnesian War' that, before the war, the oracles were saying the war would last for 27 years, and it indeed lasted 27 years. St. Augustine said a voice from heaven told him to pick up and read the New Testament. St. Joan of Arc was led by her voices to free France and defeat the English invaders. As we saw earlier, Sir Edward Creasy wrote in `Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World',

` She was tried before an ecclesiastical tribunal on the charge of witchcraft, and on the 30th of May, 1431, she was burnt alive in the market-place at Rouen. I will add but one remark on the character of the truest heroine that the world has ever seen. If any person can be found in the present age who would join in the scoffs of Voltaire against the Maid of Orleans and the Heavenly Voices by which she believed herself inspired, let him read the life of the wisest and best man that the heathen nations ever produced. Let him read of the Heavenly Voice by which Socrates believed himself to be constantly attended, which cautioned him on his way from the field of battle at Delium, and which from his boyhood to the time of his death visited him with unearthly warnings. Let the modern reader reflect upon this; and then, unless he is prepared to term Socrates either a fool or imposter, let him not dare to deride or vilify Joan of Arc.'

There's a clip on You Tube of Joy Behar making fun of Vice President Pence's contention that he not only talks to Jesus but Jesus responds to him and he hears words from Jesus. There's nothing wrong with a skeptical attitude. There are lots of things wrong with blind acceptance of Pence's assertion. There are three big possibilities: Possibility #1) There's nothing supernatural here. Pence is not crazy, or at least not super crazy, or maybe he is super crazy, or maybe he's just a little mixed up. But there's nothing supernatural here. Now if he is crazy or super crazy, don't tease him. Don't make fun of him! Don't tease the mentally ill! Of course Joy probably doesn't think he is crazy or super crazy. She probably thinks he's just a little mixed up, and so it is no big deal if she has a little fun. Come on lighten up. She's just having a little fun. Don't make such a big deal over a little teasing! Possibility #2) the Vice President is in touch with a malevolent supernatural power masquerading as a benevolent supernatural power. And Christians are super super crazy if they think this is not a possibility, Possibility #3) the Vice President is actually being spoken to by Jesus, who of course, to lots and lots of non-Christians, is a malevolent supernatural power. I mean if He is the True God then there's no problem, but if he is a false god...

True religion is wonderful and superstition and demonism are dreadful, but how does one distinguish sound religion from superstition in all instances? Herodotus filled his pages with oracles and prophecies, portents and prodigies. Recall that Xerxes didn't wish to invade Greece but some demon appeared to him in his dreams and forced him to invade. Herodotus tells a tale of birds which speak and which command priestesses to build oracles. Herodotus finds talking birds to be absurd, but he didn't find priestesses who reveal the future via the inspiration of gods to be absurd.

Lecky writes in `History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne',

`In the Empire there is not an historian, from Tacitus down to the meanest writer in the Augustan history, who was not convinced that numerous prodigies foreshadowed the accession and death of every sovereign, and every great catastrophe that fell on the people. Cicero could say with truth that there was not a single nation of antiquity, from the polished Greek to the rudest savage, which did not admit the existence of a real art enabling men to foretell the future...The belief that the king's touch can cure scrofula flourished in the most brilliant periods of English history. It was unshaken by the most numerous and public experiments. It was asserted by the privy council, by the bishops of two religions, by the general voice of the clergy in the palmiest days of the English Church, by the University of Oxford...It survived the ages of the Reformation, of Bacon, of Milton, of Hobbes...This miraculous power existed exclusively in the English and French royal families, being derived, in the first, from Edward the Confessor, in the second, from St. Lewis...The gift was unimpaired by the Reformation, and an obdurate Catholic was converted on finding that Elizabeth, after the Pope's excommunication, could cure his scrofula. Francis I. cured many persons when prisoner in Spain. Charles I., when a prisoner, cured a man by his simple benediction, the Puritans not permitting him to touch him...Shakespeare has noticed the power (Macbeth, Act iv. Scene 3). Dr. Johnson, when a boy, was touched by queen Anne...In obedience to dreams, the great Emperor Augustus went begging money through the streets of Rome...The facility of belief that was manifested by some of the most eminent men, even on matters that were not deemed supernatural, can only be realised by those who have an intimate acquaintance with their works...[Pliny] tells us with the utmost gravity how the fiercest lion trembles at the crowing of a cock; how elephants celebrate their religious ceremonies; how the stag drags serpents by its breath from their holes and then tramples them to death...Aristotle, the greatest naturalist of Greece, had observed that it was a curious fact that on the sea-shore no animal ever dies except during the ebbing of the tide...It was in 1727 and the two following years, that scientific observations made at Rochefort and at Brest finally dissipated the delusion...St. Epiphanius tells us that some rivers and fountains were annually transformed into wine...[St. Augustine] tells us, besides many other miracles, that Gamaliel in a dream revealed to a priest named Lucianus the place where the bones of St. Stephen were buried; that those bones, being thus discovered, were brought to Hippo, the diocese of which St. Augustine was bishop; that they raised five dead persons to life...Josephus assures us that he had himself, in the reign of Vespasian, seen a Jew named Eleazar drawing by these means a daemon through the nostrils of a possessed person...It is, indeed true that burning heretics by slow fire was one of the accomplishments of the Inquisitors, and that they were among the most consummate masters of torture of their age...It is true, too, that the immense majority of the acts of the martyrs are the transparent forgeries of lying monks; but it is also true that among the authentic records of Pagan persecutions there are histories which display, perhaps more vividly than any other, both the depth of cruelty to which human nature may sink, and the heroism of resistance it may attain...We read of Christians bound in chairs of red-hot iron, while the stench of their half-consumed flesh rose in a suffocating cloud to heaven; of others who were torn to the very bone by shells, or hooks of iron; of holy virgins given over to the lust of the gladiator...fires so slow the victims writhed for hours in their agonies; of bodies torn limb from limb, or sprinkled with burning lead...poured over the flesh that was bleeding from the rack; of tortures prolonged and varied through entire days. For the love of their Divine Master, for the cause they believed to be true, men, and even weak girls, endured these things without flinching, when one word would have freed them from their sufferings. No opinion we may form of the proceedings of priests in a later age should impair the reverence with which we bend before the martyr's tomb.'

The aristocrats were the most licentious class of people in France before the Revolution, but Tocqueville said that after the Revolution, the aristocrats, at least those who hadn't lost their heads, transformed themselves into the most puritanical class in France. In one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books we read that a man whipped his son because the lad had taken a sled and drove it down a snowy hill on the Sabbath Day. If Americans are flogged in the 19th century for having a little fun on the Sabbath, and if 19th century preachers of the gospel also preach slavery and segregation, then a reaction against religion might be expected to transpire, such that teachers will not be permitted to read the Bible in the public schools in the 20th and 21st centuries.

To think that a school can avoid the subject of religion, and still teach history in competent fashion, is one of those delusions which would seem to be easy to eradicate. Nevertheless, given the polemical strife which arises from religious disputes, some insist it is best if religious ideas were not taught in the public school. Most people can behave calmly and diplomatically when they confront religious beliefs which are hostile to their own beliefs, provided these beliefs are expressed diplomatically. A big problem is that kids in school are usually not very diplomatic. People can discuss the most hostile creeds calmly and politely as long as they remain calm and polite. But when people belittle others, when they hurl sarcastic insults, when they taunt and jeer - then everything swiftly degenerates into a jungle of hatred and violence. Given the propensity of kids to taunt and to be sarcastic, and given the fierce passions which religion can inspire, some might insist that the public schools must content themselves in at least teaching Reading, Writing and Arithmetic in competent fashion. Nevertheless, a school certainly can not teach History and Philosophy in competent fashion if it runs away from subject of Religion.

If one reveres the Bible, it is perfectly understandable why one would want the Bible taught in the public schools. Wouldn't one have to be rather lost and deluded if, 1) one believed that the Bible was a sure guide in leading souls to heaven, and 2) one wanted to prevent children from learning what the Bible teaches?

It's true that it's a bad idea to force religion on people who don't want religion, but there are such things as elective classes, classes which are not required in order for students to graduate.

Christians insist the Bible is basically a history book. It is a work of non-fiction. Yes it contains proverbs and parables and psalms, symbolic language and prophetic visions, but, nevertheless, Christians assert it is still a work of history. It's non-fiction! The American courts might not accept this. Do the courts accept the contention that Edward Gibbon's `History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' is a history book? Do they agree it is a work of non-fiction? A powerful articulation of the doctrine that Jesus is God comes from the pen of Mr. Gibbon. The reader should understand that Athanasius was, many centuries ago, the supreme defender in Christendom of the doctrines which say that the Son is equal to the Father, that Jesus is God the Son, and which say that John 1: 1-14, Col 2: 8-10, I Tim 3: 16, and Isaiah 9: 6 are all quite true and trustworthy. The following is found in the 37th chapter of Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

`The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious miracles by which the African Catholics have defended the truth and justice of their cause, may be ascribed, with more reason, to their own industry, than to the visible protection of Heaven. Yet the historian, who views this religious conflict with an impartial eye, may condescend to mention one preternatural event, which will edify the devout, and surprise the incredulous. Tipasa, a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east of Caesarea, had been distinguished, in every age, by the orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the Donatists; they resisted or eluded the tyranny of the Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical bishop: most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed over to the coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their pious, but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric. A military count was despatched from Carthage to Tipasa: he collected the Catholics in the Forum, and, in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of their right hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published a history of the persecution within two years after the event. "If anyone," says Victor, "should doubt of the truth, let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of Restitutus, the sub-deacon, one of the glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout empress." At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, and unexceptional witness, without interest, and without passion. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these African sufferers. "I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears: I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal." The testimony of Æneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople, as the minister of the Roman pontiff. They all lived within the compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal knowledge, or of public notoriety, for the truth of the miracle, which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and submitted, during a series of years, to the calm examination of the senses. This supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only, who already believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, will not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.'

In one of his footnotes Gibbon tells us the miracle was made more emphatic in the particulars surrounding a mute boy who had never spoken before his tongue was torn out, but who did speak after his tongue was removed.

Now if a history teacher in an American public school is permitted to discuss the volumes of Edward Gibbon with his students, then, when they arrive at the 37th chapter, his students might ask: what are the conclusions to be drawn, in the scenario that these Trinitarians deprived of their tongues actually and miraculously spoke? Might a Trinity actually exist? Is there a Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

To say that the whole account of these tongueless speakers is founded on fabrications and lies is simply materialistic bigotry. And whether the tongueless speakers spoke or not, why can't teachers and students discuss Gibbon's words in an American public school?

Perhaps the ACLU and the courts might wish to ban both Gibbon and the Bible from American public schools.

Every morning the students in the New Hyde Park school district could leave the room or remain silent while the other students recited the following prayer,

`Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our teachers, and our country.'

By 6 to 1 the majority on the Supreme Court voted in `Engle v. Vitale' to banish such voluntary prayers from the nation's public schools. But the courts are capricious. The courts take arbitrary action against some voluntary public expressions of religion, but they do not take action against very clear religious expressions which are established by law, and imposed on all, free-thinkers included. Consider a small sampling of some of our State Constitutions,

`We, the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance, do ordain and establish this Constitution.'

`We, the people of Louisiana, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political, economic, and religious liberties we enjoy, and desiring to protect individual right to life...do ordain and establish this constitution.'

`We, the people of the state of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty, and desiring to perpetuate the blessings and secure the same to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.'

`WE, THE PEOPLE of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, do establish this Constitution.

There are many more State Constitutions which make such pious entreaties to the Deity. Evidently the Supreme Court feels powerful enough to ignore Amendment X. and to tell the public schools to get religion out of these public schools, but the Supreme Court does not yet feel powerful enough to tell the States to get the religion out of their State Constitutions.

Paul Johnson tells us in `A History of the American People' that The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was the first written constitution in the world. But one has to be careful how one defines a Constitution. The Koran is something of a Constitution for Islamic states. The Code of Hammerabi was a written Constitution of sorts. Perhaps the sovereign State with the oldest written Constitution in the world would be the Church of Rome, the Constitution in this case being the Roman canon law. The Donation of Pepin in the 8th century established the temporal authority of the Popes. The Popes, who of course claim to be the Vicars of Christ, the supreme priests on earth of the Creator of the Universe, then became temporal Princes reigning over the States of the Church, and of course the Vatican is still a sovereign nation to this day. But one can see the beginnings of a Constitution in Rome long before the 8th century. The first authentic Decretal, the 4th century Decree of Sirisius, Bishop of Rome, to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona, laid the foundation for Roman ecclesiastical jurisprudence. Many Catholic priests resisted this pontifical order imposing clerical celibacy, and it wasn't until the 11th century that priestly marriage was stamped out. But Rome begins to claim pre-eminent authority in Christendom in the 4th century.

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts begins as follows:
`The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it...We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise...and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain and establish the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Amendment Article VI. includes,

`The following oath shall be taken and subscribed by every person chosen or appointed to any office, civil or military under the government of this commonwealth, before he shall enter on the duties of his office, to wit: "I, A. B., do solemnly swear, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and will support the constitution thereof. SO HELP ME GOD.'

In 1948, the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled, in `McCollum v. Board' of Education, that the use of tax-supported buildings and public school administrators to teach religion, even in non-required classes, classes which students are not required to take and pass in order to graduate, is unconstitutional. In David Barton's `Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion', we're given a rundown, pp. 8-11, on some of the more controversial American judicial decisions involving religion. 1) A prosecuting attorney mentioned seven words from the Bible, and, because of this grave transgression, a jury sentence was overturned, and a man who had been convicted of brutally clubbing to death a 71-year-old woman was set free. The Supreme Court saw nothing amiss here, and voted to not review the matter. 2) In the Alaska public schools students were prohibited from using the word `Christmas' while at school. 3) In `Florey v. Sioux Fall School District', 1979, a court determined it was unconstitutional for a kindergarten class to ask whose birthday is celebrated on Christmas. 4) It is unconstitutional for a Board of Education to use or refer to the word `God' in any of its official writings, `Ohio v. Whisner', 1976. 5) It is unconstitutional for a classroom library to contain books which deal with Christianity, or for a teacher to be seen with a personal copy of the Bible at school, `Roberts v. Madigan', 1990.

If one is interested in acquiring an education one will need to formulate, sooner or later, some sort of coherent philosophy apropos of God and humanity. Naive people believe that Religion and History are divorced from each other, rather as Chemistry and French Literature are divorced from each other. But a little reflection shows that one can't teach history properly unless one also teaches religion, and if a school is not permitted to teach religion, then this school can not teach history in competent fashion. History is not merely a dull compilation of dreary facts from the distant past. It is an exploration of literature and art, law and logic, religion and philosophy, science and sociology. Everything worth knowing about the near and distant past falls within the realm of History. Gibbon remarked in a famous passage that the philosophers of the ancient world found the various religions to be equally false, the ignorant rabble found them to be equally true, and the cunning magistrates found them equally useful and exploitable. One reason to study the various religions of the world is to learn arguments which will help to liberate people who are enchained in those religions which are delusions and superstitions.

An argument saying that children should be permitted, in the public schools, in non-required classes, to learn about Christianity runs as follows: There is a New Law and a True Church, and when the American courts forbid children to learn about the New Law and the True Church in the public schools, then these courts are preventing children from finding salvation: the courts might not mean to do evil, but, nevertheless, they are working to prevent children from finding salvation: the courts are leading the souls of children to perdition, and the judges on these courts are leading themselves to perdition as well: because it is evil to prevent kids from learning about the New Law and the True Church. Not every kid has parents who will teach him about the New Law and the True Church: if he doesn't learn about these things in a public school then he might never learn about them.

The following are some arguments, both for or against, both pro or con, teaching the Bible in the public schools, such as in non-required classes. 1) What begins in non-required classes will eventually be made mandatory, because it is undeniable that the Bible is the most influential book ever written, and as the schools are in the business of educating people, and as one can't be considered educated if one is unfamiliar with the contents of the world's most influential book, there must eventually be powerful pressure to make knowledge of the scriptures mandatory in order to graduate from a public high school. Right-wingers might say they want only to present both sides to the argument over Evolution, saying that if the monks and nuns of Atheistic Materialism can explain their doctrine in the public schools, then the priests and priestesses of Intelligent Design must be allowed to explain this doctrine. But, ultimately, the Christian Right will not be satisfied with merely teaching Intelligent Design. As 2 Thess 1. 8 says what it says - one must know God and obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ to elude hellfire - the Christian Right must ultimately aim to teach in the public schools that God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to teach the gospel, or at least various versions of the gospel. One could certainly argue that if a Christian did not seek to proselytize - when he sincerely believes that John 15. 6, Luke 13. 3, Revelation 20. 15, 2 Thess 1. 8 etc. are true - then there would have to be something seriously wrong with this Christian. People who insist John 15. 6, Luke 13. 3, Revelation 20. 15, 2 Thess 1. 8 etc are true are people who will try, if not to make the study of Christianity mandatory for all students in the public schools, nevertheless, will at least try to make sure that every kid in every public school who is not hostile to Christianity learns about Christianity in the public schools.

2) People who are convinced that the Bible is a sure guide to heaven and immortality must look upon those who attempt to hide the Bible from kids as ignorant at best, and malevolent at worst, and this attitude, as one might imagine, must lead to strife with parents who don't want their kids exposed to the Bible; therefore the public schools might encourage kids to read the Bible, but read it at home, read it away from the public schools. In order to become an excellent teacher of any serious academic subject one must first be inspired to master that subject. Those teachers who master the intricacies of Christianity are generally inspired by agendas, such as the agenda to convert people to Christianity. If one isn't driven by zeal to master the intricacies of Christianity, one will probably never become an expert on Christianity. It is naïve to think that, should the USA allow religion back into the public schools, attempts would not be made by teachers to convert students to various religions, such as religions which wage spiritual warfare against their parents' religions, which leads to ugly scenes, perhaps even violence and bloodshed. This is not to say that the USA must become a theocracy if religion is taught in non-required classes in the public schools. In a theocracy the State becomes united with a Church, and then priests / teachers have the backing of the temporal sword to dictate to parents the following: We are both God's ministers and the agents of the State, and we know what religion is best for your kid. You will obey us, or you will suffer the punishment prescribed by law for those who disobey the laws of the State.

3) Some might insist that for every person who reads the Bible and is made kinder and gentler because of it, there might be another person who becomes more snarling and ferocious by reading the Bible. Even if we concede that the typical gangster-Christian of former centuries was not a Biblical scholar, Ivan the Terrible was bookish, and he might have been the most evil thing ever to exist. Henry VIII. was a learned Bible scholar, and yet he was a murderous brute. Everyone knows about the wives he murdered but many forget about the 72,000 people he executed, some by torturing them to death in cauldrons of boiling oil.

4) The public schools wouldn't know how to teach religion in competent fashion, therefore it is best that the public schools not teach it at all. Apropos of this Will Durant, in `Our Oriental Heritage', elucidates for us (pp. 541-2) the religious practices of the more zealous Hindus:

`On the bathing-ghats, scattered here and there among reverent Hindus, indifferent Moslems and staring tourists, sit the Holy Men, or Yogis, in whom the religion and philosophy of India find their unique and strangest expression...Some are old, some are young...Some of them look squarely into the face of the sun hour after hour, day after day, letting themselves go slowly blind; some surround themselves with hot fires during the midday heat; some walk barefoot upon hot coals, or empty coals upon their heads; some lie naked for thirty-five years on beds of iron spikes; some roll their bodies thousands of miles to a place of pilgrimage...some bury themselves in the earth up to their necks, and remain that way for years or for life...some keep their fists clenched so long that their nails come through the back of the hand; some hold up an arm or a leg until it is withered and dead...'

If religion was taught in the American public schools, then, in our current Politically-Correct culture, we might have teachers telling students that the above Hindu forms of self-torture are just as valid as baptism - or perhaps more so - as methods by which you can ingratiate yourself with the Deity.

Students need to learn that, often enough, you have to conduct your own researches to get to the bottom of a mystery. You simply can't expect teachers, priests, rabbis etc., to know what they are doing. If you want to know the truth about something, then you better be prepared to find it yourself. In his treatise `To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation', Martin Luther gave us his opinions on the works of Aristotle, describing for us which of these works were worth reading and which were not worth reading. He stated that he knew his Aristotle better than did Aquinas or Duns Scotus. Therefore one can either take Luther at his word, or else one can conduct ones own investigation and read: `Logic', `Rhetoric', `Poetics' to see if Luther was right in recommending these, and then read: `Physics', `Metaphysics', `Concerning the Soul', `Ethics' to see if Luther was right in damning these. Marc Bloch, in `Feudal Society' (Manyon's translation, University of Chicago Press, p. 91), told us that forgeries written to advance imperial and papal authority abounded to such a degree that the production of spurious documents `tended in no small measure to discredit all written evidence.' But how did Bloch know they were forgeries? He needed to describe some of these forgeries and he needed to explain to readers the logic and the evidence which says they are forgeries. Hume argued that it was always more reasonable to reject accounts of miracles than to accept such accounts. But that's just lazy materialistic bigotry. Lord Acton informed us: `The main thing to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood and certainty from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude of erudition, that the study of history strengthens, and straightens, and extends the mind.'

5) When the scriptures are studied, they must be studied in an atmosphere which is dignified and reverent. Therefore, even if competent religious teachers were found in the public schools, these public schools are filled with students who indulge in profanity, obscenity, the antics of the clown and the slob etc. It is a very bad idea to give sacred things to people who will trample upon those sacred things.

The following two extracts from Buckle, one dealing with the fury of the English in imposing the Church of England on Scotland, and the other pertaining to the suffocating zeal of Scottish ministers imposing their version of Presbyterianism on Scotland, reveal to us how terribly far astray a church can wander when the lost sheep are led by lost pastors. Henry Thomas Buckle wrote in `History of Civilization in England',

`For, the reigns of Charles II. and James II. were but repetitions of the reigns of James I. and Charles I. From 1660 to 1688, Scotland was again subjected to a tyranny, so cruel and so exhausting, that it would have broken the energy of almost any other nation...The people, deserted by every one except the clergy, were ruthlessly plundered, murdered, and hunted, like wild-beasts, from place to place. From the tyranny of the bishops...they abhorred episcopacy more than ever...Sharp, a cruel and rapacious man...was raised to the archbishopric of St. Andrews. He set up a court of ecclesiastical commission, which filled the prisons to overflowing...In 1670, an act of parliament was passed, declaring that whoever preached in the fields without permission should be put to death...In 1678, by the express command of government, the Highlanders were brought down from their mountains, and, during three months, were encouraged to slay, plunder, and burn at their pleasure, the inhabitants of the most populous parts of Scotland...They spared neither age nor sex...they even stripped them of their clothes and sent them naked to die in the fields. Upon many, they inflicted the most horrible tortures. Children, torn from their mothers, were foully abused; while both mothers and daughters were subjected to a fate, compared to which death would have been a joyful alternative. It was in this way, that the English government sought to break the spirit, and to change the opinions, of the Scotch people...The bishops...were known to have favoured, and often to have suggested, the atrocities which had been committed...in an address to James II., the most cruel of the Stuarts, declared that he was the darling of heaven, and hoped that God might give him the hearts of his subjects, and the necks of his enemies.'

The following from Buckle's `History of Civilization in England' inclines one to think that living under savage Highlanders and English bishops would be preferable to living under the Presbyterian divines of Scotland,

`According to the Presbyterian polity, which reached its height in the seventeenth century, the clergyman of the parish selected a certain number of laymen...They, when assembled together, formed what was called the Kirk-Session, and this little court, which enforced the decisions uttered in the pulpit...was more powerful than any civil tribunal. By its aid, the minister became supreme. For whoever presumed to disobey him was excommunicated, was deprived of his property, and was believed to have incurred the penalty of eternal perdition...The clergy interfered with every man's private concerns, ordered how he should govern his family...spies were appointed...Not only the streets, but even private houses, were searched, and ransacked, to see if any one was absent from church while the minister was preaching. To him, all must listen, and him all must obey. Without consent of his tribunal, no person might engage himself either as a domestic, or as a field labourer...To speak disrespectfully of a preacher was a grievous offense; to differ from him was heresy; even to pass him in the street without saluting him, was punished as a crime...All over Scotland, the sermons were, with hardly an exception, formed after the same plan, and directed to the same end. To excite fear, was the paramount object. The clergy boasted, that it was their special mission to thunder out the wrath and curses of the Lord...They delighted in telling their hearers, that they would be roasted in great fires, and hung up by their tongues. They were to be lashed with scorpions, and see their companions writhing and howling around them. They were to be thrown into boiling oil and scalding lead...surrounded by devils, mocking and making pastime of their pains...These visitations, eclipses, comets, earthquakes, thunder, famine, pestilence, war, disease, blights in the air, failures in the crops, cold winters, dry summers...were, in the opinion of the Scotch divines, outbreaks of the anger of the Almighty against the sins of men...According to this code, all the natural affections, all social pleasures, all amusements, and all the joyous instincts of the human heart were sinful, and were to be rooted out. It was sinful for a mother to wish to have sons...it was sinful to please yourself, or to please others...When mixing in society, we should edify the company, if the gift of edification had been bestowed upon us; but we should by no means attempt to amuse them. Cheerfulness, especially when it rose to laughter, was to be guarded against; and we should choose for our associates grave and sorrowful men...It was a sin for a Scotch woman to wait at a tavern; it was a sin for her to live alone; it was a sin for her to live with her unmarried sisters...It was a sin to visit your friend on Sunday; it was likewise sinful either to have your garden watered, or your beard shaved...To go to sleep on Sunday, before the duties of the day were over, was also sinful...Bathing...was a particularly grievous offense...Durham, in his long catalogue of sins, mentions as one "the preparing of meat studiously, that is, when it is too riotously dressed for pleasing men's carnal appetite..."...To be poor, dirty, and hungry, to pass through life in misery, and to leave it with fear, to be plagued with boils, and sores, and diseases of every kind, to be always sighing and groaning, to have the face streaming with tears and the chest heaving with sobs, in a word, to suffer constant afflictions...was deemed a proof of goodness...Thus it was, that the national character of the Scotch was, in the seventeenth century, dwarfed and mutilated.'

The Supreme Court has decreed: Thou shalt not teach religion in the public schools. We know that Amendment I. is addressed to Congress and only to Congress, so it is childish to say Amendment I. prevents the States and local school boards from making laws pertaining to religion. But what do the due process clauses in Amendments V. and XIV. mean? The Supreme Court has dictated to America their meaning, and who dares to question the Supreme Court? By banishing religious instruction from the public schools polemical strife and the headaches and violence which arise from polemical strife are mitigated. One problem however is that a person can't be educated unless he knows a few things about religion, and not every kid has parents who will teach him, so the public schools might have to teach him. It seems rather anti-democratic to have 9 judges on the Supreme Court dictate to 300 million Americans that their children are not to learn about religion in the public schools, even in classes not required for graduation. The Supreme Court has given its orders and 300 million Americans must obey the 9 judges.

Let us briefly review Ben Franklin's biography. He was the founder of the American Philosophical Society, the founder of the Philadelphia Library; he was something of a founder of the University of Pennsylvania. He was self-taught in French, Italian, Spanish and Latin. He received the doctor of civil laws degree from Oxford, an LL.D. from Edinburgh, and various M. A.s. He was a Foreign Associate in the French Academy. He discovered lightning to be an electrical discharge. He was twice elected President of Pennsylvania. Professor Hornberger writes of Ben Franklin in the `Britannica' (1963):

`American printer, author, publisher, inventor, scientist, public servant and diplomat, has been called "the first civilized American," "the apostle of modern times" and even "immortal mentor, or, man's unerring guide to a healthy, wealthy, and happy life"...All educated Europeans knew the epigram of Turgot, the French economist -"He snatched the lightning from the skies and the sceptre from tyrants"...he once swam the Thames from Chelsea to Blackfriars, about three miles...his Modest Enquiry Into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency was his first venture into economic theory...his Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, instrumental in founding the Academy of Philadelphia...Plain Truth; or, Serious Considerations on the Present State of the City of Philadelphia and Province of Pennsylvania (1747), written after French and Spanish privateers had invaded the Delaware river, helped enroll a volunteer militia of 10,000 men, despite Quaker coolness toward armed defense...Franklin's belief in association for useful ends made natural his joining St. John's lodge in 1731. It claims to be the first Masonic lodge in America. Franklin's loyalty to Freemasonry helped him years later with some of the anticlerical intellectuals in the court of Louis XVI. In 1782 he was elected venerable master of La Loge des Neuf Soeurs, which has been called with some justice the UNESCO of the 18th century...On the whole his originality was not as great as many of his admirers have thought...but he invented many of the terms which are still used in discussing electricity (positive, negative, battery, conductor, etc.)...From 1753...he took charge of the mails in all the northern colonies...For 20 years Franklin was America's chief spokesman, so far as there was an America to speak for...His base of operations for 16 years was London...He became an American and a revolutionary almost in spite of himself, working to the last possible moment to reconcile conflicting interests, to interpret America to Englishmen and British politics to Americans...Gradually he was forced to realize that there could be no reconciliation and that his dream of a British empire of self-governing nations would not come true...At end he was bitter..."Rules by Which a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One"...a capsule history of the long drawn-out contest...As a diplomat Franklin had the great advantage of French friends and disciples...Before long he was the hero of France, the personification of the unsophisticated nobility of the new world, leading his people to freedom from the feudal past. His portrait was everywhere, on objects d'art from snuffboxes to chamber pots...A member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he was not able to convince his associates that the American government should have an executive committee at its head rather than a president...Except for supporting an effort to have the first congress of the United States consider abolition of Negro slavery, he took no further part in public life...He died on April 17, 1790, aged 84. Philadelphia gave him the most impressive funeral that city had ever seen, and in France, where Louis XVI was imprisoned in the Tuileries, eulogy after eulogy poured forth to the man who to the French was the symbol of enlightenment and freedom.'

In his `Autobiography' (Modern Library, 1950, p. 91) we're told Franklin believed: God created the world; God governs the world by his Providence; our souls are immortal; all crimes will be punished; all virtues will be rewarded. Franklin wrote, p. 92, of the influence upon him from Philippians 4. 8, in which St. Paul writes,

`Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things.'

Franklin wrote, p. 95, that he pursued humility by imitating Jesus and Socrates; he paid homage, p. 98, to the words concerning wisdom and virtue in Proverbs 3: 16-17.

We find this prayer which Franklin composed, p. 98:

`O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favours to me.'

Franklin writes on pp. 89-90,

`Reading was the only amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind; and my industry in my business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had to contend with for business two printers, who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men." I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encourag'd me, tho' I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honour of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner.'

Franklin rejected the divinity of Jesus; he rejected the authority of the pope; he venerated no molded images of any Catholic saints; he rejected Transubstantiation; he rejected many doctrines which devout Catholics and Protestants hold as essential for salvation: he was a heretic. Still, one can learn from the mistakes of others, so, one might think that the American public schools would be allowed, in non-required classes, to teach all aspects of Franklin's theology to students; these lectures might need to devote an hour or two to a review of the scriptures; perhaps a few more hours to his Presbyterian training, but, as we are all aware, the Supreme Court has decreed Thou Shalt Not Teach Religion in the public schools, not even in non-required classes. Again, there are certain advantages in having no religion taught in the public schools. If no religion is taught, no false religions will be taught. Nevertheless, a question for our time is: how did a nation of 300 million people, people who pride themselves on their Liberty, Bravery and Independence, fall under the sway of the Judicial Oligarchy, such that 9 people on the Supreme Court decide what will and what won't be taught in the public schools, regardless of what the 300 million want? Professor Hornberger, in his article in the Britannica informs us,

`This government, Franklin wrote, "is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

The Liberals are right in thinking that Conservatives will not be satisfied if the Liberals relented and allowed Ben Franklin's philosophy / theology to be discussed in the public school. Conservatives won't be happy until Conservative theology is taught - you know, John 15. 6, Luke 13. 5, Revelation 20. 15, Galatians 1. 8-12, I Corinthians 6 etc. Ben Franklin rejected the divinity of Jesus. Conservative Christians won't be happy if 2 Thess 1. 8 is not taught in the public schools. 2 Thess 1. 8 - Fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

`National Review' (3.9.2009) has an interesting article from Kevin D. Williamson entitled `Losing Gordon Gekko: Wall Street has gone over to the Democratic. Should Conservatives miss it?' We find in it that President Obama delivered a blistering attack on the teachers' unions and public school bureaucracy, and is very close to coming out in favor of vouchers - giving tax payers some of their money back, so they can send their kids to private schools as opposed to worthless public schools.

Thucydides put the following speech into the mouth of Archidamus, King of Sparta,

`There is no need to suppose that human beings differ very much one from the other; but it is true that the ones who come out on top are the ones who have been trained in the hardest school.'

America has turned her back on the Spartan method of educating youngsters - whip the sluggards if they are too lazy to learn - therefore the only alternative is to inspire them to learn, or pay them to learn, or bribe them in ways where you don't have to pay them – you'll get more recess, more free time, more time to chat with your friends, if you pay more attention and work harder in class, and when doing your homework. The universal malaise, the omnipresent aura of boredom which reigns over our public schools leads one to speculate about a dingy future for the USA, and leads one to ponder the ominous consequences of having so many millions of students who find scholarship and belles-lettres a dreadful bore. Marcela Valdes in `Windows of the Night' _(The Nation_ , 3.31.2008) writes that Roberto Bolano is the T.S. Eliot of Latin American letters. In 1968, at the age of 15, Roberto dropped out of high school in Mexico City to become a poet; he proceeded to seclude himself in his room in his parents' house, leaving it only for bathroom breaks and forays to steal books from bookstores throughout Mexico City. He essentially spent his days and night for five years reading and sleeping. Valdes tells us that he stacked his shelves with stolen volumes of Pierre Louys, Max Beerbohm, Samuel Pepys, Alphonse Daudet, Juan Rulfo, Amado Nuevo and Vachel Lindsey. When you're reduced to pulling heists for Vachel Lindsey's books, man, kid, you're really stuck in the mud! Senor Rodo wrote a famous treatise in which he characterized Anglo-Saxon America, the USA, as the brutal Caliban, with Latin America cast in the role of the spiritual Ariel. The implication is that we uncultured Norteamericanos, if we knew a kid who sequestered himself in his room to devote his days and nights to devouring literature, would feel an irrepressible urge to push him to play some baseball, or chase some girls, or go experiment with drugs, but do something besides reading book after wretched book.

If the public schools were more religious, snarling and combative, more like arenas where intellectual gladiators battled polemical lions, then kids might be able to get excited about learning. If the Supreme Court takes the muzzles off public school teachers good things might result, you know, like more honest debate and more education. For instance, if the Supreme Court let Atheist teachers vent their opinions about how stupid religion is, then a Christian kid will be inspired to refute the Atheist, which means he has become inspired to learn, and even if he gets a little vehement in his refutation he's at least being taught how to marshall facts and logic. The kid might respond with: `Well it is all so very simple, any moron can understand it! If you say there is no True Church, if you say there is no True Faith, then you are like Satan and the Antichrist, and like them you will go to hell.'

That argument has to be expanded on. Evidence has to be presented. Logic has to be introduced. If the Church of Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, then, it is natural to ask: what is the True Church? Let's look at the Eastern Orthodox Church. People in the Eastern Orthodox Church tortured and murdered Jews for century after century. The priests and the civil magistrates in the Eastern Orthodox Church did not advocate torturing and murdering Jews for century after century, but they gave slaps on the wrist to those who did torture and murder Jews for century after century. Plus Eastern Orthodoxy is filled with ikon-worship - it's a very idolatrous religion. Anyone can see it is a religion which loves to trample on the 2nd commandment. At least with the culture of France and Italy and Spain, and Catholic Germany and Catholic Austria, and with Argentina and Chile and all the educated sections of Roman Catholic Latin America, and of course Quebec is very attractive and sophisticated, as are plenty of Roman Catholic enclaves in the USA: large parts of Boston, New York San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans – really every city in the USA has a large and cultured Roman Catholic enclave – a good deal of the East Coast of the USA is Roman Catholic – same for the West Coast – same for the interior – so, Roman Catholic Civilization has this huge enormous aura of sophistication and glamour and cosmopolitanism. But Russia, the main homeland of Eastern Orthodoxy, has for centuries been an island of a few cultured people in a sea of barbarism. Sure there's Pushkin, Chehkov, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoi, Doestoevski, many great mathematicians, some avant garde film makers, well, of course, some cultured people, perhaps a few million highly cultured people, but these millions are still swallowed up by a sea of hundreds and hundreds of millions of rather primitive people. Russia, whether under the pagans or under the sign of the cross or under the Bolsheviks, has always been a true Gog and Magog, a land full of savage barbarians! Can this savage nation be the homeland of the beloved saints in the Church which Christ founded on a rock? If you insist the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, well, then, obey that Church. Of course the argument which says the Roman Catholic Church encompasses so many glamorous and cosmopolitan places on the earth: Paris, Rome, Milan, Naples, Venice, Madrid, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Quebec, large sections of New York, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles etc., therefore the Roman Catholic Church must be God's True Church, is a fairly worthless argument. It is a wordly argument not a spiritual argument. Still, when a Church is both ancient and huge, and both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church are both ancient and huge, then they at least command ones attention. Whereas some little church in some little town which doesn't even do a good job upholding the New Testament: it doesn't excommunicate Sabbath violators; it doesn't excommunicate unmarried couples who are living together; therefore it celebrates the Eucharist in an unworthy maner, and it likes to ignore Matthew 25. 31-46, Luke 16. 19-31...The main spiritual argument against the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Church of England etc., is that for century after century they celebrated the Eucharist in an unworthy manner, which is a terrible sin, recall 1 Corinthians 11. 27. These churches celebrated the Eucharist with evil kings, evil nobles, evil henchmen, evil priests for century after century. Look at Benson Bobrick's `Fearful Majest' - a bio of Ivan the Terrible. He was vile and evil but he was never excommunicated by the Eastern Orthodox Church. There are lots of arguments against both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy, arguments saying both trample on the True Faith. Matthew 1. 23 tells us Jesus is God. Matthew 1. 25 tells us Mary was not ever-Virgin. Rome says you are a heretic if you insist Mary was not ever-Virgin. If we were to assume that the Eastern Orthodox Church is God's True Church, then, as the emperor, the supreme military commander in the Eastern Orthodox Church, has for centuries been seen by God's True Church as God's supreme agent on earth, provided he is not excommunicated by the Eastern Orthodox Church, therefore, since the supreme military authority in the Eastern Orthodox Church today is Vladimir Putin, therefore, provided the Eastern Orthodox Church is God's True Church, Vladimir Putin is the true ruler of the world, as long as he is not excommunicated by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Americans will say: `We are not going to obey Vladimir Putin!' But if the Eastern Orthodox Church is God's True Church, and if you will go to hell if you rebel against God's True Church, then it would be very very stupid to rebel against Vladimir Putin, assuming he is never excommunicated by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Now if you don't accept the premise that the Eastern Orthodox Church is God's True Church, then what evidence do you have to support your position? This brings us back to the subject of Education or the lack of Education in the schools in the USA. A lot of Education pertains to not blindly regurgitating some professor's words, but looking instead for arguments and evidence to substantiate a position. Elementary schools teach kids how to read, but if a high school doesn't teach kids how to marshal arguments and evidence, how is it educating anyone?

What's the alternative to making the public schools in the USA more religious and more ferociously combative? The status quo is a failure. If you make them less combative and less religious you make them even more insufferably dull. Schools are supposed to be in the business of educating kids, which means enlightening them, which means helping them defeat their delusions. As long as the courts stand in the way of the process of helping kids understand the world and the forces - religious and otherwise \- which shape the world, the courts are keeping kids in the chains of ignorance. Romans 14. 12 tells us that eventually everyone will stand before God, and everyone will have to give an accounting of himself or herself to the Creator of the Universe. And what is the upshot of ones interview with the Creator of the Universe? Those people who fail their interview are cast into a lake of fire, at something called the Second Death, see Revelation 20. 15. Those people who pass their interview are accepted into the Kingdom of God, aka Heaven. So, you would think it would be easy to sell to Christians in the USA the idea that, though there are pros and cons to teaching Christianity in the public schools, nevertheless, all things considered, it would best if Christianity was taught in the public schools. I mean, if it is right to be a Christian, if you are indeed wise to be a Christian, then do you want to stand, some day, before the Creator of the Universe, and have to explain to God Almighty why you worked to prevent kids in public schools from learning about Jesus and the Gospel? Not every kid has parents who will see to it that he learns about the gospel, so, if one works to prevent kids in public schools from learning about Christ and the gospel, then, I just can't see how your interview with the Creator of the Universe will go well for you.

Liberals, at least in off-the-record comments, uttered in whispers when the Political Correctness cops are not in sight, might agree that a person must know what Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Communism etc. teach in order to be educated. The schools are supposed to be in the business of educating kids. The Supreme Court is obviously an Anti-Christian court when it gives orders saying it is verboten in Amerika for teachers to teach Christianity in any public school, even in classes which students are not required to take in order to graduate. Liberals fear that as soon as they make one concession to the Christian-Right, then, soon enough, no kid will be permitted to enter a public school unless he takes an oath promising to report to the Church-State authorities the names of any atheists or other sorts of anti-Christian teachers he learns are teaching in the public schools, so that the same can be fired. In any event, kids might find school more interesting and instructive if it was more religious and combative. If an Atheist or a Black Muslim teacher tells his class that Christianity is an evil religion because St. Paul gave his blessing to slavery, then Christians are forced to think, to find a way to defend St. Paul, such as the way I defended him in Chapter 1. And whenever the schools inspire kids to think, to marshal their thoughts and arguments, then the schools are educating kids. If Jewish teachers in the public schools tell kids that the Hebrew Bible is perfectly clear in stating the Mosaic Law will never be replaced, therefore Christianity must be a false religion, then, Christian students are inspired to explain why the Mosaic Law, the Old Covenant can be an eternal law and yet there can also be a New Covenant. As we saw above President Obama gave a speech which attacked the teachers' unions, and threatened them with vouchers. People are cynical about politicians because they think politicians are only concerned with getting elected and re-elected, about assembling coalitions of special-interests groups which will get them elected and re-elected. But all politicians, or nearly all politicians, sincerely believe that it is in the best interests of their nation when they are elected and re-elected, and if politicians have to assemble coalitions of special-interests groups to get elected or re-elected, to do what is in the best interests of the country, well that's just the reality of the situation. Barack Obama, at least in 2009, was on the brink of cutting ties with the teachers' unions. He was on the brink of seeing that he would win more votes by angering the teachers' unions; he was close to seeing he would earn more votes if he came out in favor of vouchers. So, the teachers' unions have an incentive to clean up their act and to improve the worthless public schools - because vouchers will continue to gain in popularity with Democrats if the public schools continue to fail. And vouchers will throw public school teachers out of work, or they will have to work in private schools at lower wages. And one idea to improve the public schools is to make them more exciting and less dull, by making them more combative and contentious - by making them more religious

De Tocqueville told us in `Democracy in America' that the intellectual battles over religion and politics which raged in 16th century England greatly advanced English education and culture. This inclines one to think that our American schools might do a better job of educating the young if these public schools were more religious, more polemical, more intellectually snarling and ferociously combative in debate. John Buchan told us that the ancient Greek philosophers saw 'wonder' as the right word to describe the true philosophic attitude. But wonder is a little sophisticated, whereas: Destroy your teachers' arguments and crush your schoolmates' and their brainless thinking \- school is an arena where intellectual gladiators fight – like in _Beyond Thuderdome_ : two men enter, one man leaves! two men enter, one man leaves! - are concepts that kids can relate to more readily than `wonder'.

All of this bashing of the teachers' unions and their worthless public schools might leave a teacher with some low self-esteem issues. But notice how the Bible comes to the defense of teachers, in that Revelation 18 slams merchants and kings of the earth - the desire for riches leads these people to fornicate with evil - whereas the Bible does not give anyone the impression that teachers fornicate with evil and lust after money. The merchants and kings might claim to be good Christians but we've been over and over and over the scriptures which slam the rich. A teacher enters his profession with noble intentions: he would prefer to educate kids rather than enrich himself. So that's wonderful. But to educate kids you have to actually, you know, educate them. You can't just stick them in worthless public schools and expect them to magically become educated! The public school teachers who hate Christianity are all wrong of course but they are useful, because, if the Supreme Court took the muzzles off of them, or if they took the muzzles off themselves, then they would be able to preach the doctrine that Christians are fools - and while I certainly disagree with this – still, Christians are inspired to learn and study when other people are calling Christians fools, morons, uneducated idiots etc.

§ 4. The Labyrinths of the Liberal Mind.

In order to speak coherently about Political Correctness I ought to define that term. But it is often easier to understand something via its connotations rather than its precise denotation. And since we don't have an Emperor or Politburo to dictate to us the precise definition of Political Correctness - it has something to do with an attempt to offend the least number of people possible - we might look at its connotations. Robert Bork told us in `Slouching toward Gomorrah' that, at an Ivy League university students were shown homosexual porn, and those who reacted negatively to it were chastised and brow-beaten for their homophobia by university employees, and all of this connotes extreme Political Correctness.

An epitome of US history might mention a few words about the Politically Incorrect Edwin McMasters Stanton. Stanton was a lawyer, statesman, champion of the Democratic Party, a man opposed to slavery but also a defender of the Constitutional rights of slave owners. He was attorney general in Buchanan's administration, war minister in Lincoln's, a cabinet minister in Andrew Johnson's where he opposed Johnson's reconstruction efforts in the South. The Britannica (1963) says of him,

`Stanton had a violent temper and a sharp tongue, but he was courageous, energetic, thoroughly honest and a genuine patriot.'

Fletcher Pratt, a worthy successor to Jules Michelet and Thomas Carlyle, as he wrote history as an exalted form of literary art rather than a dull science, shows in his narrative that Mr. Stanton had, to write in the lingo of the Politically Correct, both unresolved hostility issues and primitive conflict-management skills - never a combination known to facilitate much euphoria and non-judgmental culturally-inclusive attitudes in the work-place. We read in Fletcher Pratt's `A Short History of the Civil War',

`So Stanton, the terrible Stanton, the man of iron will, who solved all problems by rule of mathematics and a violent tongue, became Secretary of War. He feared neither God nor man nor devil, only Abraham Lincoln. He worked like a madman, white-hot with passion every moment; when he was offered a bad contract, he tore it to pieces and flung them in the face of the millionaire contractor; when a Congressman protested the arrest of a Copperhead [a Northerner who favored the Confederacy] he cried in strangling rage: "This is war, and war is violence! If I tap that little bell, I can send you to a place where you'll never hear the dogs bark, and by Heaven! I'll do it if you say another word!" But he was one of the great war ministers of history; greater than Carnot, great as Moltke. Nothing he touched was left undone, and nothing was done badly; a vast flood of energy emanated from him like an electric fluid, animating everything it touched into inhuman exertion and achievement. For all the rest of that long war no Union soldier wanted for food or ammunition or clothes by his fault, no Union general wanted for soldiers, no army wanted for the best general who could be found, regardless of age or influence. On the Confederate side they had only Judah P. Benjamin, who spun endless iridescent cobwebs of theory and argument, brilliant as rainbows.'

The `New Oxford Review', the foremost Conservative Catholic magazine in the USA, has not been slothful in denouncing abortion and priestly child molestations. It is also very anti-homosexual, and this will earn it the hatred of the high priests of Political Correctness. In the February 2009 issue, p. 17, we read that the Human Rights Commission of Canada (HRC) is on the warpath against people who have issues with homosexuality, or at least those who dare to publically express their anti-homosexual opinions. A Protestant pastor, Rev. Stephen Boisson, was ordered to pay $7,000 in fines because he wrote a letter to the editor of the `Red Deer Advocate' newspaper arguing against homosexuality. `Catholic Insight' magazine has spent over $20,000 defending itself against the HRC, which accuses it of hate speech against homosexuals. The HRC ruled in 2003 that the heavy-metal rock group Deicide did not sing lyrics which could be considered hate speech. They sing lyrics such as, "Kill the Christian / You are the one we despise / Day in day out your words compromise [sic] lies / I will love watching you die."

Political Correctness insists one is a bigot, a hater, an intolerant religious fanatic - a great and pompous fool indeed - if one insists that there is a True Church, or if one insists that the Christian religion is better than all of the other religions. Political Correctness doesn't mind if you say you have God's Law written on your heart - but this Law had better embrace the pro-choice philosophy, and it better make gay marriage legal, and it better not support Zionism, and it better not say that any of the major world religions are false religions! Political Correctness embraces Diversity, and Diversity detests the idea that truth is a narrow path. Political Correctness hates the idea that huge segments of the world's population are destined for perdition, though it doesn't mind the idea that people who vote for Sarah Palin and Donald Trump will be consigned to hell. The devotees of Political Correctness despise Matthew 7. 13-16, which has Jesus saying,

`Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits...'

The Armies of Political Correctness hate it whenever the French quote the following words from Jesus,

« Car beaucoup sont appelés peu sont élus »

The American Left has to be suspicious of French Intellectuals who were apologists for Lenin and Stalin, and everyone knows Lenin and Stalin were pro-life. Or at least we read in the `New Oxford Review', September 2007, that Stalin was pro-life and Lenin was very puritanical, holding that Free Love was a bourgeois doctrine not a Proletarian one, holding that the Proletarian Revolution could not tolerate decadence and the want of self-discipline which we associate with Abortion and the Sexual Revolution. `The New York Times' might wish to run a headline which screams:

REPUBLICANS CRAWL INTO BED WITH SOVIET MASTERS OF GENOCIDE

As everyone knows, Politically Correct people today don't care if you worship God or if you hate God. Politically Correct people simply request, provided you absolutely must insist on bowing down before a Deity that you please bow down before a Politically Correct Deity. But, if you insist on bowing down before Allah, then Politically Correct people say: Go right ahead. And please don't trouble yourself to make your Allah more Politically Correct. No need for that.

On pp. 28-9 of Dinesh D'Souza's `The End of Racism' we find three pre-eminent philosophers in western civilization: Hume, Kant and Hegel making disparaging remarks concerning the Negro race. Kant writes that the Africans have received no intelligence which rises above the foolish. Hegel implies that the entire Negro race, not just a criminal element within African society, has a contempt for humanity. On pp. 125-6 we read that such progressive thinkers, for their time, as Voltaire, Giodano Bruno and the Comte de Saint-Simon wrote of the manifest black inferiority to whites. Voltaire argued that only religious dogmatism prevented people from seeing the obvious: blacks were of a different and inferior species than whites. Lord Acton wrote of the American naturalist Agassiz using the most derogatory words in describing the black race. There are times when even the Bible can be quite Politically Correct, as the Bible teaches that all people on earth are descended from the same set of parents, Adam and Eve, which means, everyone must be more or less equal. The Bible also says the kingdom of heaven is comprised of people from all nations, tribes, tongues and peoples.

And there are instances when the New Testament is not quite Politically Incorrect. St. Matthew xiv: 49-50 states,

`So shall it be at the end of the world; the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.'

Much of the Old Testament deals with the wisdom which says: even if one must rebel against some minor elements of the Mosaic Law, it is crucial that one not rebel against the most important elements, i.e., one absolutely must reject idolatry, injustice, oppression of the poor, violations of the Ten Commandments etc. All of the captivities and punishments heaped upon the children of Israel resulted from great rebellions against God, not from minor violations of minor laws.

Jesus never spoke of abolishing the Mosaic Law, albeit the words, `for this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many', certainly give one reason to think Jesus was making an exchange of covenants: the Old was out and the New was in. For many years after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, the Christian Church was split between the faction which believed that Christians must abide by the Mosaic Law, and the faction which insisted that God does not desire the sacrifice of bulls and calves, and does not want to continue with the rituals and regulations which we call the Mosaic Law. With the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the matter became somewhat moot. St. Paul and St. Peter had a famous dispute, described in St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, over whether Jewish Christians should dine with Gentile Christians. Certainly much of the Old Testament is still binding, such as the Ten Commandments and the social justice Commandments given in Malachi 3. 5.

Political Correctness seems to be a new religion which was born in mid to late 20th century America. It is neither Atheism nor Humanism nor Communism, for it is both a blend and a rejection of many creeds, and it didn't rise up from the people, but rather its priesthood rose up from among the professorial caste on American college campuses. Political Correctness has thrown down the idols of Marx and Sartre and others of their ilk, and it has raised up new idols, idols which have neither testicles nor white skins. Political Correctness, like other religions, teaches both controversial and non-controversial doctrines. Legal Abortion is its Holiest Sacrament. Diversity and Celebration of Homosexuality are two more Holy Sacraments dear to the high priests of Political Correctness. Political Correctness is a creed which teaches that all religions must be respected, unless they teach doctrines which are hateful to Political Correctness, then you can trash those religions, but make an exception for Islam, but certainly not for Christianity or for any sort of pro-Zionist version of Judaism. For centuries in Western Civilization the word Tolerance meant not executing and not sending to prison and not laying fines upon minorities who disagreed with the majority. John Locke wrote a famous treatise calling for tolerance of those who refused to profess the doctrines of the Church of England. He didn't want dissenters whipped, fined or imprisoned, but, at the same time, he didn't announce that the Church of England had to push for the legalization of abortion and homosexual marriages in order to be tolerant.

Protestant pro-life Presidents in recent years have been successful in appointing pro-life Catholics to the Supreme Court. Political Correctness in the USA had issued a decree saying: we've had more than enough white, male Protestants on the Supreme Court! But by pulling some strings on all the Politically Correct puppets in the USA, by making them dance a new dance which they didn't recognize, by insinuating that one is an anti-Catholic bigot if one is opposed to Catholics such as Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts etc., pro-lifers have been successful in elevating these pro-life Catholics to the Supreme Court. Liberals had become accustomed to seeing Conservative blacks as Uncle Toms, as people who were not actually black people, but were camouflaged people who were simply whitey cunningly disguised to not look like whitey. But the Liberals were slow to learn this new dance involving Conservative Catholics, as they suspected they could not get away with saying that Conservative Catholics were not actually Catholics, as the Popes have usually been Conservative, though many other prelates are Liberal. The confusion the American people have with the Roman Catholic Church is essentially bottomless. Non-Catholic Republicans and Democrats pride themselves on their `broad-mindedness' when they vote for Catholic politicians. But these `broad-minded' people always demand that the Catholic politician promise that he will not be the obedient minion of the Pope. The `broad-minded' don't mind too much if the Catholic politician believes that the Church of Rome and only the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven, doesn't really mind if the Catholic politician believes that all other churches are false churches which lead souls to perdition, but they insist that the Catholic politician `be his own man', and that he promise to rebel against his Church and reject the Pope's dictates should the Pope try to boss him around and order him to support something which his political party abhors. The `broad-minded' insist that the Catholic politician rebel against the Church which he believes is God's True Church and insist he support his political party in every dispute; they insist that he rebel against the Church which he believes leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell. A pretty shallow sort of broad-mindedness!

Michael Rose, an editor with `New Oxford Review', wrote a book called `Goodbye, Goodmen: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church'. This might be the first book to read if one wants to understand the child abuse scandal which hit the Catholic Church. `The Nation' and `New Oxford Review' have articles which take diametrically opposing views about Paul Shanley - a defrocked priest convicted of child rape. JoAnn Wypijewski writing in `The Nation' (2009.03.16, pp. 7-8) is at times persuasive in her defense of Shanley. She asserts the District Attorney offered Shanley a deal: plead guilty and he would avoid prison. He refused it. He certainly had strong motivation to take the deal, readers will recall that Father John Geoghan, convicted of indecent assault of a 10-year-old boy, was beaten and strangled to death in prison.

Theresa Marie Moreau is also persuasive in her denunciation of Shanley. She tells us in her article `Paul Shanley, Pervert Priest' in `New Oxford Review' (May 2005, pp. 21-26) that the Archdiocese of Boston had a 1,666 page secret file on Father Shanley. In this file there was a letter from Father Arthur Chabot, of the Shrine of Our Lady of Salette, telling of dirty deeds involving Father Shanley coercing young boys in sex acts. The prosecution's case against Shanley said that some of his victims suffered from repressed memory syndrome. JoAnn Wypijewski, writing in `The Nation', makes a strong case saying repressed memory syndrome is voodoo. She says it has ruined hundreds of lives and was invented by Liberals, feminists and do-gooders several decades ago in Massachusetts. She notes that decades of research by social scientists have proven again and again that repressed memory syndrome is one of the most pernicious bits of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry.

`New Oxford Review' (April, 2005) might incline one to believe that Ms. Wypijewski has a pro-homosexual agenda that she's trying to advance. She gave readers of `The Nation' the impression that Shanley was a gentle homosexual who only liked his homosexuality consensual-style. But we read in the `New Oxford Review' (April, 2005, p. 23) that Maureen Oth, who did a profile on Shanley in Vanity Fair, reviewed this 1,666 page file the Archdiocese of Boston had on Shanley. Problems between Shanley and little boys went back for 40 years. Ms. Wypijewski stated that the immense documentary evidence didn't support the most inflammatory claims against Shanley. Give her credit for honesty here. She is plainly admitting that the immense documentary evidence supported the moderately inflammatory claims against him. Ms. Oth spoke to nine people who are suffering emotional damage from the abuse Shanley inflicted on them. Ms. Wypijewski didn't mention anything abut these people. She didn't mention anything about any victims suffering from Shanley's abuse. For 99% of Ms. Wypijewski's article she implies that the State of Massachusetts railroaded a harmless homosexual amid an atmosphere of mob-homophobia-hysteria, where the judge and jury were bamboozled by repressed memory syndrome voodoo.

A Catholic priest, Father John K. Nesbella, writing in `New Oxford Review' (April 2005, p. 4-5), says his life has been made a living hell because of all the homosexuals in the Catholic clergy. He informs us the Media in the USA is covering up the truth. He says that the Media says that it is pedophile priests who are the biggest problem, whereas he insists that the truth of the matter is that it is homosexual priests in the Catholic Church who are committing most of the molestations - as most victims of priests are adolescent boys, not little boys. He cites the `John Jay Report', commissioned by U.S. Bishops, which says that over 80% of sexual abuse cases were due to homosexual priests. The Political Correctness cops will let you say that pedophile priests cause most of the child abuse in the Catholic Church, but they will bust you if you say that it is homosexual priests who cause most of the child abuse. Once the Politically Correct Media brands you a homophobe and a hater, then you're branded for life.

In `Who's Looking Out for You' (Broadway Books, 2003, p 5), Bill O'Reilly of FOXNEWS fame tells us that he believes Bernard Cardinal Law of the Boston archdiocese is a villain. He says that the evidence he has seen leads him to this conclusion, as Cardinal Law put little kids at risk of predators rather than call attention to the existence of these predators, which would have embarrassed the Catholic Church. It's not too controversial to call someone a villain if he is guilty of conniving at child abuse. One can expect to be hated by Liberals if one goes on the record saying any Church which aspires to be the True Church must aggressively weed out homosexual priests, because, a) one is like a lunatic who barks at the moon if one thinks the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, endorses homosexual priests, and because, b) the `John Jay Report', commissioned by U.S. Bishops, says that over 80% of sexual abuse cases were due to homosexual priests not pedophile priests, therefore, it's crazy to let homosexuals be priests.

If the facts prove that there is a lot of child abuse from homosexual priests, then you can prove that the Liberal Press cares more about Political Correctness than about the welfare of kids, which means the Liberal Press is like Cardinal Law \- they are people who connive at child abuse - and you know the Liberal Press will hate you with furious hatred if you can prove the people in the Liberal Press are villains. The Liberals are fighting a war, and they are willing to have a certain percentage of children fall victims in that war - in abortions and in children suffering from homosexual priests - if that is what it takes to win their war with the Right-Wingers. And this is one reason why Right-Wingers are so terribly terribly disapointed in Left-Wingers. The Left-Wingers showed such fine excellent promise in fighting the good fight during the Civil Rights Era, but now Liberals are all about throwing kids to the pedophiles and to the abortionists in pursing the Liberal agenda on abortion and homosexuality.

Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok told us about Mary Daly in `Who's Who in Christianity' (Routledge, 1998): Theologian born 1928, educated at the University of Fribourg, Professor at Boston College, in Beyond God the Father she argued for the death of God the Father. That ought to establish her Liberal bone fides beyond all doubts with Feminists. No doubt Boston College was thrilled to have someone who argued for the death of God the Father on their faculty. Cohn-Sherbok writes of Daly: "By the time she produced `Gyn-Ecology' in 1978, she had accepted that the notion of God cannot be separated from masculine imagery and she has since embarked on a post-Christian journey towards self-acceptance.'"

Apropos of giving the reader what he craves and demands, plenty of dirt on Liberalism, in `The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code', Ignatius Press, 2004, Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel give us the sentiments of Mary Daly, a goddess in the feminist pantheon:

`Daly's broad claims of Christian cruelty toward women do not hold water; indeed they are based in a radical feminism that hates both men and Christianity with an intense, nearly demonic hatred. "In its depth, because it contains a dynamic that drives beyond Christology," Daly writes, "the women's movement does point to, seek, and constitute the primordial, always present, and future Antichrist. It does this by breaking the Great Silence, raising up female pride, recovering female history, healing and bringing into the open female presence."

So there you have it from Mary Daly, a great expert on both Christian theology and the women's movement: the women's movement is satanic. Never mind her eccentric syntax, does it make any sense to say: `the women's movement does point to, seek, and constitute the primordial, always present, and future Antichrist,' when the Antichrist, after all, is just another worthless man? Nevertheless, if abortion is evil, and it certainly is, then, perhaps, Mary Daly is on to something here about the women's movement: it's run by a man - the Antichrist. We might speculate that there is nothing anti-Christian about equal pay for equal work, women's suffrage, women having careers etc, etc. But abortion is the big problem. If one thinks one can be both pro-choice and also have a Divine Law written on ones heart, then one is thinking like a madwoman. It is madness to say something like: `God doesn't like it when women kill their babies, but, nevertheless, God is angry with pro-lifers who attempt to save the lives of babies after women have made their choice to abort those babies; God is hostile toward pro-lifers who seek to pass laws which would hinder women who have made their choice to have abortions.' As this is insane, the pro-choicer is under pressure to admit that a sane person can not be both pro-choice and also have a Divine Law written on her heart. And if a pro-choice Christian says Christians do not need to have a Divine Law written on their hearts, then she rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and she rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper, and therefore, whether she realizes it or not, she has just renounced Christianity.

It seems Mary Daly knew something after all. Boston College didn't blow it completely by hiring her. She was right. The Women's Movement is run by the Antichrist.

§ 5. Some People! - They Don't Even Know How to Speak with the Authority of the Creator of the Universe.

We can imagine the sort of intense ridicule that the public in the USA, Canada, Europe, Latin America and Africa would heap upon the head of a American politician like Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney if he announced to the public: `I have a Divine Law written on my heart, yes, a Divine Law, and therefore my opinions on Law and Justice, on Religion and Morality, on Equity and Fairness conform to the opinions of the Creator of the Universe! So you see, if you vote for me, and if I am elected President of the USA, I will fight for laws and policies which have the approval of God, and you can't do better than that dear people!'

Of course human beings can never quite speak with the authority of God on religious and moral issues. All that really matters is that one be right on the major issues - certainly on every issue which pertains to redemption and damnation. You'll certainly want to know how to attain heaven and elude hell! As long as one is right on all the big important issues, then, even if one is wrong on some issues which don't matter all that much - then one can be said to teach religion with the authority of God. Again, Jeremiah 31. 31-34 tells us that even the least of God's people can understand the Divine Law. It can't be all that complicated. I suppose Liberals who say God hates the pro-life philosophy, or Liberals who say God is perfectly OK with sodomy, might find the Divine Law terribly complicated. No doubt we can find Conservatives who have trouble comprehending Matthew 25. 31-46, Acts 2. 44-45, Luke 16. 19-31...

Ann Coulter, in `How to Talk to a Liberal (if you must)', takes John Kerry to task for throwing his medals from Vietnam away, accusing his comrades-in-arms of war crimes, and for marrying rich women for their money, and she chastises John Edwards for suing doctors on phony charges of malpractice, enriching himself in the process and driving many doctors out of the baby-delivering business. She's preaching to the Republican choir, because Democrats couldn't care less about these accusations. Democrats don't care two cents what Bill Clinton does extra-marital-wise with the voluptuous bodies of Monica and Juanita, Gennifer, Kathleen, Paula etc., etc., as long as he prevents the Republicans from binding the bodies of women in pro-life laws. American politics is so simple: as long as pro-choicers are able to prevent pro-lifers from electing a pro-life president who will appoint pro-life judges who will make pro-life laws, the pro-choicers will be happy. Doesn't it seem as if the pro-choicers in the USA would much prefer to have a pro-choice dog for President than a pro-life man? I wrote that long before Trump was elected, though I made some minor edits recently. You wonder how many millions of Conservatives would rather have a pitbull as President than Obama, and how many millions of Liberals actually would actually rather have a some golden retriever be President than Trump.

The middle-of-the roader, Jack Cafferty of CNN, got rather testy in a book directed primarily against Conservatives, though he did come to the defense of George W. Bush after Hugo Chavez called that President the devil. Writing about Rudy Giuliani's pro-choice politics, he slips in some crazy middle-of-the-road logic which we might look at in `It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars and Losers Who are Hurting America', (John Wiley, 2007, p. 241),

`It's virtually the same position that Mario Cuomo took as governor of New York. As a Catholic, he was antiabortion, but as governor of a state that is pro-choice he had to respect the wishes of the people whom he served. He was a public servant, after all, not a dictator...We've got troops dying every day in Iraq, we're $9 trillion in debt, we're mired in a war with no end in sight, and the country is going down the sewer. It's outrageous that the issue of abortion can dominate the public debate. It is just not relevant...Who cares about Rudy's nuanced stand on abortion? Don't want an abortion? Don't get one.'

And of course everyone knows that if the people of New York were strongly in favor of Amendment II., then Mario Cuomo would have been like Attila the Hun if he wasn't strong for Amendment II. And if the people in New York were solidly in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts, then a Democratic politician in New York would be like Adolf Hitler if he didn't favor extending the Bush tax cuts. Everyone knows that Mario Cuomo was pro-choice in his politics because he would not have been elected governor of New York if he had been pro-life in his politics. If being pro-choice would have caused him to forfeit the chance to be governor, he would have been pro-life in his politics. He did what he had to do to win elections. Why would he rebel against both his Church and rebel against his own beliefs on abortion, if he didn't have to in order to be elected? The abortion debate still dominates the public's attention in the USA because new generations have arisen after the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in `Roe v. Wade' and many millions of these people in these new generations want abortion outlawed. After slavery was abolished de jure in 1865 with Amendment XIII., we did not have new generations rising up in the ensuing decades seeking to bring back the evil of slavery by repealing Amendment. XIII. Slavery ceased to be an issue in public debate because, 1) nearly everyone agreed one could not win presidential elections if one ran on a pro-slavery platform, and 2) as the years passed, nearly everyone came to agree that slavery was evil.

Many millions of the Americans say abortion is evil, and they say it is a big deal, despite what Jack Cafferty says. At one time Rev. Jesse Jackson had no difficulty seeing the connection between slavery and abortion, as he saw how the philosophy `Don't like abortion, then don't have one' looked a lot like the philosophy, `Don't like slavery, then don't own slaves, but don't tell slave-owners they can't own slaves.' Many millions of pro-life Americans think that America is going down the sewer because the USA has many millions of pro-choice people who can't see that the pro-choice philosophy is evil. Cafferty agrees the USA is going down the sewer. That's the whole theme of his book.

Conservatives often say that if `Roe v. Wade' is overturned this does not mean that abortion will be outlawed everywhere in American, because the States will be allowed to make their own abortion laws, which might be either pro-life or pro-choice laws. But the Supreme Court need only define the human embryo and human fetus to be an unborn baby, to be a human being, to be a person, in order to outlaw abortion everywhere in America, for as everyone knows the lives of persons are protected by the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. Thus the key to winning a swift pro-life victory in all 50 states is to get a pro-life Supreme Court to declare the human embryo and the human fetus to be human beings, to be persons, because, again, the lives of persons are protected by due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. It only takes 5 Supreme Court Justices to make a declaratory judgment saying that unborn human beings have inalienable rights under the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV., and these rights - such as the right to life - supersede the authority of Amendment X. and all laws making abortion legal. A pro-life Supreme Court could say that both the Feds and the States, and all levels of government, are forbidden to make abortion legal, because abortion always deprives a person of his life without due process of law. And is it likely that the judges will soon make abortion illegal everywhere in the USA? If only secular arguments about the definition of a person and the definition of the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV are used, then the Supreme Court is unlikely to act. But if you can convince 5 Christians on the Supreme Court that John 15. 6 and 2 Thess 1. 8 are true, and if you can convince 5 Christians that a person does not abide in Christ, and he does not obey the gospel, if he refuses to protect the unborn, then 5 Christians on the Supreme Court might decide that abortion is always a violation of Amendments V. and XIV. The USA has given her blessing to over 50 million abortions. No doubt there are many Christian theologians who would tell the Supreme Court that God is disappointed with the Supreme Court.

Joe McGinniss, in his `The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin' shows he is a good writer but it was wrong of him - a high-level critic of the Palin's - to move into a house that was right next door to Sarah Palin and her family. By moving right next door he became a stalker, and this was a little too provocatice, plus he not only put himself in danger of Right-wing retaliation, but he put his wife in children in danger as well - which is not fair to your wife and kids! The typical Liberal who reads `The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin' would say that the typical Conservative is a moron for thinking that Sarah Palin is a qualified candidate for high political office. To come to her defense, if the Liberal can only try to understand this scenario: the pro-choice philosophy is evil, therefore, it stands to reason that God would want a pro-life female politician to combat the evil. Obviously, if the pro-choice philosophy is a fine philosophy not an evil philosophy, then what use is Sarah Palin in either high or low political office? But, if the pro-choice philosophy is evil (and it is)...

And if Sarah Palin's manners are a little rough, well look at the tough upbringing she had. She was forced to go to American public schools. Not every American has the funds to send her kids to private school. Well, it's like this: the Liberals give us these worthless public schools and then they bitch when the graduates of their worthless public schools are uneducated. That father of Sarah's doesn't sound like he was too wonderful to live with. McGinniss paints him as a barbarian. Unlike rich elitist Liberals Sarah Palin wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth. If Sarah Palin could just pull it together enough to win the Republican Nomination in 2016 - you know, if she could just preach the Republican line: Strong military, Tax Cuts for everyone, Reduce government red tape on Business, Smaller government, call off the IRS attack dogs on ordinary Americans with tax issues but get tough on violent criminals, Repeal ObamaCare, Nominate only Pro-lifers to the Supreme Court, more domestic oil drilling, more refineries, more clean coal, fight the Teachers' Unions: give private school vouchers to parents with kids stuck in worthless public schools etc., then she might win. The public schools are worthless not because the teachers are all that bad but because the public schools are filled with a few trouble makers who don't want to learn, they want to live like Huck Finn, and it doesn't take too many troublemakers in a classroom to destroy the whole teaching environment in that classroom; and, of course, the public schools in the large cities are especially worthless at separating kids who want to learn from kids who don't want to learn; still, millions of teachers in the teachers' unions are blameworthy - they are responsible for keeping the kids who want to learn down - because these teachers oppose vouchers.

Should Sarah Palin come out in favor of Death Panels? [I might edit this, I'm editing the book in June of 2018, but sometimes it's best to keep out-dated material as long as it is readable]. Should she throw old ladies over the cliff? Or should she insist that the USA keep on spending hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars on every old person with cancer to try to keep her alive as long as possible? Well if she wants to get elected President then she better not make any cuts to Medicare, or at least Dick Morris says Republicans lose elections when they promise to cut Medicare. Everyone seems to agree that reforms must be made to Social Security, but these are easy to implement - slowly increase the retirement age to 75 or 80 over the span of 30 years, for instance, as we have all these baby boomers entering old age, and paying for their Medicare will be like a noose around the necks of the young if changes aren't made. If Sarah Palin could simply do an adequate job preaching the Republican line, then a Perfect Storm would carry her into the White House. [Or maybe she never had a chance]. It is the easiest thing in the world to show that Liberals are out-of-touch with reality. For instance, in Bill O'Reilly's `Culture Warrior' he mentions a judge in Vermont who sentenced a man who raped a little girl over a span of 4 years to 60 days in jail, when of course he deserved life behind bars. Bill O'Reilly raised a protest, but the Liberals in Vermont refused to impeach the corrupt judge, and they instead turned their hatred against Bill O'Reilly, not against the judge. So, obviously, there are some crazy Liberals in Vermont. Both Republicans and Democrats favor harsh sentences for drug traffickers. And of course it doesn't look very sane or just to put people away for 20 years in prison for marijuana or cocaine trafficking, when, at the same time, society gives 60 days to child rapists. We might have tough drugs laws because, if society made drug trafficking legal, or if society made the drugs laws softer and less harsh, then the supply of drugs would soar and therefore the profits from drug trafficking would plummet, and therefore the gangsters in the inner cities would not be able to make so much money via drug trafficking, therefore, they would make their money in some other way, and they would not make their money by getting jobs at McDonalds and White Castle. Home invasions and muggings, bank robberies and white slavery, baby snatching and baby selling might skyrocket: there might be brigandage on a huge scale if society created the conditions whereby gangsters could not make lots of money via drug trafficking. So, in any event, your entire American society looks vile when it gives men who rape children 60 days in jail, whereas it gives people who deal a little drugs 20 years in prison. So, Sarah Palin merely has to convince Republicans that she has sound common sense. She can count on the comedians and the Liberals to mock her for the way she speaks. But when they mock her, other people feel sorry for her, like 70% of the men and women in the military, and 70% of the people who shop at Wal Mart, and 70% of the NASCAR people, and 90% of the gun owners, and 100% of the Tea Party. She gets lots and lots of votes because people feel sorry for her when the Liberal attack dogs attack her, not because she wins people to her side because she has great new Republican solutions to the problems facing the USA, and not because the eloquence in her oratory pulls at the hearts-strings of hundreds of millions of Americans. She must impress Republicans enough to convince them she can handle the office of the Presidency, but she must also continue to feed Liberals plenty of that exquisite recipe which only Sarah Palin knows how to cook up and serve so well: that special hash of cornball politics delivered in her countrified twang which drives sophisticated city-folks so crazy they can't stop mocking her, but which, in turn, causes 70% of the American public to vote for her out of sympathy, and out of admiration for her courage in standing in the ring while being subjected to endless Liberal abuse. If she could just pull it together sufficiently to win the Republican Nomination, then she could win the Presidency, because everyone knows the Democrats have botched everything concerning jobs. I mean when you're in bed with the trial lawyers you are helping to bankrupt the country, because the doctors must pay the insurance companies who must pay the trial lawyers - and the doctors pass their costs on to the public which bankrupts the public; and when you are in bed with the Teachers' Unions, the cap and trade tax etc., etc., you're helping to bankrupt the USA. But look at the problems facing the next Republican President. It bankrupts the nation to give vouchers to parents with kids in worthless public schools, as society must still pay to keep the public schools open. A Republican candidate can't win the election if he / she doesn't promise to support the military-industrial-complex, and this costs lots of money. And of course the approaching Entitlement Financial Doom is not going to magically disappear with the election of a Republican President. Everyone knows there must be reforms to Medicare and Social Security to avoid Financial Doom. If reforms aren't made, Middle Class husbands and wives will both be working 2 jobs in order to pay their taxes, their mortgages, their medical insurance, their car insurance, their kids' medical insurance, grandpa's Medicaid, grandma's Medicare. Imagine if you don't have any parents or grandparents collecting money from the government. When they collect money from the government then the money at least stays in the family. But if you are a middle class man or woman, and you're working like crazy to make it, and you don't have the government giving money to your parents. That's a big problem for recent immigrants. Their parents are in some foreign country, but they are paying, assuming they are not on welfare and assuming they have jobs, they are paying a lot of money into a Social Security, Medicaire, and Medicaid system that will probably never benefit them. At the moment it is political suicide to be the party which make big cuts in Medicare, because the cuts would be painful to lots of old people, and a majority of the USA will hate the political party which is responsible for more or less slashing grandma and grandpa with a knife. Republicans talk about the evils of Socialized Medicine but they are dishonest if they don't admit that Medicare is Socialized Medicine. Anyone can see that cap and trade is a job-killing machine, but the Democrats favor cap and trade because the environmentalists want it, and the Democrats need to win the votes of the environmentalists to win elections. Environmentalists, pro-choicers, public employees, private sector union members, trial lawyers, academics etc. are the backbone of the Democratic Party, hence the Democrats are opposed to cheap energy, vouchers, tort reform etc.

So, there is a huge population in America - though not in Hollywood or Academia - which is sympathetic to Sarah Palin's politics, which are a religious sort of politics. It would be a curious sight to see Sarah Palin become President of the USA, the first woman to hold that office. Just imagine having Todd as the First Man, and having Bristol and Willow and Piper moving into the White House. What would the Liberals say? We know the Liberals already say Conservatives are morons for thinking Sarah Palin is qualified for any public office, high or low. And you'd have to admit it would be amusing to watch the faces of Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz as Sarah Palin is sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America. I suppose they would be recalling those lines from Samuel L. Jackson in `Pulp Fiction', `And you will know My name is the LORD when I lay My vengeance upon you.'

Professor Hornberger, in his article on Ben Franklin in the Britannica reminds us,

`This government, Franklin wrote, "is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

Of course the problem with the above is that in Ben Franklin's day the USA was a slave nation. And a slave nation is always a despotic nation. Historians might say that George Washington was kind to his slaves. Perhaps he was kinder than most slave-owners. Are these historians informed what George Washington did every day and every minute of his life? How does a slave master get slaves to work for no wages? How does he persuade them not to escape, not to cast off their chains and kill all the whites?

Apropos of 2 Thess 2, concerning evidence of a falling away from that True Faith taught by Christ and the apostles, apropos of the sign of the cross, we might look to the words of Charles Austin Beard in `The Rise of the American Civilization',

`Under skillful management the cultivation of rice and indigo was soon introduced, and the basis of economic prosperity quickly laid, with the aid of a labor supply drawn from Africa. To protect masters against violence, a drastic code was adopted prescribing whipping, branding, ear clipping, castration, and death for various offenses; but the consolations of the Christian faith were not withheld, for the law, while denying the right of manumission, expressly authorized baptism.'

Crevecoeur, our Thoreau of the 18th century, writes in `Letters from an American Farmer' of these frightful punishments used to maintain order and discipline in a civilization founded upon slave labor.

`The following scene will I hope account for these melancholy reflections, and apologise for the gloomy thoughts with which I have filled this letter: my mind is, and always has been, oppressed since I became a witness to it. I was not long since invited to dine with a planter who lived three miles from where he then resided. In order to avoid the heat of the sun, I resolved to go on foot, sheltered in a small path, leading through a pleasant wood. I was leisurely travelling along...when all at once I felt the air strongly agitated, though the day was perfectly calm and sultry. I immediately cast my eyes toward the cleared ground, from which I was but a small distance, in order to see whether it was not occasioned by a shower; when at that instant a sound resembling a deep rough voice, uttered, as I thought, a few inarticulate monosyllables. Alarmed and surprised, I precipitately looked all round, when I perceived at about six rods distance something resembling a cage, suspended to the limbs of a tree; all the branches of which appeared covered with large birds of prey, fluttering about, and anxiously endeavoring to perch on the cage. Actuated by an involuntary motion of my hands, more than by any design of my mind, I fired at them; they all flew to a short distance, with a most hideous noise: when, horrid to think and painful to repeat, I perceived a negro, suspended in the cage, and left there to expire! I shudder when I recollect that the birds had already picked out his eyes, his cheek bones were bare; his arms had been attacked in several places, and his body seemed covered with a multitude of wounds. From the edges of the hollow sockets and from the lacerations with which he was disfigured, the blood slowly dropped, and tinged the ground beneath. No sooner were the birds flown, than swarms of insects covered the whole body of this unfortunate wretch, eager to feed on his mangled flesh and to drink his blood. I found myself suddenly arrested by the power of affright and terror; my nerves were convulsed; I trembled, I stood motionless, involuntarily contemplating the fate of this negro, in all its dismal latitude. The living spectre, though deprived of his eyes, could still distinctly hear, and in his uncouth dialect begged me to give him some water to allay his thirst. Humanity herself would have recoiled back with horror; she would have balanced whether to lessen such reliefless distress, or mercifully with one blow to end this dreadful scene of agonising torture! Had I had a ball in my gun, I certainly should have despatched him; but finding myself unable to perform so kind an office, I sought, though trembling, to relieve him as well as I could. A shell ready fixed to a pole, which had been used by some negroes, presented itself to me; I filled it with water, and with trembling hands I guided it to the quivering lips of the wretched sufferer. Urged by the irresistible power of thirst, he endeavored to meet it, as he instinctively guessed its approach by the noise it made in passing through the bars of the cage. "Tanká, you white man, tanká you, put a some poison and give me."

"How long have you been hanging there?" I asked him.

"Two days, and me no die; the birds, the birds; aaah me!"

Oppressed with the reflections which this shocking spectacle afforded me, I mustered strength enough to walk away, and soon reached the house at which I intended to dine. There I heard that the reason for this slave being thus punished, was on account of his having killed the overseer of the plantation. They told me that the laws of self-preservation rendered such executions necessary; and supported the doctrine of slavery with arguments generally made use of to justify the practice; with the repetition of which I shall not trouble you at present. Adieu.'

Du Bois' `The Souls of Black Folk' is an eloquent account of the evils perpetrated by whites before, during and after the Civil War. Ex-slaves would spend their lives in debt, slaving away as freedmen yet serfs, in bondage to their cunning white creditors. Du Bois writes of slavery after 1865,

`In considerable parts of the Gulf States...the Negroes on the plantations in the back-country districts are still held at forced labor practically without wages...If such a peon should run away, the sheriff, elected by white suffrage, can usually be depended on to catch the fugitive, return him, and ask no questions. If he escape to another county, a charge of petty thieving, easily true, can be depended upon to secure his return...Such a system is impossible in the more civilized parts of the South...but in those vast stretches of land beyond the telegraph and the newspaper the spirit of the Thirteenth Amendment is sadly broken.'

Sir Thomas More said government was a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own ends under the name of a commonwealth. If the highest aspiration of the Democratic Party in the 21st century is to help poor folks survive in this rich man's world, it sacrifices its highest aspiration by crawling into bed with decadence. The Irish-American JFK and the African-American MLK, were not martyrs in the struggle for legal abortion, and, therefore, their credentials are less than pristine in Liberal eyes. As we saw earlier, Martin Luther King equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. He was a Neo-Con! Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, Brandeis, Holmes, Frankfurter, MLK, JFK and RFK etc., would not, perhaps, have been enraptured with `The Vagina Monologues'. Such bourgeois Victorianism is of course contemptible in the eyes of snippy European intellectuals and their petulant devotees in America. Clarence Thomas was given a high-tech lynching because he pulled a knife on the Church of Liberalism in regards to affirmative action and abortion, and no one pulls a knife on the Church of Liberalism and gets away with it, says the Church of Liberalism.

§ 6. More Religion for the Huddled Masses.

Returning to the theme of various books the Liberals on the Supreme Court might wish to bannish from America's public schools, consider Somervell's abridgement of Arnold Toynbee's 'A Study of History', Oxford University Press 1947. This is a history book, but, I have discovered, it teaches some religion. We read on page 589,

`Jesus of Nazareth alone conquers death.'

Toynbee's volumes and Somervell's abridgement of these volumes are a composite of philosophy, religion and history. Consider pp. 285-7 of Toynbee / Somervell,

`The classic description of this state of affairs comes from the pen of Edward Gibbon: "In war the European forces are exercised by temperate and indecisive contests. The Balance of Power will continue to fluctuate, and the prosperity of our own or the neighbouring kingdoms may be alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial events cannot essentially injure our general state of happiness, the system of arts and laws and manners which so advantageously distinguish, above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their colonists." The author of this excruciatingly complacent passage lived just long enough to be shaken to the core by the beginning of a new cycle of wars which was to render his verdict obsolete. Just as the intensification of slavery through the impact of Industrialism led to the launching of the anti-slavery movement, so the intensification of war through the impact of Democracy, and subsequently of course through the impact of Industrialism as well, has led to the anti-war movement. Its first embodiment in the League of Nations after the end of the General War of 1914-18 failed to save the world from having to go through the General War of 1939-45...Why is it that Democracy, which its admirers have often proclaimed to be a corollary of the Christian Religion, and which showed itself not altogether unworthy of this high claim in its attitude toward slavery, has had an aggravating influence on the equally manifest evil of war? The answer is to be found in the fact that, before colliding with the institution of war, Democracy collided with the institution of parochial (or local) sovereignty; and the importation of the new driving forces of Democracy and Industrialism into the old machine of the parochial state has generated the twin enormities of political and economic nationalism...War has now become `total war', and it is has become so because parochial states have become nationalist democracies.'

On p. 583 of Somervell's abridgement we read,

"The apocalyptic philosophy of Karl Marx proclaims that the class war will be followed, after the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, by a new order of society. Apart from Marx's particular application of an idea, this is what actually happens when a society falls into the tripartite schism... Each of the fractions achieves a characteristic work of creation: the dominant minority a universal state, the internal proletariat a universal church, and the external proletariat barbarian war-band...The history of the Hellenic Society shows an internal proletariat recruited from three sources: citizens of the Hellenic states disinherited and ruined by political and economic upheavals; conquered peoples; victims of the slave-trade. All alike are proletarians in feeling themselves `in' but not `of' the society. Their first reactions are violent, but these are followed by `gentle' reactions, culminating in the discovery of `higher religions' such as Christianity."

In any event, the Supreme Court bans some religious books from the public schools, but it permits various religious / historical / philosophical books which can nevertheless be quite dogmatic in their religious assertions,

`Jesus of Nazareth alone conquers death.'

It seems one can still slip in some bold words in favor of Jesus, and still be read in the public schools, provided one first drugs and incapacitates the ACLU and the Supreme Court with a lot of sophisticated and convoluted verbiage about some old machine of a parochial state generating twin enormities, societies falling into tripartite schisms, internal and external proletariats, barbarian war-bands etc., etc. The ACLU knows that Toynbee is over the heads of most high school students - and is probably over the head of Toynbee - and the ACLU knows that there is no real danger that Toynbee will convert any kids to Christianity. The Liberals know that if they rant about getting Toynbee out of the school libraries they will only inspire people to read Toynbee, not that Toynbee is likely to turn many into Christian Fundamentalists.

A film like `The Hiding Place' is much more dangerous than Toynbee in the eyes of the ACLU because it is a film with first-rate production values; it was made by a professional director who used professional actors and actresses; it deals with women who risked their necks to save Jews from the Nazis; and it preaches Christianity, but, unlike our friend Mr. Toynbee, the movie preaches a sermon in a manner which young and impressionable children can understand. For the most part the film does not offend the Politically Correct: an oppressed class of humanity - women - exhibit very appropriate and non-judgmental behavior - to write in the lingo loved by the disciples of Political Correctness - by helping to save the lives of another oppressed class - Jews. The film has powerful scenes showing these women living and working as slave laborers in a Nazi concentration camp. Finally, to get to the Politically Incorrect part, some of the women in the concentration camp preach Christianity to the other women in the concentration camp. So we see here how the Cindy Sheehan Syndrome goes to work for Christianity - a syndrome which is manifested in the logic which says: you're a dog if you dare to contradict women who have suffered from men and their damn wars, so be still and listen to the wise women.

To look at more people who are more plain-spoken than Mr. Toynbee, Hilaire Belloc wrote in `Characters of the Reformation' (Sheed & Ward, 1937):

"The break-up of united western Christendom with the coming of the Reformation was by far the most important thing in history since the foundation of the Catholic Church fifteen hundred years before. Men of foresight perceived at the time that if catastrophe were allowed to consummate itself, if the revolt were to be successful (and it was successful) our civilisation would certainly be imperilled and possibly, in the long run, destroyed. Europe with all its culture is now seriously imperilled and stands no small chance of being destroyed by its own internal disruption; and all this is ultimately the fruit of the great religious revolution which began four hundred years ago."

`Belloc was contending that the Nazi peril which he sees in 1937, was the ultimate result of the Protestant Reformation, and was contending that the Protestant Reformation, which further rent western civilization into factions -for there were always factions in Western Christendom even long before the Protestant Reformation- might well lead to the destruction of Europe, with the rise of the Nazis.

Paul Johnson told us in `A History of the Jews' (Harper and Row, 1987):

"But the principal factor affecting Jewish destinies in sixteen-century Europe was the Reformation. In the long run, the rise of Protestantism was of huge benefit to the Jews. It broke up the monolithic unity of Latin Europe...it ended the exposed isolation of the Jews as the only nonconformist group. In large parts of Europe it brought about the destruction of the friars, the Jews' most hated enemies..."

In seeking to evaluate Belloc's thesis, one will be like a dog chasing his tail until one can give correct answers to some questions: is the Church of Rome God's True Church? Did Rome fall away from the True Faith?

We were on the topic of whether or not history teachers in public schools in the USA have a fundamental right to offer their opinions about the Bible, the Church of Rome, the Protestant Reformation, Judaism, Islam etc., etc. to their students. If the public schools were more like arenas where intellectual gladiators slashed each other with their religious opinions, then kids might actually learn something in the public schools. They would be trained to think and reason, to assemble evidence and to marshal their thoughts, otherwise, if they were intellectual weaklings, they would be slaughtered in the gladiatorial arena. How is it that 9 people on the Supreme Court can dictate to teachers what they can and can not say? Shouldn't the people and their elected representatives be the ones to decide when public school teachers should be fired for their comments and when they shouldn't be fired for their comments? The way the system works in the USA is that the Justices on the Supreme Court must make ruling which they feel uphold due process of law. But if the Justices make unjust rulings, then impeachment of the misguided or corrupt Justices is the best option. As we saw earlier, a judge in Vermont gave a man who raped a little girl 60 days in jail, and the people's representatives in Vermont didn't bother to impeach the corrupt judge.

Apropos of Belloc's contention that the Nazis were the result of the Protestant Reformation, we recall that Abram Leon Sachar wrote in `A History of the Jews' (Knopf, 1960),

`This time the villain of the piece is the papal legate John of Capistrano, a Franciscan monk whose persecuting zeal earned him the unenviable title of "Scourge of the Jews."...Wherever he went, thousands...were carried away by his immense sincerity, his ferocious energy. Riots were common in Germany and Slavic lands after his tongue had lashed heretics and Jews...In Breslau a Bernadine chapel was built with Jewish money after nearly the whole community had been burnt alive for blasphemy...So went the tale of woe decade after decade, endlessly. Four hundred years had now passed since the hideous nightmare had begun. Hounded by successions of crusaders...Even sunny Spain was beginning to use the thumb-screw and the torch...Jews turned to their Bibles and prayer-books, scanning the tear-stained pages in vain for the consolation which the living world denied them...While France and England, Germany and Austria ransacked chambers of horror to discover new torments...In Seville several thousand were butchered...The riots spread like a plague...About seventy cities of Old Castile were thus devastated and a trail of broken homes and broken hearts was left in the wake of the bloody hooligans...The fertile province of Valencia, the prosperous seaport of Barcelona, even the islands off the coast of Spain, were all swept by the ferocity of the persecutors. After three months the orgy ended, with thousands of Jewish lives snuffed out and tens of thousands of forced baptisms.'

Students often want straight answers to simple questions: was Capistrano a saint? Since he tortured and murdered Jews, why would anyone venerate him? If the Church of Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, who would be so foolish to rebel against God's True Church by refusing to venerate Capistrano? Was Pius V. a saint? Was the `Holy Office' holy or unholy? Was the Protestant Reformation diabolical? Was Luther right to call the Church of Rome the whore of Babylon? Is the Church of Rome and only the Church Rome the Bride of Christ - God's True Church? The Dogma of Papal Infallibility specifically states that those who reject that Dogma are anathema - accursed, damned. Is one damned if one rejects the Dogma of Papal Infallibility?

If religion was taught in American public schools, students might want straight answers to such questions. To give straight answers to those questions is to teach religion. Christianity has a few nuances which must be understood, 1) if one has the Divine Law written on ones heart, if one is in the True Church, then one probably would have some dogmatic opinions about the Church of Rome, the Protestant Reformation, Capistrano, Borromeo, Pius V, the Antichrist, the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2 etc. And, 2) whenever you have very strong opinions, then your strong opinions are likely to clash with other people's strong opinions.

Again, apropos of the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2, Dr. Abram Leon Sachar, past President of Brandeis University, wrote about people under the sign of the cross in `A History of the Jews' (Knopf, 1966, pp.124-5),

`Throughout their [the Jews] long history he [Jesus] was not, to them, the Prince of Peace. In his name every conceivable outrage was perpetrated on the despised and cursed race that gave him life. When the crusaders set fire to Jewish villages, plundered Jewish homes, and outraged Jewish daughters, it was in the shadow of the cross they bore. When Torquemada burnt thousands of wretched marranos [Jewish converts to Roman Catholicism] at public autos-da-fé in every Spanish city and capped his career by driving two hundred thousand peaceful Jews out of the country, it was in the name of the gentle Savior who preached the message of brotherly love...Hounded from one land to another, burnt, hanged, spat upon, compelled to live in filthy ghettos and to wear degrading badges...Now, in a brighter day, Jews are turning open-mindedly to learn the truth about the prophet who sprang from their midst...'

The 19th century pope who gave us the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, Pius IX., abducted a Jewish boy from the custody of his parents and refused to give him back. Edgardo Mortara, the Jewish lad who eventually became a Catholic Bishop, was mistakenly baptized by a Catholic servant of the Mortara family. Under the laws of the Papal States, the police and the Catholic Church had the legal right to remove the boy from the custody of his family, to ensure that he be raised as a Catholic. There are two main schools of thought. Case 1. Rome is the True Church, so always obey Rome, because, even if Rome makes mistakes from time to time these mistakes are not so serious that they lead anyone to hell. But if you rebel against God's True Church, then you are courting hellfire - so it is just plain idiotic to ever rebel against the Church of Rome. Case 2. Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Rome has fallen away. Rome leads souls to perdition. Renounce Rome.

In his Syllabus of Errors, Pius IX. called Bible Societies `pests.' A great many Founding Fathers of the USA were members of Bible Societies. To argue that the Dogma of Papal Infallibility is true, one must argue that there was nothing wrong with the Inquisition. One must argue that the `Holy Office' was indeed Holy, and calling evil holy is sacrilege. Again, one of the strongest pieces of evidence against the Dogma of Papal Infallibility is summed up in William Manchester's `A World Lit Only by Fire'. We read, p. 291, that 28 successive popes damned the doctrine which says the earth moves round the sun. 28 consecutive Bishops of Rome damned it as both absurd and heretical. Many were confused about this matter five centuries ago, but, today, everyone knows that the earth moves round the sun.

St. Thomas Aquinas' defense of the Inquisition was based on the grounds of charity, on its love for retrieving lost souls. The papal bull Aeterni Patris of 1879 requires the study of Aquinas by all students of theology in the Roman Catholic Church. Aquinas has been declared to be both a Saint and a Doctor of the Catholic Church. In Catholic theology a Doctor of the Church is someone who has never taught a single heretical doctrine. Aquinas taught that images of Christ must be worshipped with latria, viz., with the same worship which is given to God.

G. G. Coulton wrote in his `Medieval Panorama' (Cambridge at the Press, 1940):

`Innocent III...In 1205...laid down the principle that all Jews were doomed to perpetual servitude because they had crucified Jesus. Thus St Thomas Aquinas is on unassailable ground when he decides that, "since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, she can dispose of their possessions."'

Again, Rome has declared Aquinas to be a Doctor of the Church, which means Rome has declared that Aquinas did not teach heresy, which means that, until Rome declares that Aquinas did teach heresy, Rome still insists that it is not heresy to say the Jews are doomed to perpetual servitude, and Rome still insists that the Inquisition, `the Holy Office' was indeed holy. Until Rome says that Aquinas taught heresy, until Rome says that he is not a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, then, doesn't Rome stand by the words that Aquinas wrote: the Inquisition was holy, the Jews are doomed to perpetual servitude, and one must worship material crosses with the same devotion that one worships God.

Pope Liberius (352-66) had been driven into exile. He was allowed to return to Rome on the condition that he condemn St. Athanasius, who asserted the doctrine of the Trinity against Arius. Liberius did indeed condemn Athanasius, and for doing so St. Hilary of Poitiers denounced the pope as an apostate. "Anathema to thee, Liberius," declaimed St. Hilary. Liberius' error was seen as irrefrangible proof throughout the Middle Ages that popes can be heretics. For centuries popes said that babies who died unbaptized went to hell to suffer for eternity. William Lecky held that this was a demonic blasphemy of God, as it painted God as being the sort of God who would torture innocents in hell.

Apropos of insane laws in the USA, in David Limbaugh's `Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity' we are given many examples of Liberal folly: colleges which demand that professors and students celebrate homosexuality; college professors demanding that their students produce pornographic works to get credit for college classes; Phil Donohue comparing Christians to the KKK because Christians insist one must be a Christian to go to heaven etc. On p. 376 we read that Denver County Circuit Judge John W. Coughlin issued an order forbidding a woman to teach `homophobic' ideas to her child. Coughlin was therefore ordering the woman to not teach Galatians 1. 8-12 and I Cor. 6. 9-10, among other scriptures, to her child. Again, in Galatians 1. 8-12 St. Paul tells us he learned his doctrine via a revelation from Christ, and that even an angel from heaven is damned if this angel alters St. Paul's gospel. St. Paul writes in 1 Cor 6. 9-10,

`Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God.'

We've been over the Christian scriptures which hammer the rich, the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Luke 16. 19-31, for instance. In the beginning the Capitalists were horrid to the Workers. Recall the plight of thousands of indentured white servants and millions of black slaves. Consider the hell the Irish laborers endured in America. First, the WASPS refused to hire them. Then, they toiled for decades and were sneered at by the rich Americans for decades, and then died in the squalor of their shanties. The history of the world can seem merely an endless chronicle of the rich oppressing the poor. Dr. Lea had the following to say in `A History of the Medieval Inquisition' about the suffering of peasants -the Third Estate - under the tyranny of the nobles - the Second Estate,

`The peasants suffered grievously from the passion of the nobles for hunting and fighting. The wild animals of the wastes and forests, carefully protected by the lords, preyed upon their crops; and the peasant could fight them only, so to speak, with one hand tied behind his back. Many restrictions were placed upon the peasants in defending their fields, poultry, and live stock from rabbits, foxes, deer, boar, and wolves. They were forbidden to kill them, and could only scare them off with stones. Even to the end of the eighteenth century "beasts were set before men." And when the lord went hunting it was often at the peasant's expense. He and his retinue rode over the seeded fields, trampled the standing grain, and broke down the hedges. One of the chief causes for the peasants' revolt in Germany in 1525 was that "huntsmen and hounds ran about without regarding the damage they did." On the other hand, as we have seen, there were terrible penalties for poaching. Perhaps more peasants were maimed and hanged for poaching than for any other two crimes together...The peasants were sorely afflicted by the constant feudal wars. They were always the first and most continual sufferers. They were forced to take part in the struggles; battles were fought in their fields; fruit and shade trees were cut down; haystacks, barns, and dwellings were fired. Every lord, whenever he could, laid waste the lands of his enemy. "As soon as two nobles quarrel," said Peter Damiano, writing in the eleventh century, "the poor man's thatch goes up in flame". Pitilessly they ravaged the land and the villages of the helpless peasantry...Little sympathy with the peasants is to be found in medieval literature. The whole of the later chivalric literature is full of complaints and ridicule at the attempts of the peasants to imitate court dress and court manners...It was proverbial among the lords that oppression, if not too severe and long continued, was good for their laborers. "The peasant is best when he weeps", was one of their sayings, "worst when he is merry".

Throughout history a main evil afflicting humanity has been an aristocracy - a warrior class - heaping oppression and contempt upon the workers - the people who produced the wealth. The warrior class were pompous, vicious, ruthless etc., etc., indeed the main justification for having a king or queen was that a strong monarch could protect the people from the rapacious nobles.

To refresh reader's memory about the modern history of Israel, recall that the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917. In this Declaration the British said they favored a home for the Jews in Palestine, one which did not compromise the political and religious rights of non-Jews already living in Palestine. In December of 1917 General Allenby drove the Turks out of Jerusalem, and for the first time in centuries the Holy City was again in Christian hands. The Jews had of course been escaping from their anti-Semitic persecutors in Russia, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Germany etc., and immigrating to the Holy Land in the 19th century under the leadership of Theodore Herzl. When the British defeated the Turks in World War I, and when they had taken Jerusalem, shortly after issuing the Balfour Declaration, events were swiftly aligning in the Jews' favor. The Jews were eventually able to drive the British out the Holy Land, whereas, if the Turks were still in charge, the Jews could not have shoved them out of the way so easily. Once the British vacated Palestine, and once the Israelis had triumphed over the Arabs in the War of Independence, the State of Israel was on a secure footing, though she would be menaced in the decades to come by all the arms the Soviet Union was selling to millions of Arabs. One of the miracles of the 20th century is that little Israel, a nation with a few million people, surrounded by hundreds of millions of hostile Muslims, survived, whereas the massive USSR crumbled into a collection of smaller States, albeit Russia can hardly be said to have crumbled away, as she still has a nuclear arsenal large enough to destroy the world. In the 1940s, France was the only Western Power which sold arms to the Jews in the Holy Land. Impoverished Czechoslovakian soldiers, living under the iron fist of the Soviet Union, also sold guns and ammunition to the Jews (Hohenberg, `Israel at 50', pp. 23, 47). It was these arms which enabled the Israelis to survive the Arab invasion during Israel's War for Independence. The British and the American governments imposed an arms embargo on the region. American Jews were giving a lot of money to Israel, but this money would have been useless to Israel if she could not get enough guns and ammunition to win her fight for survival. 50 years before Israel became a sovereign State, Theodore Herzl knew that he had founded this Jewish State. Sir Martin Gilbert writes in his `Israel',

`On 3 September 1987 he [Herzl] wrote in his diary, "Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: At Basle I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, and certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.'

Dr. Sachar, in his `A History of the Jews', described the prevailing Arab mentality confronting the Jews who emigrated to the Holy Land under British rule, pp. 412-3,

`The remarkable record of achievement written in field and industry and school in two short decades presaged a flourishing and enduring civilization, if only effort were unimpeded. But there was the rub. Effort was constantly impeded by Arab resistance. Climate and marshes could be subdued, indifference and sloth could be overcome, self-interest and individual incentive could be harnessed to social needs; but the Arab problem grew rather than diminished with the passing years. The Jews never tired of pointing out how much headway had been made - the development of the soil, the growth of the villages, the improvement in health conditions, the modernization of the country, changes that raised the standards of living for the Arabs as for the Jews. The Arabs remained sullen and unimpressed. They were constantly fomented to resentment and riot by a small clique of Arab landowners who were violently opposed to Jewish immigration. For centuries these parasitic effendis had with impunity exploited their peasant vassals, the share-croppers, the poor fellahin. Now they were alarmed because the Jewish pioneers, with high living standards, protected by wholesome labour safe-guards, set a dangerous example for the wretched fellahin who could easily move from dissatisfaction to revolt. In one area was the Jewish colony, green, tidy, productive, the labourers well paid, educated, secure, singing at their work. Adjacent to it was the miserable, squalid, dirty Arab village, ignorance the rule, discouragement the climate...villages full of tuberculosis and amoebic dysentery, where food was scarce and shelter primitive, where cow-dung was applied to wounds and camel's urine to diseases of the eye, where children slept almost completely covered by flies. The Arabs worked as hard as the Jews did, but they were paid practically nothing and were left with nothing. How long would it be before the dispossessed and the disinherited, stirred by the example of Jewish standards, cried out for a decent way of life? It was in the interest of feudal self-defense to forestall such demands by persuading the fellahin that the Jews were trespassers who had come to rob the Arabs of their land, to steal their jobs, to subjugate them, to pollute their holy places...The extreme nationalists...were adamant against any co-operation. They kept impressing upon their youth that Jewish penetration would reduce the Arabs to peonage and destroy their culture and their religion..."The underlying cause," said a Jewish spokesman as he discussed the grievances of the extremists, "is that we exist."

The history of Western Civilization greatly resembles the history of Judas: religious people comporting themselves like devils! In the Nottingham lace industry in the 19th century working conditions were quite hellish for the child laborers. The evil Christian factory owners forced them to work 20-hour shifts and made them sleep on the floor. One of Lord Byron's first speeches in the House of Lords was a tirade against the Nottingham lace industry. But sometimes money can be used to end evils. The English government abolished slavery in 1833, and when it finally did it gave the Christian planters in the West Indies £20,000,000 to recompense them for the loss of their slave labor. That was a monumental sum, for in 1833 child laborers in England were often earning only a few schilling per week, barely enough to buy enough bread to subsist on. No doubt it was smarter to buy off the slave owners rather than end slavery via Civil War. Not all that long ago conditions were so bad for the working classes in Great Britain that the mother of Anerin Bevan died of starvation. Bevan was a leader in the British Labour Party after World War II. If the government doesn't help the poor, the poor live and die in misery. If the government subsidizes the poor, self-discipline is destroyed and society becomes ugly and decadent. A hellish trap! Margaret Mead told us that the key social issue of every society is to learn to deal effectively with the aggressiveness of young males. If boys can find good role models in fathers and teachers they stand a good chance of becoming civilized. But if they learn their manners and codes of conduct from street gangs and movies and rap music, young males can be trusted to inflict some hell on society.

In the Bible, we see that God was forever testing various famous people. We read that God tested Adam and Eve \- recall again the unfortunate incident involving the disobedience regarding the forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve failed their test, with the upshot being:

`Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life...in the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; dust you are and to dust you shall return.'

God tested Job, recall his sufferings and afflictions from Satan, yet he refused to curse God. God tested Abraham when he was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac. Joseph was tested when he suffered under the betrayal by his brothers and the false accusation of Potiphar's wife. Moses was raised in Pharaoh's court, was learned in all the art and science of the Egyptians, and yet he retained an indestructible allegiance to the God of his fathers and to the Hebrew people. David endured trials with ferocious enemies: Goliath, the Philistines etc. Daniel preferred to be hurled into a lions' den rather than renounce his faith. God Himself endured the agony and humiliation of the cross, and the harrowing of hell. Stephen was stoned by Pharisees but refused to renounce his faith. St. Paul was stoned and scourged many times but he never surrendered. The Christian martyrs preferred to endure the most agonizing tortures at the hands of the pagans rather than renounce Christianity.

The common theme in all these tests is that one passes if one has respect for God's authority, and one fails if one lapses in ones respect for God's authority. Moses was tardy to circumcise his son, and God sought to kill him for it. Abram once asked God how he could know that God would keep His promise. Shortly thereafter a terrible nightmare descended upon Abram. Nevertheless, Moses and Abram were given more tests, which they passed.

§ 7. Madness in America

Let us turn our gaze back to the enrapturing vistas provided by the laws and policies of the USA. We won't be ignoring religion, because we're ever mindful of the logic which says that evil or idiotic laws can never be accepted under the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34. We are pursuing the logic which says that if one actually had a Divine Law on ones heart, then one would not be a fan of evil or idiotic laws. We are not demanding that, in order for a person in Poland to have the Divine Law written on his heart, then, he must know every flaw in every law in Ecuador. We are simply looking for examples of evil and idiocy in human laws and policies, with the logic being: if a person can not recognize evil and idiocy when it is staring him in the face, then this person does not have the Divine Law written on his heart, and, therefore, he can not be a true Christian.

Dennis Prager, a mild-mannered Jewish conservative with a radio show, once succumbed to a moment of intense frustration: he became so exasperated with Jimmy Carter that he found it necessary to call the former president a fool. Mr. Carter had written in the New York Times that a war against Iraq would be unjust if this war lacked UN approval, whereas, it would be just if it had UN support.

We have Conflict X. To deal with Conflict X we have possible actions A, B, C, D etc. There is a Best of All Possible Actions to deal with Conflict X, and there are innumerable inferior actions to deal with it. It might be difficult to know the Absolute Best of All Possible Actions. Therefore, one tries, above all else, to discern the just actions from the unjust actions. And an action which pertains to death, bloodshed, torture, war, and the future happiness or wretchedness of millions of people might be either a just action or an unjust action. But we know that if Action X is a just action, then the UN's disapproval of Action X can not transform it into an unjust action. And we know that if Action X is unjust, then the UN's approval of Action X won't make it just. Dennis Prager, evincing a cynical side to his personality, does not believe that the United Nations can wave a magic wand and transform something foul into something fair, or transform something fair into something foul. Was Jimmy Carter really so confused as to actually believe that the United Nations has superhuman powers? Who knows?

The hostage crisis in Iran dominated the final year of Mr. Carter's presidency. One could find millions of Americans who would champion the wisdom of Mr. Carter's patience with Iran, saying it was the most rational policy, and one can also find millions of Americans who would say that Mr. Carter should have been less patient and more militaristic, such as, he should have dropped leaflets on Iranian cities, giving the people warning of what was to come; and then, a week later, he should have dropped H-bombs on the same cities if the hostages had not been released. Apropos of what once happened when Islam and the West lost all patience and waged total war with each other, Gibbon informs us of the following:

`Yet in the siege of Amorium about seventy thousand Moslems had perished: their loss had been revenged by the slaughter of thirty thousand Christians, and the sufferings of an equal number of captives, who were treated as the most atrocious criminals. Mutual necessity could sometimes extort the exchange or ransom of prisoners: but in the national and religious conflict of the two empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy. Quarter was seldom given in the field; and those who escaped the edge of the sword were condemned to hopeless servitude or exquisite torture; and a Catholic emperor relates, with visible satisfaction, the execution of the Saracens of Crete, who were flayed alive, or plunged into cauldrons of boiling oil. To a point of honor Motassem had sacrificed a flourishing city, two hundred thousand lives, and the property of millions. The same caliph descended from his horse, and dirtied his robe, to relieve the distress of a decrepit old man, who, with his laden ass, had tumbled into a ditch. On which of these actions did he reflect with the most pleasure when he was summoned by the angel of death?

Philip K. Howard informs us in `The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America' (Random House, 1994, p. 36) that a 21-year-old who needed money to fix his van was offered $400 by an undercover policeman to find some LSD for the cop. He was given a 10 year prison sentence for selling 1.5 grams of LSD. Evidently no politician with the power to pardon him exercised that power. Releasing a `dangerous drug dealer' from prison would no doubt hurt ones re-election bid.

The patriarch of American Conservatism, the late William F. Buckley Jr., was a critic of our War on Drugs. He once bought a supply of cocaine, illegally. He sent it to a woman - I seem to recall she was once his cook or housekeeper - because she was in terrible pain from some terrible disease, and cocaine was the only pain-killer which gave her any relief, but our glorious law givers would not let her have the cocaine. To say that WFB did wrong to break the law by buying the cocaine seems about as sensible as saying the Good Samaritan was a fool, when everyone knows it is dangerous to get involved with strangers.

We read in `National Review', 9.12. 2005, p. 6, that The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission held hearings in San Francisco in 2005. Victims told their stories. A 45-year-old software executive tells of being raped by multiple degenerates when he was 17 and in jail. He was in jail for a drug violation. When one clamors for tough drug laws, the result of the clamoring is that 17-year-olds will get raped by degenerates in prison. That's part of the price which comes from putting kids who experiment with drugs into prison. In clamoring for tough drug laws, one might be under the impression that one is doing good for the USA, but perhaps one is deluded, and perhaps those tough drug laws that one loves are generating more evil than they are extinguishing. National Review says the estimates range from 200,000 to 20,000 male prison rape victims annually, with the victims generally being in jail for minor offenses. When both Liberals and Conservatives adopt the point of view that sadistic prisons and crooked cops and corrupt prosecutors are far from rare occurrences in America, one would think the criminal justice system would be teetering on the brink of collapse. If juries believe that it is idiotic to place great confidence in the words of policemen and prosecutors, if juries believe that to convict someone of a crime is to sentence him to a hellish prison, not to an institution of humane rehabilitation, then honest prosecutors might have an impossible time proving any case beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore have an impossible time securing any convictions.

Andrew Napolitano, former judge and current FOX NEWS Legal Analyst, wrote a book entitled `Constitutional Chaos'. After eight years on the bench of the Superior Court of New Jersey, and after many more years teaching law at the University of Delaware and at Seton Hall, in his professional opinion, America has many cops and prosecutors who lie, who fabricate evidence, who withhold exonerating evidence, and who generally trample upon justice. Judge Napolitano calls Janet Reno on the carpet and lets her have it for all those prosecutions which relied on the voodoo of `repressed memory syndrome.' He might have also gone after some Governors and Presidents as well - they have the power to pardon people languishing in jail from miscarriages of justice.

We have testimony from a Conservative judge who says America has a huge problem with cops who fabricate evidence against suspects. If our drug laws are evil, perhaps one reason why this is so is because there is no reason to place blind faith in a cop when he testifies in court that he found drugs on the accused. There's no reason to place blind faith in two or three cops when they insist that they didn't plant the evidence on the suspect. Perhaps we have unimpeachable testimony, from Conservative and Liberal authorities, authorities who say the USA has many corrupt cops. Even if 95% of the cops in the USA are honest, how is it possible to prove someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt if the prosecutor's case relies on the testimony of cops? We saw in `Brewer v. Williams' that a man who led the police to the body of the little girl he murdered was set free by the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court didn't like the fact that the cops didn't get the murderer to a lawyer as fast as the Supreme Court would have liked. So, the Supreme Court went insane. But the circumstances in `Brewer' are very different from the situation where the police have some circumstantial evidence saying a suspect committed murder, and, then, if the cops should find a knife in the suspect's car which has the victim's blood on it, what is a jury to do? If we know America has lots of cops who will plant false and incriminating evidence, how is a jury supposed to convict anyone on the testimony of cops, when the jury is thinking that it is not beyond a reasonable doubt to believe that the cops planted false evidence?

We know the Divine Law is hostile to everything which is evil, unjust or idiotic Apropos of evil drug laws, Congress wrote and President Reagan signed into law the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act. This Orwellian decree of 1984 allowed the police to confiscate the property of a suspect provided the police have probable cause to believe this suspect was involved in criminal activity, dealing drugs, soliciting prostitution etc. Under the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act the police, provided they and the judges deemed it reasonable, could seize a suspect's property and make it police property, even though the suspect has not been convicted. The suspect had to prove that he was not involved in criminal activity if he wished to recover his property. The late Rep. Henry Hyde on the Right, and the ACLU on the Left, had been striving for many years to get this law repealed. The horror stories abound: an eighty-year-old woman lost her hotel because a prostitute used one of her rooms. A seventy-year-old woman lost her house because one of her grandchildren brought drugs into her house. If one had worked all of ones life to build up a little business in Miami renting boats to boaters, you had better not rent boats, wittingly or unwittingly, to any drug dealers, because the government had assumed the authority to confiscate your business and ruin your life if you do. Leonard Levy's `A License to Steal: The Forfeiture of Property' gave us the low-down on this nightmarish innovation into American law. In `The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice', by Paul Roberts and Lawrence Stratton, we are given many examples of the police seizing the property of people who have not been convicted of any crime. Former House Judiciary Committee chairman, Henry Hyde (R-Illinois), told us that undercover agents have been known to arrange their drug buys on expensive property in order to maximize the value of the property that would be seized. Messrs. Roberts and Stratton tell us about a husband and wife who lost their house to the government because a friend brought an unsolicited marijuana plant to their house. Roberts and Stratton, who both have solid Right-Wing credentials, bluntly state, p. 132, `the asset forfeiture law of the Reagan administration has effectively killed civil liberty in the United States.'

It has been 15 years since the publication of `The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America', by Philip K Howard, a founding partner of the New York law firm of Howard, Darby & Levin. One wonders if any solutions have been implemented in these years to the problems he addressed. Mr. Howard writes, p. 102, that in 1994 it was so difficult to fire lazy or incompetent federal employees - because they will sue the government after they are fired - that the Government Accounting Office advised supervisors to simply ignore federal employees who refuse to work and simply assign essential work to employees who will work, while of course keeping the employee who won't work on the payroll. No doubt we have fixed this problem after 15 years, or perhaps not.

Mr. Howard writes, p. 103, that a New York City transit bus was hit by a garbage truck. Within a few months 18 people filed lawsuits claiming to have been injured in the accident. The bus was actually parked, and no one was on it, but the 18 people attempted to scam the tax payers of New York anyway because New York City had a habit of preferring to settle these sorts of claims rather than go through the time and trouble and expense of proving that no one was actually on the bus at the time of the accident.

People are always complaining about movies which don't not follow the upon which books they are based. But in the film adaptations of `Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy' and `Smiley's People' we see that the action from the novels is transposed with great fidelity directly into the films. Apropos of extortion, Barry Foster, who played the psychopath in `Frenzy', played Saul Enderby, head of the British Secret Service, in the film adaptation of John Le Carré's `Smiley's People'. He had a funny line about how the Soviet's operated while under tight budget constraints. Your money went further by blackmailing people than it did from bribing them - blackmail is more cost-effective than bribery. Foster did a nice job conveying the humor of all this. Once you have your upfront costs, that is, your non-recurring costs paid, the recurring expenses are trivial in blackmail, whereas bribery gets expensive. With a modest investment in cameras and microphones, in a plumber's van and uniform, you can get inside the mark's condo and hide your cameras and microphones to capture every incriminating act of passion when the mark is in bed with another man's wife, or better yet, with another man - doing his illicit deeds while being captured on film, the film which one will use to hold his feet to the fire to make him betray the Soviet Union. In any case, your city-dwelling extortionist who uses the legal system to make money has some upfront costs - there's the time spent reading the papers looking for bus accidents and train accidents; there's the neck brace you have to invest in. You can forge a doctor's note easily enough by stealing a sample of his signature and letterhead. The personal injury lawyers work on contingency, so there's no upfront cost there.

We read in `The Legal System: Opposing View Points' (John Perna, Greenwood Press Inc., pp 153-4) that Miss Ethyl Hylton of New York City was seeking to move to a warmer climate. She had worked for over 20 years as a hotel housekeeper and as a hospital janitor. With $18,000 from an insurance settlement, and with over $21,000 that she had saved from all her years of hard work, her life savings was nearly $40,000. She put this life savings, in cash, into a suitcase and flew to Houston, looking to buy a house. When she arrived in Houston she was arrested by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent. A dog had scratched at her baggage. Her bag was searched. And Miss Hylton was strip searched (that's when your government goes to work by inspecting all of your major orifices. And of course you never get a lazy government employee who won't do his job when you need one). The snooping DEA agent found no drugs hidden on Miss Hylton's person, but the government seized all but $10 of her near $40,000 life savings anyway, and didn't give it back - because the law said they could take it. Her money was tested and it was discovered that traces of cocaine were found on it. One problem with this is that traces of cocaine can be detected on 96% of all paper currency in large cities across the USA. Drug-contaminated money seized by the government is simply deposited into the bank to be circulated in the money supply, to contaminate clean currency. Miss Hylton was never charged with a crime. She worked for 20 years as a cleaning woman to earn her money. Agents of the United States of America just stole her life savings.

Mr. Howard writes, p. 60, about poor John Laplante, Chicago's transportation commissioner, who made a slip up back in 1992. The news came to Mr. LaPlante's attention that the Chicago river was about to break through an old railroad tunnel built in the 19th century and flood the underground levels of Chicago's downtown buildings. Mr. LaPlante knew the dam could break at any time, but he thought the $75,000 estimate from one contractor was way out of line, perhaps even by a seven-fold factor, for he was looking to pay a contractor something closer to $10,000 to shore up the dyke holding back the angry waters. Mr. LaPlante refused to pay the $75,000. He thought it best to solicit bids from other contractors to see if he could save the tax payers of Chicago some money. As luck would have it, wouldn't you know, two weeks later, before the bidding process had even begun, the dam broke and hundreds of millions of gallons of water were sent rushing through the basements of downtown Chicago's office buildings. The flood smashed boilers, destroyed computers, short-circuited switches, turned paper files into pulp. Mr. Laplante tried to save Chicago $60,000, but by not taking swift action in the face of danger, he ended up costing Chicago over a billion dollars.

This kind of blunder is really insignificant and trivial in the whole scheme of things. You have to tear yourself up on the inside some if you cost Chicago a billion dollars, but, years later, you can laugh about it because no one was killed. The really destructive problems are those foul abuses, such as when agents of the United States of America strip search a woman and then steal her life savings. These sorts of abuses lead to suspicions that the USA has become a nation of vampires and zombies.

Continuing onwards, like intrepid explorers, venturing deeper and deeper into the jungles of the Madness of the United States of America, we see that Maria Gurrola had a hellish ordeal with the Tennessee Department of Children's Services. First, Maria was repeatedly stabbed with a knife wielded by a crazy woman. Then the crazy woman stole Maria's infant son, Yahir Anthony Carillo. The authorities recovered her kidnapped child, but they suspected Maria might have been trying to sell him to raise some cash. After an investigation this suspicion turned out to be groundless. While the authorities were investigating Maria, they took her other three young children away from her. Fair enough so far. But rather than keep the siblings together, Tennessee separated them, shipping them out to three different foster homes. Consider the hellish ordeal that that Tennessee inflicted on Maria's three-year-old daughter. First, the little girl witnessed the stabbing attack on her mother. Then she was assaulted by the State of Tennessee, as she was forced to suffer the trauma of being separated from her parents. Then she was forced to suffer the trauma of being separated from her siblings and all of her relatives: the three-year-old was forced by the State of Tennessee to live with complete strangers. Maria and her husband, Jose, have plenty of relatives who were close with the children. These relatives would have taken the children into their homes while the mother and father were being investigated by the authorities in Tennessee. But, of course in a huge insane asylum, it would be crazy to expect to find sanity in that asylum.

George Will wrote of the 140 federal regulations which pertain to wooden ladders alone. OSHA requires companies to post the warning sign POISON wherever sand is stored, as sand contains silica, and some scientists believe silica causes cancer. No doubt, before OSHA, the insane asylum we call the USA let thousands of workers die every year in industrial accidents because greedy companies found it profitable to treat human life cheaply, but, still, one has descend into madness if one believes we need signs warning POISON placed next to piles of sand. And why aren't these warning signs placed on our beaches? If sand did cause cancer, no doubt Florida, Hawaii, California etc. would have a reason to hide this truth, as their beaches bring in billions of tourist dollars. In one of George Will's columns from 1994, we read of a Colorado judge who ordered prison officials to supply an inmate with a black robe, a gong, and incense so as to not violate his `right' to practice his satanic rituals while in prison. Thus, money from tax payers, Christian, Jewish and Islamic tax payers for instance, is used to purchase satanic paraphernalia for a satanist, because a judge has dictated the order, and the tax payers must obey his dictates. The people of Colorado support satanism, not because the people of Colorado are satanic, but, rather, because the people of Colorado are distracted by no end of issues besides the issue of idiotic judges.

The insanity in America never ends. The USA has hundreds of thousands of gangsters and millions of violent perpetrators. Our PETA members and Vegetarians insist the USA is essentially a huge torture chamber for poor animals who are abused on America's factory farms. We've had 50 million babies aborted since 1973 with the blessing of the USA. `National Review' reports (10.23.06) that the ACLU says that child porn, once it has been produced, is free speech, and is a form of expression which is protected by the Constitution. And people dare to criticize the ACLU.

§ 8. Incoherence from the Supreme Court

Much of the story of American Constitutional Law in the 20th century is the tale of judges using the due process clause of Amendment XIV. to invalidate State laws, laws which are supposed to be protected by Amendments IX. and X. If a court must cast Amendments IX. and X. aside to uphold Justice, then cast them aside by all means! When we speak of laws pertaining to Amendment I. we often mean State laws which have nothing to do with the literal meaning of Amendment I. That is, Amendment I. is addressed only to Congress, therefore, if the Supreme Court wants to strike down a State law which restricts free speech, it uses the due process clause of Amendment XIV. to do so. Amendment I. forbids Congress to abridge free speech and the rights of the press, but we must let Congress and the Feds combat child porn on the internet, and therefore Amendment I. is cast aside so that Congress is able to fight child porn. The FCC is a violation of Amendment I., but Amendment I. is cast aside and the FCC is allowed to exist, because the States might be incapable of policing radio and TV transmissions effectively. One can imagine all sorts of jurisdictional nightmares if the States had to police the electro-magnetic spectrum.

The problem is not that judges make laws. The problem is they often make bad laws. Recall that the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 in `Dred Scott v. Sandford', ruling that residence in a free state did not make a slave free; the Supreme Court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was Unconstitutional, that is the Supreme Court ruled Congress had no Constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in the territories. The Supreme Court (or Congress or the President for that matter) only had to declare slaves to be human beings, to be persons, and then use the due process clause of Amendment V. to free the slaves. In `Ableman v. Booth' the Supreme Court again asserted the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was Constitutional. Amendment XIII. finally banned slavery from America's shores in 1865. We can certainly see how a Supreme Court justice in 1850 might feel caught in a trap: if he freed the slaves then he would start a Civil War. If he doesn't free the slaves then he is the enemy of God and the True Church, justice and humanity.

The Commerce Clause of Article I. tells us Congress has authority to regulate interstate commerce. Intrastate commerce is left to the States to regulate. Matters can get a little complicated in upholding Justice if one must cast some parts of the Constitution aside. But one is never forced to renounce plain English and embrace babbling incoherence. Babbling incoherence from judges is not the worst evil in the world, but it doesn't do much to lessen the insanity in the world. It was Justice Blackmun who wrote the majority opinion in `Roe v. Wade'. Blackmun gave us a glimpse into the kaleidoscopic colors of his mind in `Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority',

`In South Carolina v. United States...the Court held for the first time that the state tax immunity recognized in Collector v. Day...extended only to "ordinary" and "strictly governmental" instrumentalities of state governments and not to instrumentalities "used by the State in the carrying on of an ordinary private business."...We therefore now reject, as unsound in principle and unworkable in practice, a rule of state immunity from federal regulation that turns on a judicial appraisal of whether a particular governmental function is "integral" or "traditional."...We doubt that courts ultimately can identify principled constitutional limitations on the scope of Congress' Commerce Clause powers over the States merely by relying on a priori definitions of state sovereignty...the developed application, through the Fourteenth Amendment, of the greater part of the Bill of Rights to the States limits the sovereign authority that States otherwise would possess...we are convinced that the fundamental limitation that the constitutional scheme imposes on the Commerce Clause to protect the "States as States" is one of process rather than one of result. Any substantive restraint on the exercise of the Commerce Clause powers must find its justification in the procedural nature of this basic limitation, and it must be tailored to compensate for possible failings in the national political process rather than to dictate a "sacred province of state autonomy."

Regardless if he was right or wrong to cast Article I., and Amendments IX. and X. aside, if "Blackmun as Blackmun" was more coherent and less of a babbler he, a priori, might have simply said,

`I intend to let Congress intrude itself into the realm of intrastate commerce, something which, granted, runs contrary to Article I. and Amendments IX. and X. to our federal Constitution. In the interests of equity and basic justice, I intend to let Congress give some poor people in San Antonio higher wages. The ordinances of the City of San Antonio, together with Article I. and Amendments IX. and X., are superseded in this case by the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. and by the Equity Clause of Article III. Section 2.'

Justice Blackmun was caught in a trap, because, on the one hand, he desperately wanted to help poor people not just in San Antonio but across the USA, even if they were breaking JFK's rule and were asking the government to do something for them. But, on the other hand, he didn't want to come straight out and say he was tossing Article I., and Amendments IX. and X. aside, as he might have been impeached if he was too plain-spoken in explaining why Justice demanded that he trample on States' rights and cast aside the clear words of the Constitution. If he was too plain-spoken the people of the USA might have responded the way Justice Davis responded in `Ex parte Milligan':

`...The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism...This nation, as experience has proved, cannot always remain at peace, and has no right to expect that it will always have wise and humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the constitution. Wicked men, ambitious of power, may fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln...'

Blackmun's words remind one of that chaos which Milton mentioned:

`A dark illimitable ocean, without bound, without dimension, where length, breadth, height, and time, and place, are lost: where eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold eternal anarchy, amidst the noise of endless wars, and by confusion stand.'

When a Supreme Court justice writes an opinion he might wish to remember that, besides addressing the parties involved in the particular case or controversy, he is also addressing the American people, who are not a clique in the legal profession who resemble Lawyer-Tarzans in their ability to swing effortlessly through jungles of legalistic jargon. A Supreme Court justice might check to see if he has been brainwashed by any casuistry emanating from any of his colleagues, and he might check to see if his opinions look more like attempts to rebuild the Tower of Babel than honest and sincere prose. A Supreme Court justice would have to suspect that something has gone terribly amiss, and perhaps even suspect some sort of usurpation has transpired, when the government of a Republic refuses to make itself intelligible to ordinary citizens in that Republic - to nurses, teachers, doctors, architects, mechanics, truck drivers, shopkeepers, bar tenders, CEOs, animal rights activists, environmental activists; gay, lesbian and transgender anti-discrimination task force activists; faith healers, psychics, mediums, porn producers, corn producers, rent-a-cops, peace officers, prison wardens, prison guards, border guards, parole officers, probation officers, community organizers, Special Weapons And Tactics assault force members, phone sex operators, telemarketers, televangelists, steel workers, meat packers, auto workers, massage therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychos in psych wards, high-pressure pharmaceutical salesmen, electronic journalists, print journalists, unemployed journalists, temps working for low wages and no benefits; single moms working to get their GEDs, beer and spirit distributors, blackjack dealers, smoking cessation counselors, grief counselors, marriage counselors, debt consolidation counselors, drug and alcohol dependency counselors, money changers, money lenders, arbitrageurs, day traders, meter maids, cleaning maids, home makers, horse breeders, dog breeders, cat breeders, oilmen, cattlemen, ranch hands, hog farmers, bill collectors, bounty hunters, slot machine repairmen, gas chamber repairmen, electric chair service technicians, Los Angeles Class Nuclear Submarine skippers, B-52 pilots hauling thermonuclear weaponry etc., etc.

Amendment IV. states: `The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.'

One is forever hearing lawyers say that Amendment IV. says the police must get a warrant from a judge before they can search or seize a person, his house, his papers etc. You would think that anyone could read Amendment IV. and see that it does not say that warrants are required. Congress and the States are not prevented by Amendment IV from passing laws requiring the police to obtain a warrant before they make a search or seizure, but it is also true that Amendment IV. does not demand that the Feds and the States pass laws requiring the police to obtain a warrant before every search or seizure. And of course even if the police obtain a warrant their search or seizure is unconstitutional if it is unreasonable. You have to wonder what percentage of all judges and lawyers are crazy when many lawyers are crazy enough to insist that Amendment IV. says the police must always get a warrant before they search or seize a person, his house, his papers, and effects.

Continuing our journey into the fascinating wonders of American Constitutional Law, and keeping to this theme of insane lawyers and mad law-makers, Article VI. of the Constitution plainly says that no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. That's perfectly coherent. But madness and incoherence might arise when half of ones brain says the USA must not use religious Tests, while the other half of ones brain insists that religious Tests must be used. If we have a Muslim candidate for the Supreme Court, then, a Senator is not permitted to ask him if he believes that all those who direct abusive words towards Islam should be executed in accordance with Islamic law. The Senator is not permitted to ask the candidate if he favors the Koran's verses which say fornicators are to be flogged with 100 lashes, which say that non-Muslims will burn in hell, which say that the hands of thieves are to be chopped off. The Senator is not permitted to ask the Muslim candidate what he thinks about the Taliban's version of Islamic Law, which chops a woman's fingers off if she paints her fingernails, or ask if he thinks women who refuse to cover their heads should be chastised with a painful chastisement. Such questions constitute religious Tests, and Article VI. strictly forbids religious Tests. Senators are not permitted to ask the Muslim candidate questions such as: do you think it was right for the 50-year-old Mohammed to have a nine-year-old girl for a wife? They can't ask: what do you suppose God thinks about that unorthodox ménage? Those questions are certainly verboten because they are religious tests. A Senator may question the Muslim candidate on his views of our laws pertaining to adult men sleeping with nine-year-old girls, but he has to banish religion from his questions. A question one might want to ask a Muslim candidate for the Supreme Court is: Do you think Allah wants Israel to be destroyed? But of course this is an unconstitutional question as it is a religious test. The fact that the Koran is unambiguous in stating that hell awaits unbelievers is controversial, but all religions have their controversial aspects. And, as we are learning, the Constitution and American Constitutional Law have their controversial aspects as well. Under Islamic law Christians and Jews who do not convert to Islam are not to be killed or forced to convert to Islam, but they are to pay tribute, and they are subject, like everyone else, to Islamic law, which calls for women to cover themselves from head to toe, and calls for the whipping of fornicators, the amputation of the hands of thieves, death for those who blaspheme Allah or Islam, death for those who heap scorn upon Islamic prophets such as Muhammad, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus etc. In the `Inferno', Dante threw Muhammad into hell where he would be slashed by devils wielding axes for all eternity - this being the penalty for those who created divisions. Doré made a famous illustration of it. Liberals generally don't want to see books such as Dante's `Inferno' burned or banned, as book burning and book banning are mortal sins in the Church of Liberalism, unless of course they are books written by Right-wingers like Ann Coulter.

In Article VI. we read that senators, representatives, judges etc. are bound by Oath to support the Constitution. Thus they are bound by Oath to never administer religious Tests. One might think it a very exotic and decadent dance which American Senators must perform when they appraise the fitness of a candidate for the Supreme Court. They must: a) look for a plausible non-religious reason to cashier a candidate for the Supreme Court from consideration should they determine, somehow, that he is a religious fanatic, b) they must lie to the public by informing the public that the fanatic was rejected because of the plausible non-religious reason, c) they must lie to the public by insisting that no religious Test was used to screen out the rejected candidate, because religious Tests are indeed unconstitutional under Article VI., d) the Senators must continue to use religious Tests in clandestine fashion, because, obviously, any fool can see that a sane society must use religious Tests in order to keep zealots and fanatics off the Supreme Court, e) the Senators must violate their oaths to support the Constitution by using these religious Tests, f) the Senators must lie to the people and to the Press when asked if they have violated their oaths to support the Constitution, after they have cashiered all religious fanatics from consideration for the Supreme Court.

Some might finds this confusing. Is one under oath to support both the sound and the unsound sections of the Constitution? Is one under oath to support only those parts of the Constitution which are consistent with ones own opinions about Justice and Equity? Is one under oath to do whatever one wants to do? It might be difficult to run a sane government when the people taking oaths to support the Constitution either don't know what the oaths means, or don't care what they means, or have grown quite comfortable and quite fond of violating oaths. Perhaps it was for good reason that Jesus said oaths are from the devil.

Apropos of the menace of making people take oaths, a supremely erudite 19th century historian wrote some interesting words on the subject. We read in Henry Thomas Buckle's `History of Civilization in England',

`In England, even the boy at college is forced to swear about matters he can not understand, and which far riper minds are unable to master. If he afterwards goes into Parliament, he must again swear about his religion; and at nearly every stage of political life he must take fresh oaths...A solemn adjuration of the Deity being thus made at every turn, it has happened, as might have been expected, that oaths, enjoined as a matter of course, have at length degenerated into a matter of form. What is lightly taken is easily broken. And the best observers of English society, -observers too whose characters are very different, and who hold the most opposite opinions, - are all agreed on this, that the perjury habitually practiced in England, and of which government is the immediate creator, is so general, that it has become a source of national corruption...It would be easy to push the inquiry still further, and to show how legislators, in every attempt they have made to protect some particular interest, and uphold some particular principles, have not only failed, but have brought about results diametrically opposite to those which they proposed. We have seen that their laws in favour of industry have injured industry; that their laws in favour of religion have increased hypocrisy; and that their laws to secure truth have encouraged perjury. Exactly in the same way, nearly every country has taken steps to prevent usury, and keep down the interest of money; and the invariable effect has been to increase usury, and raise the interest of money...They [Christian governments] have made strenuous and repeated efforts to destroy the liberty of the press, and prevent men from expressing their sentiments on the most important questions in politics and religion. In nearly every country, they, with the aid of the church, have organized a vast system of literary police...'

Buckle writes elsewhere of an instance where legislators were successful in accomplishing their desired ends,

`A careful study of the history of religious toleration will prove, that in every Christian country where it has been adopted, it has been forced upon the clergy by the authority of the secular classes. At the present day, it is still unknown to those nations among whom the ecclesiastical power is stronger than the temporal power.'

The Supreme Court has upheld the legality of the Trump administration's ban on travel to the USA from those in various Islamic nations. The way legality is determined in the USA is a little complicated. The federal Constitution is the supreme law of the land, it specifically states this in the federal Constitution. Of course Christians insist God's law is higher than any human law, so, to clarify, the federal Constitution is the highest human law in the USA. The term Substantive Due Process of Law is basically an appeal to Divine Law, though Atheists would call it an appeal to Natural Law. We say that a state law may be declared unconstitutional if it violates the due process clause of Amendment V. or XIV. There are violations of procedural due process of law and there are violations of substantive due process of law. A Liberal will not protest if a Christian judge strikes down a law which the Liberal wants struck down, but the Liberal doesn't want to hear any Christian say the law violates substantive due process of law because it violates Divine Law. If you bring Divine Law into human law, then Liberals start screaming about how there must be separation of Church and State. One could probably find Atheists who would say no Jew, Christian, Muslim etc. should be allowed to vote, because when you let religious people vote you are uniting Church and State. I suppose some might say that, ultimately, Satan is the supreme authority on what the laws of the USA shall be, because St. Paul tells us that Satan is the god of this world. Or you might say the people of the USA are the highest authority on what will be the highest human law of the USA. This is because the people control who the members of Congress are. And Congress is the next highest authority on what will be the highest human made law in the USA, because Congress has the authority to write laws, and the power to override Presidential vetos, plus only Congress has the power to impeach and remove people from their high offices. If Congress believes one or more Supreme Court justices interpret the Constitution in a corrupt manner, then Congress can remove that judge from his high office. If Congress says the President is corrupting the Constitution, Congress has the authority to remove the President from office. By removing enough people Congress can determine what the law will be. Americans are accustomed to thinking the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what is the supreme human law of the USA, but Congress still has authority over the Supreme Court though Congress very rarely impeaches any Supreme Court justices. We've grown accustomed to thinking the Supreme Court as the supreme authority in the USA in determining what the laws will be, but one really should know the hierarchy of authority: 1) The people have authority over Congress. By voting, the people have the power to choose who the members of Congress will be, 2) Congress, by virtue of the power to impeach, has authority over the Executive and the Judicial branches, 3) Of course the people and Congress and the Executive generally defer to the Supreme Court, and consider her verdicts final, but all high federal officials take an oath to defend the Constitution. The justices are appointed for life, and it is not easy to impeach and remove them from office, so the power of the Supreme Court has slowly grown over the last two centuries. Still, if the Congress was united in its will to pursue a certain agenda, it has the authority to sweep the justices on the Supreme Court aside

About this issue of the Constitution forbidding religious tests. On the one hand it seems very clear that the Constitution forbids religious tests. But then the original Article IV. gave a very clear embrace to slavery. And the Equity Clause of Article III. or the Due Process Clause of Article V. could certainly and very justly have been used to strike down the clear words in Article IV. embracing slavery, thus outlawing slavery. A Civil War would have erupted earlier than it did, but that is sort of beside the point. At issue is: Do the people of the USA have a fundamental right, an inherent right, a Divine right under Divine Law, or a natural right under Natural law, or a right which follows from having the right to have Substantive Due Process of law, and therefore a right to use religious tests to learn the religious beliefs of the candidates nominated to the Supreme Court? If so, then either the Equity Clause or the Due Process is simply put to work, and then religious tests are now legal and Constitutional.

So many religions look quite mild if you glance at them with a superficial glance. As we saw right at the beginning of this book, if you believe that Jesus is God, if you are a believer in the trustworthiness of the New Testament, then it is only logical to believe that every religion which rejects Jesus is under the power of satan: Judaism, Islam, Hiduism...If you believe that Jesus is a false prophet then it is only logical to conclude that the Christians are under the power of satan, assuming you believe in satan. Recall that the Muslims believe Jesus is the Messiah but they believe it is a blasphemy to say Jesus is God. But Christians point to scriptures such as Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, Matthew 1. 23, John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 and say these are right and the Muslims are heretics under the power of satan when they say Jesus is not God.

If you say the Church of Rome is God's True Church, then you are saying or at least strongly implying that the Pope is the true ruler of America, and the true ruler of the rest of the world as well; you're saying it is right to venerate as saints various people who tortured and murdered : Jews, Women, Cafeteria Catholics, Muslims, Protestants etc. In _The Cult_ I reviewed the consequences of saying that the Eastern Orthodox is God's True Church. You will find so many controversial religious statements if you only dig a little to find them.

We have lots of people who say Christianity is bunk. But Christians can't worry over what every non-Christian thinks of Christianity. A Christian has to worry about Revelation 20. 12-15. And a Christian has to think about these words from St. Paul in Romans 14. 12, where he writes that each of us will have to stand some day before the Creator of the Universe and give an accounting of himself. If you think about it, this is really ones Super Bowl. This is ones Big Huge Important Day. This day is only about a million billion million trillion times more important than every other day. You want to go into this interview with the Creator of the Universe at your best, and you don't want to blow it, as if that's not stating the obvious. You want to do well, or rather, you want to do really really well in this interview. Non-Christians will say that Romans 14. 12 is a lot of nonsense. Christians should try hard to not think this way! If St. Paul is trustworthy in Acts 26. 13-18, then why wouldn't he be trustworthy in Romans 14. 12? If he is trustworthy in 2 Thess 2 and trustworthy in Galatians 1. 8-12 and trustworthy in 2 Thess 1. 8 and trustworthy in Colossians 2. 8-10 and trustworthy 1 Timothy 3. 16, then why would he be untrustworthy in Romans 14. 12? So, to again state what is super obvious, it's just very important that one do well in ones interview with the Creator of the Universe. You don't want to be all muddled up in the head, worrying about human law, worrying about what is written in Article VI, or what the 9th Amendment to the federal Constitution says. You don't want to be all flustered and confused and distracted over matters. Perhaps you are so confused and mixed up in the head that you are convinced that Divine Law doesn't exist because God doesn't exist. Well, obviously, if you have to stand before the Creator of the Universe and explain that you always thought He didn't exist, but if He did exist then He was a big fraud, or a big tyrant, or a big incompetent sort of Deity. You'll want to try to put up some sort of reasonably competent defense. You have to try to fight to avoid getting tossed into a lake of fire, you know. You'll want to be able to say that you obey the Divine Law. You will want to honestly say that you obey this new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Recall that bit in 2 Thess 1. 8: fire for those who do not know god and who don't obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You don't want to be, in any way, forced to admit you are an outlaw under the Divine Law. Things get sort of confusing in regards immigration. Well obviously it is wrong to separate kids from their parents from their parents at the USA-Mexico border. So much of Divine Law, as it pertains to immigration issues, pertains to Christ's commandment to love our neighbors. But does this mean we must love our neighbors in our own nation more than our neighbors in neighboring nations? On the one hand, a nation has the right to protect its own citizens from alien gangsters and alien murderers. I made a typo in an earlier draft which made it seem like I was saying: we need to protect our own gangsters from alien gangsters. Are the Israelis obligated under Divine Law to admit into Israel aliens who would seek to murder Jews and destroy Israel? That doesn't sound right. So the USA and every other nation has the right to protect citizens from violent aliens. But you really run into big problems, big problems in violating Divine Law, if you seek policies which turn away non-violent aliens. On the one hand non-violent aliens will need to be able to work, or else they will need welfare. If they can't get welfare, and if they are not permitted to work legally...where does that lead? No doubt lots of aliens might have some very primitive religious beliefs. But if Christ and the apostles only sought to make converts among people who already held sound religious beliefs they wouldn't have preached the Gospel to anyone. How strange to think that the USA is not permitted to determine, via religious tests, just how truly vile or insane the religious beliefs of people seeking to hold the highest offices in the USA might be! Those who insist one must take a strict construction of the Constitution would say that if Satan himself showed up as a candidate for the Supreme Court we are not permitted to hold his satanic religious beliefs against him to keep him off the Supreme Court. No religious tests means no religious tests. Isaiah 44. 24-5,

"`Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb: "I am the Lord, who makes all things...who frustrates the signs of the babblers...who turns wise men backwards, and makes their knowledge foolishness."'

What do you think of Malachi 3. 5? Tthough part of the Old Testament, it certainly looks like something that fits in perfectly well with the New Testament,

`And I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and the fatherless, against those who turn away an alien - because they do not fear Me," says the LORD of Hosts.'

I think the issues surrounding the cross and the crucifix and Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy etc., are all rather easy issues to decide. But immigration is little tougher. We now know that admitting lots of Middle Eastern men into Sweden and Germany and the Netherlands etc. causes lots of rapes, so it seems rather stupid and evil to throw the borders open to young Middle Eastern men. But if a Middle Eastern woman with kids shows up at the border, then it seems rather anti-Christian to tell them to turn around and start walking back to where they came from.

§ 9. Capital Punishment.

The precise number of laws and government policies which a good Christian must scrutinize is a mystery. Still, we know that one can not have a Divine Law written on ones heart if one fails to recognize evil and insanity when one is staring right at evil and insanity. If one feels overburdened with too much information please remember that everyone, even the most learned professors, have huge gaps in their knowledge of history. And not everyone can remember who were the sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine, or who were the sons of Blanche of Castile, or how the beautiful Giulia Farnese, who was at the feet of Christ, Moses and Elijah in Raphael's `The Transfiguration,' was associated with Roderigo Borgia - aka Pope Alexander VI. - or what Charles of Anjou and St. Louis are most famous for doing. In studying history one might lose ones head by getting lost in a billion details, such as the details surrounding how Crassus lost his head, or how Anne Boleyn, Charles I. and Marie Antoinette lost their heads. Yes, you mustn't lose your head by getting lost in billions of details. If you wanted to learn a little American Constitutional Law you might start with the most incendiary decisions of the Supreme Court. In `Brewer v. Williams' a man led the police to the body of the little girl he had murdered. But because the police didn't get the murderer to a lawyer as quickly as the Supreme Court wanted, the Supreme Court decided that Justice demanded that the jury must not hear the evidence that the man led the police to the body of the little girl he had murdered. The result was the murderer of the little girl was set free by the Supreme Court. The most incendiary Supreme Court decisions have names like `Brewer', `Miranda', `Escobedo', `Dred Scott', `Roe' etc.

When may Christians kill and execute? If Christian soldier A has enemy soldier B lined up in the cross-hairs, then A has to be correct in his assumption that God has no issues with him pulling the trigger and killing B before he actually pulls the trigger. The idea that some lethal violence is acceptable under the gospel arises from the fact that it sounds idiotic to say the gospel prevents policeman from using lethal force when necessary to apprehend murderers and rapists. And yet we can certainly understand that not every war is a just war.

If one uses the words: Constitutional and Unconstitutional one probably should know what those words mean. In `Plessy v. Fergusson', the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal segregated schools were Constitutional. In `Brown v. Topeka Board of Education', the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal was Unconstitutional. In `Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co' the Supreme Court held that racial quotas to help racial minorities in business were Unconstitutional. In the latter two rulings Amendment X. was cast aside by the Supreme Court. Does the Supreme Court always uphold Justice? The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 in `Dred Scott v. Sandford', ruling that residence in a free state did not free a slave from his chains; the Supreme Court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was Unconstitutional: Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories. In `Ableman v. Booth' the Supreme Court again asserted the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was Constitutional. Amendment XIII., which banned slavery from America's shores, voided those latter two court decisions. In `Bowers v. Hardwick' the Supreme Court upheld the Constitutionality of a law against homosexual acts between consenting adults. In `Lawrence v. Texas', the Supreme Court did an about-face and said a law which prohibited homosexual deeds between consenting adults was Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court once determined that capital punishment was Unconstitutional. It takes a very creative mind to read Amendments V. and XIV., and then conjure up the logic which says that capital punishment is Unconstitutional.

Amendment V. states:

`"No person shall be held to answer for a CAPITAL, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment of a Grand Jury...nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of LIFE or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of LIFE, liberty, or property, without due process of

law..."

Section 1 of the Amendment XIV. includes:

`...nor shall any State deprive any person of LIFE, liberty, or property, without due process of law...'

It's true Amendment VIII. forbids cruel and unusual punishments. This wisdom didn't prevent judges from sentencing Americans to twenty years in prison for possessing small amounts of marijuana. The electric chair is most likely cruel and it is certainly unusual yet it provided many years of lethal service to America. The guillotine has the advantages of being far more humane than the electric chair, and it's not unusual, as it has been around for several centuries now. If one reads and understands the New Testament one will see that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is hostile to capital punishment. I mean the New Testament does not specifically ban capital punishment, just as it does not specifically ban the African slave trade, abortion, Gay Marriage etc. You have to use your wits to determine what the New Law is, by studying the letter of the New Testament and by trying to capture the Spirit of the New Testament. And it doesn't make any sense to use examples from the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, and then insist these are part of the New Law. Just because Joshua and David and many other Old Testament luminaries slaughtered some people does not mean Christians have the right to slaughter people. The New Law is very concerned with loving and praying for your enemies - there's not much advocacy for slaughtering folks in the New Testament! The arguments against capital punishment: not everyone had a wonderful childhood; some kids have really despicable parents; when these kids grow up they might make huge mistakes and fall into evil ways. Even kids with great parents can go astray. Recall in Eusebius' `History of the Church' the account of the apostle John's son - the brigand - and how he was brought to repentence. If he had been executed he would not have been brought to repentence. And a person must either repent or else his soul will go to perdition - Luke 13. 5. So, the New Law, the Divine Law, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is hostile to capital punishment, therefore Natural Law is hostile to it, therefore capital punishment is a violation of Substantive Due Process of Law, therefore it violates the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. and hence is Unconstitutional.

§ 10. Rape May be Regulated by the Feds under the Commerce Clause?

A young woman was raped by two football players at Virginia Tech University. She couldn't get much justice out of the Commonwealth of Virginia so she tried fderal court. Federal prosecutors, and some dissenters on the Supreme Court, argued that rape affects interstate commerce, and therefore, as the Feds have the right under Article I. to regulate interstate commerce, the Feds have the Constitutional right to cast Amendment X. aside and prosecute rape cases, or at least prosecute some rape cases. Of course it sounds insane to say that since rape affects interstate commerce, Amendment X. may be cast aside and the Feds may prosecute rape cases under Commerce Clause powers. It is much more coherent to simply say, that, since Virginia is incompetent from time to time at prosecuting rape cases, therefore, under the Equity Clause of Article III., the Feds are empowered to redress this shortcoming of Virginia's. It is the Equity Clause of Article III., not the Commerce Clause of Article I., which permits the Feds to cast Amendment X. aside, that is, cast Virginia's sole right to prosecute rapes which happen in Virginia when Virginia is founded to be incompetent at trying rape cases. This direct and plain-spoken approach might seem like a usurpation of States' Rights, but at least it is coherent.

Plutarch tells us that Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, wrote no laws because he found it best to impart his laws directly on to the hearts of the Spartan youth via discipline and training. The reasoning runs that laws which are not cherished will not be obeyed; and laws which are cherished will never be forgotten, therefore, there's no need to write them on paper or stone tablets, for they will remain forever in human hearts. The laws of Lycurgus were, incidentally, so wretched that the only way they could be written on human hearts was for the dictator Lycurgus to take steps to make sure the people didn't know anything better than his wretched laws. The history of the English Constitution, of that Constitution which is written only on the hearts of the English people, is the history of the strife between the king and the pope, the king and the aristocracy, the king and the commons in Parliament; it is the history of the strife between the commons and the king, the commons and the nobles, the commons and the priests etc., etc. Sir Winston Churchill, in `The Birth of Britain', informed us, p. xix,

`As late as 1937 the Coronation service proclaimed the ideal of Tudor government in praying that the sovereign may be blessed with "a loyal nobility, a dutiful gentry, and an honest, peaceable, and obedient commonalty." Some day perhaps that commonalty might ask whether they had no more to do with Government than to obey it.

Even in the 20th century, tradition still demanded that Princess Diana be examined by a doctor, prior to her marriage to Prince Charles, to verify that she was indeed ever chaste and ever maidenly in her youthful deportment, because, in English tradition, or rather, in the unwritten English Constitution, the crown prince may frolic with concubines but he must wive only a virgin. The Kingdom, at least in former centuries, could not abide the abomination of having a harlot for a Queen. Today it is in the interest of the royals to maintain high moral standards, because, if the royals descend into immorality, the subjects of the royals, the English people, might decide that not only do they not require an immoral monarch, but they don't require any monarch at all. In any event, as the English do not have a written Constitution, the English, unlike the Americans, can not twist into incoherence any clear and simple words found in a written Constitution. The English need never descend into madness or incoherence as their American cousins seem driven to do - rape may be regulated by the Feds under Article I authority in the Commerce Clause - by striving to abide by their oaths to support a written Constitution, while striving always to secure Justice, in those cases where Justice and the written Constitution are irreconcilable. But as we saw with Harry Blackmun in Garcia, one has to be a little suspicious if one feels it is absolutely necessary to write like a madman, to descend into madness and incoherence. A judge need only be honest in explaining that one is using the Equity Clause or one of the Due Process Clauses to supersede a provision of the Constitution, if he believes he must do so to secure Equity and Justice.

§ 11. `Marbury v. Madison'.

We've neglected to touch a dish which must be devoured before one can truly understand the United States of America. `Marbury v. Madison' (1803) was the first instance of the unelected judges on the Supreme Court employing Judicial Review - voiding an official law of the Republic, voiding an Act which was passed in Congress and which had been signed into law by the President. The Supreme Court voided it by declaring it to be in violation of the Constitution.

The Constitution makes no mention of Judicial Review, but the courts have this great power, or so many insist, because: 1) Article III., Section 2 says the federal Judicial power extends to all Cases in Law and Equity which arise under the federal Constitution, and, Equity means Justice, but it also means the power of judges to void unjust laws. And 2) if a judge sincerely believes a law is in violation of the Constitution, then, in order for that judge to obey his oath to support the Constitution - see Article VI. - he must declare the law to be unconstitutional and void. The Executive and Legislative branches of government are free to comply with or ignore the decisions of the Judicial branch, though a penalty will be paid on the next election day if the voters side with the judges. And of course if judges corrupt the Constitution via corrupt rulings, Article I. empowers the House of Representatives to impeach such judges, and empowers the Senate to try and convict and remove the same from office. Executives, Legislators, Judges and Citizens are all capable of both upholding justice and trampling on justice. The founding fathers knew all about judicial review but they didn't feel it was necessary to make it perfectly clear in the Constitution whether or not the Supreme Court could declare unconstitutional and void an act of Congress that was signed by the Executive. Jefferson believed that the Supreme Court had that right, but he also believed that the Congress and the Executive also had the right to ignore the Supreme Court's decision. But the Supreme Court justices don't have to stand for re-election - they might make corrupt decisions and the public is almost powerless to respond, as it is very difficult to impeach and remove a judge from office. Congress controls the purse, the Executive controls the sword, whereas the Judiciary supposedly had only judgment. The founders didn't foresee the consequences of their scheme. It certainly wasn't their intention to have the Federal judiciary intrude themselves into the business of the States as the Supreme Court now routinely does. The upshot is we have 9 unelected judges control the lives of 300 million Americans. This isn't always a bad thing. If the 300 million Americans had huge issues with a particular Supreme Court justice they would succeed in getting that justice removed from office removed, so in that sense they system is not anti-democratic. You have to admit the whole scheme of three branches of government with all these checks and balances is a little convoluted. Perhaps Franklin's scheme for a government run by a central committee would have been far better. Who knows? In any case the average American has no conception of `Marbury v. Madison', no conception of judicial review.

Article III. gives Congress control over the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction, but not over her original jurisdiction In `Marbury v. Madison', (1803), the Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, and the other justices, had to determine if the controversy involving Marbury and Madison would involve an exercise of the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction or of its appellate jurisdiction. Marshall and his judicial brethren also had to determine if an Act of Congress altered the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction - in which case it would be repugnant to the Constitution and therefore void - or if it altered merely the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction, in which case it would not be repugnant to the Constitution. Marshall determined that the Supreme Court was exercising original jurisdiction in `Marbury v. Madison', a rather simple matter to decide because James Madison - Thomas Jefferson's Secretary of State - was a public official even if it had yet to be determined if William Marbury was a public official - and Article III. says the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction in cases involving public Ministers - and, furthermore, since neither Marbury nor Madison was making an appeal from a lower court's decision, it was clear that the Supreme Court was exercising original jurisdiction in `Marbury v. Madison'.

If Congress writes a law which alters the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, the Supreme Court is perfectly justified, and indeed the justices are bound by their oaths to defend the Constitution, to declare that law unconstitutional, for again, Article III. does not give Congress the authority to alter or to place restrictions upon the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction. Congress had passed a law which gave the Supreme Court the authority to issue writs of mandamus when the Supreme Court was exercising original jurisdiction. The Supreme Court rightly said this violated the Constitution. The question still remains, regardless of what Congress did or didn't do: does the Supreme Court have the power to issue writs of mandamus when it exercises its original jurisdiction? One might say that the Founders should have enumerated the precise powers of the Supreme Court when it was exercising original jurisdiction, for example, the Founders might have specified: the Supreme Court shall be empowered to render verdicts, to make judgments, to issue fines and penalties, to impose punishments for contempt of court, to issue orders to law enforcement officers, to issue subpoenas, to take bathroom breaks, to bang gavels, to wear flowing robes etc., etc. The Founders might have also spelled out in the Constitution things forbidden the Supreme Court, for example, the justices are not empowered to spit in court or chew tobacco; they are not empowered to leer at, ogle or fondle pretty witnesses etc., etc. The Founders didn't spell out exactly what the Supreme Court could and could not do when exercising her original jurisdiction because it would be idiotic and impossible to spell everything out. The Founding Fathers expected the justices of the Supreme Court to use some common sense. And common sense says the Supreme Court has always had the power to issue writs of mandamus while exercising her original jurisdiction. Congress passed an unconstitutional law, but, regardless of this law, the Supreme Court has always had the power to issue writs of mandamus. At least this is what common sense says.

John Marshall declined to issue a writ of mandamus directing Thomas Jefferson's Secretary of State James Madison to give William Marbury his commission. To give a quick review of the facts: John Adams nominated William Marbury to be a justice of the peace. Congress approved him. The seal of the USA was put on his commission. The commission just needed to be delivered to Marbury. Adams left office, Jefferson came into office, but Jefferson told Madison to not give Marbury his commission. Marshall was also Secretary of State in Adam's administration, so some scruples might have led him to recuse himself before deciding the case. In any event, Marshall, now chief justice of the Supreme Court, now no longer Secretary of State, declined to issue the writ of mandamus. This was done for political reasons not for Constitutional or legal reasons. Chief Justice John Marshall elevated the power of the Supreme Court by establishing a precedent in voiding an act of Congress. And, at the same time, he did not give Thomas Jefferson a chance to humiliate the Supreme Court, by scorning a Supreme Court challenge to his Executive authority, which would have resulted had the Supreme Court dictated orders to the Executive branch to give Marbury his commission.

The Supreme Court failed however to give justice to William Marbury, or it failed to at least try to give justice to Marbury. Marbury certainly had a right to his commission: nominated by Adams, approved by congress, seal attached to his commission etc. The Supreme Court failed to do this because it placed political considerations above fairness and equity. The whole drama is similar to the Fall of Adam and Eve, original sin etc., etc. The first time the Supreme Court tried to throw down a law made by Congress and the Executive it used dishonest logic in a grab for power. Marshall was right to say that Congress did not have the power to alter the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, but the Supreme Court always had the power to issue writs of mandamus, regadless of what Congress did or didn't do. Marshall should have issued the writ commanding Madison to give Marbury his commission, and if Jefferson and Madison ignored the writ Marshall might have then explained to the public why Jefferson was in the wrong, why Jefferson was perpetrating a usurpation against law and justice. But Marshall wiped his feet on the `honesty is always the best policy' brand of jurisprudence. The next time the Supreme Court used judicial review to invalidate an act of Congress was in 1857, when it used some devil's logic, in `Dred Scott vs. Sandford' \- after a slave resides with his master in a Free State and returns with his master to a Slave State the slave is still a slave; the slave is still his master's property; the slave is not his own property. So, now, the Supreme Court is really getting into a bad rut, striking down legitimate legislation and upholding evil in the process. With the `Dred Scott' decision of 1857 we can certainly see the error of those who say the Supreme Court didn't really beome diabolical until it evicted Christianity from the public schools and gave its blessing to abortion in the 20th century. Oh no, the Supreme Court was doing bad things long before the 20th century.

Article VI. includes,

`This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof...shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and Judges in every State shall be bound thereby...The Senators and Representatives...and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.'

John Marshall upheld his oath when a voided a patently unconstitutional Act of Congress. Congress did not have the right to give the Supreme Court the power to issue writs of mandamus while exercising its original jurisdiction. But the Supreme Court already possessed this authority. Common sense says that, regardless of what Congress does or does not do, the Supreme Court always had the authority to order Madison to give Marbury his commission. The Supreme Court should have ordered Madison to give Marbury his commission. And if Jefferson and Madison had scorned this order, the Supreme Court would have suffered a setback, but, perhaps, the USA and the Supreme Court might have been stronger in the long run. Eventually the people would have seen that Jefferson was in the wrong if he had scorned a just order from the Supreme Court. At least that's one theory. Perhaps they never would have seen it!

The Supreme Court started out in life as the unloved stepchild of our American family. When still a baby, she was so weak and impotent she failed to declare unconstitutional and void the patently corrupt and unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts in John Adams' day. But the angry stepchild has grown in power over the centuries, and now she is an adult who can spit and claw whenever she thinks Congress or the Executive or one of the several States is trespassing on her authority. She can get a little hysterical at times, and she can hallucinate, and she can imagine that someone is trespassing on her just authority when in fact she, rather like Satan and the Antichrist, is an enemy of God and man, sanity and justice. Everyone agrees the Supreme Court blew it in `Dred Scott v. Sandford'. Liberals believe the Supreme Court was a wretched Republican brat in the way she treated Al Gore in `Bush v. Gore'. Conservative Catholics and Evangelicals believe the Supreme Court was in cahoots with diabolical forces in `Roe v. Wade'.

§ 12. The Supreme Court Goes Insane: `Escobedo v. Illinois', ``Miranda' v. Arizona' and `Brewer v. Williams'.

Conservatives usually argue that `Roe v. Wade', which legalized abortion in 1973, is the supreme example of injustice in modern American jurisprudence. But for rank idiocy nothing compares with `Escobedo v. Illinois', ``Miranda' v. Arizona', and `Brewer v. Williams'. Robert Bork, in his Forward to Max Boot's `Out of Order: Arrogance, Corruption and Incompetence on the Bench' (Basic Books, 1998), and Ann Coulter, in `Godless: The Church of Liberalism' (2006), both deal with `Brewer v. Williams'. Robert Williams confessed voluntarily to the police that he had committed a heinous crime - and then he actually led the police to the dead body of the little girl he had murdered, the 10-year-old Pamela Powers. Because the police failed to abide by certain procedures, and had not gotten Williams to a lawyer soon enough, but had instead used some non-violent persuasion to convince him to confess to his crime, the Supreme Court ruled this confession and the evidence gained after it - the evidence of the murderer leading the police to the little girl's body - were not admissible in court. The Supreme Court set the murderer of a little girl free.

Amendment V. includes,

`No person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.'

But no part of the Constitution says that policemen must inform arrested suspects that they have the right to remain silent.

Ernesto `Miranda', after two hours of police interrogation in which no physical coercion was used, confessed to kidnapping and raping a young woman. Because the police failed to inform him that the Constitution gave him the right to not be a witness against himself, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction and freed `Miranda'. In `Escobedo v. Illinois' the Supreme Court freed a murderer, not because the police had tortured him and made him confess to a crime he didn't commit, and not because the police told him that they would murder his mother if he didn't confess. A murderer was freed by the Supreme Court because the police denied him, for a short period of time, his right to a lawyer, and had neglected to remind him that he had the right to remain silent.

Now one might be of the opinion that it is all very unfortunate when the courts spring rapists and murderers loose, but, nevertheless, proper procedures must be upheld! And, after all, it must be admitted, the courts very rarely set rapists and murderers free on idiotic technicalities. But this sort of thinking misses a key reason why `Miranda' is such wretched law. In both Ann Coulter's `Godless: The Church of Liberalism' and Max Boot's `Out Of Order: Arrogance, Corruption, and Incompetence on the Bench' we meet with University of Utah law professor Paul G. Cassel, who has run the numbers on the costs of the `Miranda' madness. Violent criminals, when arrested, will not always confess when politely invited to confess. They usually require a little interrogation to loosen their tongues. No one is advocating torture or beatings, merely a little intelligent questioning, some policemen barking orders perhaps, and asking blunt questions in either a rude or a reassuring tone of voice at suspects arrested on probable cause. Everyone knows it is wrong for the police to beat confessions out of people, and it is just as obvious that `Miranda' can not save any innocent souls from policemen who are bent on using use brutality. Before `Miranda', before the police began to politely inform the accused that they had the right to remain silent, a far higher percentage of those arrested would confess. Via his statistical analysis, Professor Cassel estimates that if there had been no `Miranda' ruling, there would be, in America, every year, 28,000 more convictions for violent crimes. It has been over 40 years since `Miranda', therefore America can thank the Supreme Court for over 1,000,000 lost convictions against violent criminals. And we know that violent criminals are fond of reoffending, thus, who knows how many thousands or millions of rapes, murders and assaults can be directly attributed to the `Miranda' madness.

The reader might prefer to hear that `Miranda' is an abomination from someone other than myself. In `The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies: 1789-1995' (Edited by Claire Cushman, 2nd Edition, The Supreme Court Historical Society. Congressional Quarterly, 1995), Ms. Cushman writes of Justice Byron White, the former Rhodes Scholar and running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers,

`In 1966 he lambasted the majority in the famous criminal procedure case of ``Miranda' v. Arizona' for inventing a rule that he foresaw having a "corrosive effect on the criminal law," "returning a killer, rapist or other criminal to the streets...to repeat his crime whenever it pleases him..." His most famous and scorching dissent was to the 1973 abortion decision, `Roe v. Wade', in which he condemned the Court for acting illegitimately and declared that the decision could be justified only as an exercise of "raw judicial power"'

In his dissenting opinion on `Miranda' v. Arizona' Justice Harlan informed us,

`I believe the decision of the court represents poor constitutional law, and entails harmful consequences for the country at large. How serious these consequences may prove to be only time can tell...The foray which the Court makes today brings to mind the wise and farsighted words of Mr. Justice Jackson in `Douglas v. Jeannette'..."This court is forever adding new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many is added."'

In `Moore v. Dempsey' (1923) the Supreme Court correctly ruled that due process is denied when witnesses are whipped and tortured to make them testify against the accused. In `Brown v. Mississippi' (1936) the Supreme Court correctly reversed some convictions on the grounds that confessions obtain through whippings and beatings must be considered dubious evidence.

Perhaps it is true as some say that we have many policemen who fabricate evidence, and many prosecutors who withhold exonerating evidence. Perhaps the `Miranda' madness exacerbates these problems? If cops feel that the legal system protects criminals, then cops might indulge in some vigilante justice to make even the score. Perhaps the insanity of `Miranda' is accelerating the destruction of whatever sanity remains in America's legal system. `Miranda' does not hinder a single cop bent on using brutality. `Miranda' does nothing to prevent policemen who wish to fabricate evidence. It stands to reason that `Miranda' is harmful to both victims and perpetrators. If a young offender can be persuaded by a sojourn in jail to go straight while he is still young, he will be saved a lifetime of anguish. Presently a delinquent need only remain silent to employ his best strategy to beat the rap. But if the police were permitted to use non-violent persuasion on such people, with no lawyers present, the accused might be led by remorse to make a confession. But, because of `Miranda', it is easier for troubled youths to escape punishment for their crimes, which means they will be emboldened to perpetrate more crimes, because, after they beat the system once, they believe they can beat the system twice, which means they will create more misery for more victims, and they will end up murdered, or end up in jail serving a long prison sentence, or, one way or another, they will lead the wretched existence of hardened criminals, because they were not punished and corrected when they were young and still amenable to correction.

If policemen suspect the numbers from the Utah law professor are right, if they suspect they have participated in a system which has helped to lose 1,000,000+ convictions for rapes, murders and assaults in the motherland, setting all these violent people loose so they can torment America again and again, then, wouldn't this lead to some self-esteem issues for our policemen? Those policemen who don't believe the Utah professor's numbers are accurate have a vested interest to protect, so, naturally, they would be inclined to disbelieve those numbers. Why would a cop want to believe that he is a minion of the Supreme Court's madness? Why would anyone want to believe that he has been a useful tool in helping to inflict enormous evils on America? Cops, of course, have the right to remain silent. Or they can simply deny any knowledge of any complicity in any enormous crimes inflicted on the USA resulting from any insanity emanating from any Supreme Courts. Who could have possibly suspected that `Miranda' would inflict enormous evils on the USA? And if a cop feels some twinges of guilt because of his complicity with a corrupt system, there's always that old excuse: one was only following orders.

It is only logical to conclude that if policemen are convinced that our system is infected with the `Miranda' rabies, a disease which protects criminals, then some of these policemen will be inclined to plant evidence, and withhold exonerating evidence, to ensure that suspects are not protected by a system infected with the `Miranda' rabies. If the police are, generally speaking, brutal and corrupt, then the legal system will have to be a sham. Society should insist that the accused have the right to remain silent, but the accused do not have the right to be told they have the right to remain silent - it looks like a minor point but the minor point has turned 1,000,000+ thugs loose to murder and rape again and again. Society must trust cops to handle the interrogation of arrested persons in the right manner, which means no torture, but some 3rd degree, some tough interrogating is the best way to get a thug to incriminate himself. Liberals don't always grasp the concept, but the main idea is to put the thugs in prisons where they won't be able to rape or murder anyone. And of course nowadays it's easy to film interrogations, not that brutality can't happen in places where there are no cameras. The fight to get sanity into the legal system is basically never-ending in the USA. W.E.B. Du Bois writes in `The Souls of Black Folks', 1903,

`For, as I have said, the police system of the South was originally designed to keep track of all Negroes, not simply of criminals; and when the Negroes were freed and the whole South was convinced of the impossibility of free Negro labor, the first and almost universal device was to use the courts as a means of reënslaving the blacks. It was not then a question of crime, but rather one of color, that settled a man's conviction on almost any charge. Thus Negroes came to look upon courts as instruments of injustice and oppression, and upon those convicted in them as martyrs and victims. When, now, the real Negro criminal appeared, and instead of petty stealing and vagrancy we begin to have highway robbery, burglary, murder, and rape, there was a curious effect on both sides of the color-line: the Negroes refused to believe the evidence of white witnesses or the fairness of white juries, so that the greatest deterrent to crime, the public opinion of ones own social caste, was lost, and the criminal was looked upon as crucified rather than hanged. On the other hand, the whites, used to being careless as to the guilt or innocence of accused Negroes, were swept in moments of passion beyond law, reason, and decency. Such a situation is bound to increase crime, and has increased it. To natural viciousness and vagrancy are being daily added motives of revolt and revenge which stir up all the latent savagery of both races and make peaceful attention to economic development often impossible. But the chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime. And here again the peculiar conditions of the South have prevented proper precautions. I have seen twelve-year-old boys working in chains on the public streets of Atlanta, directly in front of the schools, in company with old and hardened criminals; and this indiscriminate mingling of men and women and children makes the chain-gangs perfect schools of crime and debauchery.'

The Supreme Court's rulings in `Escobedo v. Illinois', ``Miranda' v. Arizona', and `Brewer v. Williams' do nothing to hinder corrupt or brutal cops. They create hell for both victims and perpetrators because they create more of the former and they lead the latter deeper into crime and violence. They teach young aspiring criminals how to beat the system, and therefore they postpone the rehabilitation process for years, or forever.

As we wait for the Supreme Court to invalidate `Roe v. Wade', we're also waiting for a declaratory judgment from the Supreme Court which will put the `Miranda' ruling into the gas chamber. How many more generations must arise and pass away into the dust before the Supreme Court bestirs itself to see sense on `Roe' and `Miranda'? Like sands in the hour glass so are The Days of Our Lives.

§ 13. Strict Constructionism is Stupid: Here's Why You Want to Break the Law.

The Supreme Anthem of Strict Constructionism \- the doctrine which says that judges must strictly obey the Constitution and never cast its provisions, protections and laws aside - is from Justice Davis, who, as we have seen, wrote for the majority in `Ex parte Milligan' in 1866,

`The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism...This nation, as experience has proved, cannot always remain at peace, and has no right to expect that it will always have wise and humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the constitution. Wicked men, ambitious of power, may fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln...'

In dealing with Strict Constructionism and Living Constitutions we are debating the meaning of Justice, and Justice is synonymous with Equity and with Due Process of Law. The original Article IV. gave a warm embrace to slavery. But the Due Process Clause of Amendment V. could have been used to outlaw slavery, just as it can be used to outlaw abortion. Of course if the Supreme Court justices attempted, for instance in 1817, to say that the legal enshrinement given to slavery in Article IV. was unconstitutional, as it violated the due process clause of Amendment V., they might have been tarred and feathered, probably impeached, and possibly hanged by a mob. But banning slavery via the due process clause Amendment V. would not have been an unjust use of Amendment V. By taking just interpretations of the Due Process Clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. -the former pertains to both the Feds and the States - the latter only to the States - and by taking equitable interpretations of the Equity Clause of Article III. Section 2 - the Supreme Court need never be forced to adopt a Strict Construction of the Constitution which tramples on Justice and Equity.

One could certainly argue that a Strict Construction of the Massachusetts Constitution forbids that Commonwealth to deny to same-sex couples the right to marry. Massachusetts Amendment Article CVI. states:

`...Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.'

Thus, if men and women are married by the state, and if equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex or creed, then, according to the letter of the law and Strict Constructionism, same-sex couples must be allowed to be married by the State of Massachusetts. But, as everyone knows, the literal and exact meaning of a law, or of a Constitution, means nothing if the literal and exact meaning of that law or Constitution violates Equity or Due Process of Law, or if the judges think it violates the same, or if the people want to ignore that law or Constitution.

If a precocious 9-year-old boy from Wellesley MA impregnates his precocious 9-year-old girlfriend, and if the young couple could then travel to Georgia, they could then get married, quite legally, in that State (Georgia might have changed its law recently, I don't know, but as far as I know Georgia still allows 9-year-olds to get married). Under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV., every state in the Union would then be forced to recognize their curious union. But, perhaps, very few states would recognize the marriage between 9-year-olds, because, perhaps, these states would simply ignore Article IV. and its Full Faith and Credit Clause. Similarly, Massachusetts can bind in matrimony man to man, and woman to woman, and Article IV. says all the other states must recognize these unions; yet the other states might ignore the Full Faith and Credit clause in Article IV., and not recognize MA's homosexual unions, rather as the Feds often ignore Amendment X. And of course we've been through the Christian reasons for opposing gay marriage.

It sounds very eloquent and wise to say: `The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism...' But in reality the words are nonsensical.

A Strict Construction of Amendment II. would lead one to insist that the government can not deny any sorts of arms to citizens: such as flamethrowers and howitzers, H-bombs and nerve gas. Amendment II. says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. It would be insane for the State to allow citizens to possess the most lethal varieties of arms, therefore a Strict Construction of Amendment II is cast aside. It makes no sense to say one can `interpret' Amendment II so that it means the State may ban certain weapons but it can't ban other weapons. There is only one way to interpret Amendment II. To enforce this interpretation in a modern society full of very lethal weaponry is madness. It would be best to amend Amendment II. and make it more reasonable. But that does not seem to be in the realm of the possible. The government infringes on ones right to bear arms: the government says one may own shot guns but not H-bombs. The government says one may possess rifles but not nerve gas, anthrax canisters, machine guns, flamethrowers, surface-to-air-missiles etc. The State tries to balance Amendment II. with Justice, Sanity, Equity and Natural Law, but we know it would be insane to say that the Government must enforce a Strict Construction of Amendment II.

Alexander Bickle informed us in `American Constitutional Law' (Louis Fisher, 5th edition, p. 111),

`Quite obviously, no society, certainly not a large and heterogeneous one, can fail in time to explode if it is deprived of the arts of compromise, if it knows no ways to muddle through. No good society can be unprincipled; and no viable society can be principle-ridden...The antithesis of principle in an institution that represents decency and reason is not whim, nor even expedience, but prudence.'

Article III. Section 2,

`The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States...'

We read Professor Van Hecke's words in the `Britannica' (1963),

`EQUITY, in popular usage, is a term synonymous with fairness and natural justice and, in this sense, plays a vital role in the work of judges, jurors, legislators and government administrators. In its more special meaning, equity refers to the principles and remedies originally developed by the old English court of chancery and administered in modern times in England and the United States by courts with comparable powers. Traditionally characterized by a discretionary treatment of the individual case in accordance with notions of natural justice, thus supplementing the common law, equity has been a creative, reforming force in Anglo-American law... '

Alexander Hamilton wrote in `Federalist No. 80',

`First. To all cases in law and equity, arising under the Constitution and the laws of the United States...It has been asked, what need of the word "equity"? What equitable causes can grow out of the Constitution and the laws of the United States? There is hardly a subject of litigation between individuals which may not involve those ingredients of fraud, accident, trust, or hardship, which would render the matter an object of equitable rather than legal jurisdiction, as the distinction is known and established in several of the States. It is the peculiar province, for instance, of a court of equity to relieve against what are called hard bargains: these are contracts in which, though there may have been no direct fraud or deceit sufficient to invalidate them in a court of law, yet there may have been some undue and unconscionable advantage taken of the necessities or misfortunes of one of the parties which a court of equity would not tolerate.'

Clear and sane rules are required for operating a sane Republic. But then we are always finding exceptions which must be made to rules, otherwise madness must ensue. We wouldn't want Congress, for instance, to write laws which say that contracts may be broken by either signatory should either signatory want out of the contract. What would be the point of having contracts if contracts could be broken anytime one of the parties wanted to break the deal? Businesses can't operate under a system where promises to pay or promises to provide services are meaningless. But, nevertheless, there are times when we want judges to void contracts and to make equitable adjustments. If roofing contractor A signs a contract with homeowner B to put a new roof on B's house, a roof costing $30,000, then there are times when we need to let B break the contract. If B is a befuddled little old lady with $30,001 in savings, and if she has to live off her savings for the rest of her life, then a judge needs to step in, void the contract, and let the little old lady keep her life savings. Therefore we give judges the power to throw the law aside in specific cases if the law must be cast aside to avoid evil and injustice; we give judges the power to make equitable adjustments.

The histories of the 50 States in the USA are instructive as we ponder the question: do we want a more powerful Federal government, or do we want to see States' Rights and Amendments IX. and X. revived? We want Sane and Powerful government, because weak government leads to Anarchy, and Insane government leads to tyranny. But it is not clear if it is best for the States to have supreme power, or for the Feds to have supreme power. The argument for the States says: there will always be some insanity in government, but, if the States have supreme power, than one can always leave an insane State and move to a sane State. But if the Feds become all-powerful, then this is all very wonderful if the Feds are sane, and it is all very terrible if the Feds are insane.

If California wanted to harvest all of its redwood forests in order to make lumber, to make money, to pay some of its bills, and to better fund some of its union pensions, then, don't we want the Feds to tell California to keep their saws away from those redwood forests? Don't we want the USA to tell California that those redwood forests belong to the people of the USA, even if they actually did belong to the people of California? Common sense tells people who are staring at destitution that it would be stupid to not cut down some stupid old trees when they need to cut down those trees in order to make money to lift themselves out of poverty. But common sense tells people far away, such as people in the Federal government in Washington D. C., that the USA must save every tree in the USA that is 300 years old or older, as it is part of our heritage, and it is idiotic to destroy our heritage.

As long as one can be assured that the Feds will never go insane it is best to have a very powerful Federal government. But if one can find evidence of insanity in the Federal government, then we might not want an immensely powerful Federal government, especially if it is going to insist on being insane.

American Constitutional Law is best approached by looking at concrete examples. Justice Antonin Scalia writes in his `A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law' (Princeton University Press, 1997) that the Supreme Court denied a man his rights under Amendment VI., which tells us that defendants have the right to confront the witnesses testifying against them. The Court ruled, with Justice Scalia dissenting, that a terrified young girl needn't testify in the presence of the man who she says tortured her. Thus, Amendment VI., which gives the accused the right to confront their accusers, was set aside. One might certainly argue that the Supreme Court's ruling was Just and Equitable, and was therefore Constitutional, because due process of law required, in this case, that Amendment VI. be set aside in order to secure Equity and Justice. One could say that the due process clause of Amendment V. or the Equity clause of Article III. permits the Supreme Court to cast Amendment VI. aside in this case. Others will say that the little girl had to face the accused when she gave her testimony, because the right of the accused to confront his accuser given in Amendment VI. is inviolable, even in these sorts of awful situations.

Men convicted of rape are often locked up in mental institutions after they've served their prison sentences. And of course many Civil Libertarians - who become Strict Constructionists in such cases - complain that this is a violation of their Constitutional rights. About the only way to ensure that vicious predators don't commit more rapes after they have already been convicted of one or more such crimes is to either give them life sentences with no possibility of parole or to execute them. Justice Davis' eloquent articulation of Strict Constructionism would lead one to think that we must never violate Amendment V.'s prohibition against double jeopardy. But it is evil to spring vicious predators loose, therefore you have to cast Amendment V's prohibition against double jeopardy aside. Again, Article III. Section 2 gives the federal judicial Power authority in matters of Law and Equity. The word Equity means the power to set the letter of the law aside, when necessary, to secure Justice. Even if the Due Process Clauses and the Equity Clause didn't exist, judges would still have to break the law if the law was evil. One is never compelled to do evil!

Continuing onward with our look at the problems with Strict Constructionism, the Boy Scouts is an organization which follows after the banner of Sir Robert Baden-Powel, an English chap who preached a philosophy which said that lads should worship God and do at least one good deed every day. In `Boy Scouts of America v. Dale', the Supreme Court ruled that Amendment I. rights of freedom of association triumphed over a New Jersey law which would have forced the Boy Scouts to admit gay boys into the Boy Scouts. If, in the wisdom of the good people of New Jersey, and in the wisdom of the elected representatives of New Jersey, New Jersey insists on passing a law which compels the Boy Scouts to include gay scouts in their festive, wood-land outings, then that is the Constitutional prerogative of the sovereign state of New Jersey, provided we wish to uphold Amendment X. And let us assume that Amendment I. means what it actually says. Amendment I. has nothing to do with the Boy Scout case, because we're dealing with a New Jersey law, and Amendment I. pertains to Congress and only Congress. `Congress shall make no law...' is quite different than: `The several States shall make no law...' But Amendment X. is relevant to the Boy Scout case because Amendment X. tells us that New Jersey has certain rights under the federal Constitution, rights which the federal government may not abridge. Of course if New Jersey violated the due process clause of Amendment XIV., then their law needed to be struck down. If it is a violation of Justice and Equity and Due Process of Law to compel the Boy Scouts to welcome gay boys into their straight ranks, then the Supreme Court upheld Justice and Equity and Amendment XIV., even though it turned Amendment X. on its head. Conservatives generally applaud this Supreme Court decision and Liberals generally damn it. The Liberals, in this case, wanted Strict Constructionism and a strong defense of Amendment X., whereas the Conservatives wanted a `Living Constitution'. They wanted the Supreme Court to ignored Amendment X., and wanted the Supreme Court to `incorporate Amendment I. to the States' via the due process clause of Amendment XIV. The Incorporation Doctrine is the first pillar of the philosophy which says the federal Constitution is a Living Constitution.

It is certainly true that judges must, sometimes, legislate from the bench. Recall that Amendment I. includes,

`CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION; OR PREVENTING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF...'

In `National Review', 3.13.2006, p. 14, we read that Myrlene Severe, a Haitian native residing in Miramar Florida, was arrested at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. She was carrying a human head in her luggage. She required the severed head to exercise the rites of her voodoo religion. Thus, if Congress passed a law forbidding people to bring human heads into the country, even if they needed these heads in order to practice their religion, then Congress would violate Amendment I. Of course Congress casts Amendment I. aside, and of course Congress is right to do so in instances where the free exercise of religion involves severed heads. It is basically idiotic and incoherent to say that Congress can both uphold Amendment I. and also restrict the free exercise of religion. One might simply say that the due process clause of Amendment V. permits Congress to cast Amendment I. aside, so that Congress can pass restrictions on the free exercise of the voodoo religion. Pragmatism must triumph in these cases - Pragmatism says any fool can see we can't have people carrying severed heads through our airports - and therefore, Amendment I. must be cast aside by Congress, because Congress must pass laws which say that you can not practice the free exercise of your religion if your religion causes you to carry severed heads through American airports.

In `National Review' (10.13.03), we read a review of Robert Bork's `Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges'. Roger Kimball writes:

`Left to their own devices, most people tend to be mildly traditionalist. They are skeptical of ambitious social programs...They distrust utopian schemes...They are proud of their country. They draw solace from their religion. They do not believe that pictures of crucifixes dipped in urine should be hailed as important works of art. They recoil from the degradation of manners and popular culture. They worry about the moral education of their children...It [left-wing morality] has encouraged them [American judges] to forgo upholding the law in favor of making the law. On issues from abortion to welfare, from the public acknowledgement of religion to a community's tolerance for obscenity, activist judges abetted the transformation of American society according to a blueprint furnished by the left-liberal establishment. Forty years on, their success is patent. It is OK for an artist to display a picture of the Virgin covered with pornographic cutouts and elephant poop. But should a museum presume to install a crèche in their lobby at Christmas, by Kwanzaa you'll find a judge demanding it be removed in the name of "the separation of church and state." Indeed, as Bork observes, "What judges have wrought is a coup d'etat -slow-moving and genteel, but a coup d'etat nonetheless." ...When Congress enacted a statute requiring cable TV channels dedicated primarily to smut to limit transmission to hours when children would be unlikely to be watching, the Court promptly voided the statute, arguing that "basic speech principles are at stake in this case."...At issue were programs advertising....girl/girl sex...oral sex...and other such bedrocks of democratic exchange. Is that what the Founders had in mind? Bork is not optimistic about stopping "the gradual but unceasing replacement of government by appointed judges."...Nevertheless, not everyone who survives college turns out like Hillary Clinton. There are, here and there, signs of vigorous resistance. One sign is the passionate persuasiveness of books like `Coercing Virtue'.

Now on first inspection one might agree with all of this. But on second inspection one might think the above sentiments from Mr. Kimball to be misguided, because Strict Constructionism must be Strict otherwise it would be Soft Constructionism! That is to say, while we could certainly use some laws which prevent children from seeing ads for girl/girl sex on TV, we might want these laws to emanate from the States and not from the Feds - not from Congress - because, Amendment I. runs as follows:

`CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW...ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS...'

On third inspection one might think one had it right the first time in agreeing with Mr. Kimball, reasoning that since American Constitutional Law is already an old pro at the practice of throwing the Constitution aside, we might as well encourage Congress to continue to make laws which abridge the freedom of speech, and which abridge the freedom of the press, provided these abridgements are sensible abridgements, provided they secure Equity and Justice. As far back as the 18th century, in the Alien and Sedition Laws, Congress and the courts have been throwing Amendment I. aside - not to say that the Alien and Sedition Laws upheld Equity. What is the FCC but an Act of Congress which abridges free speech? Congress banned the advertising of a legal product, cigarettes, on TV and radio. It is certainly incoherent to say this action was consistent with Amendment I. It is ok for kids to see ads for oral sex, but it is simply intolerable to allow them to see ads for cigarettes! Imagine how immoral the people who smoke cigarettes in front of kids must be!

As we've seen, Amendment II. places no restrictions on the types of weaponry which one may own, and it says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. But it's madness to let all the people own the most efficient killing machines imaginable. So Amendment II. is simply cast aside, at least to large extent, but not completely. One can make a little dance round the Equity Clause if one cares to, to say that it is all quite Constitutional and legal to throw Amendment II. out the window, no oaths to support the Constitution need be violated in tossing Amendment II. aside. But even if we had no Constitutional means to throw Amendment II. out the window, and no means to amend it given the stark realities of civic illiteracy in American society, it would be insane to not throw it out. Every sane person knows it is insanity to say the law must never be broken! Society is like a big family in that you have to be practical, and you have to make sure you don't destroy the family with stupid ideas, such as Strict Constructionism. Strict Constructionism is very hostile to double jeopardy. But a sane society must use double jeopardy against dangerous psychopaths. A sane society does not release sadistic predators back into society after their prison sentences are over. A sane society commits them to mental institutions. This violates a citizen' right to not be subjected to double jeopardy. So what? A sane society does what is sane not what is insane. `The Nation' (5.18.2009, p. 6) has an article about prosecutors accusing adolescents of distributing child porn. 14 and 15-year-olds are sending nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to their friends via their cell-phones. Various prosecutors say: the Law's the Law - she's a minor and she sent lascivious pictures of herself on her cell-phone - therefore she's distributing child porn. The Law specifically says, "anyone sending lascivious pictures of a minor..." And therefore the prosecutor says she's a menace to the community, she's lascivious, she's a child pornographer, lock her up. What don't you understand about the words `anyone sending lascivious pictures of a minor'? The Law's the Law. `Les Miserable' is about a prosecutor who persecutes Jean Valjean for years because of a minor theft, and, as we've seen, the Constitution which the Founding Fathers created mandated that Free States return escaped slaves to their masters in the Slave States. One is thinking insane thoughts when one says: `the law is the law and we must always obey the law.' Strict Constructionism - that is - always obeying the letter of the law - can be very enticing and beautiful, yet she can also be a very cruel and domineering Mistress, especially when you let her drive you insane.

Consider some reasons to doubt Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York. He stated, in his `Reason to Believe', pp. 124-5, that Robert Bolt in his drama about St. Thomas More, has proven that one must always obey human laws and regulations.

Everyone knows it is crazy to argue that one must always obey human laws and regulations. If one believes that human laws must always be obeyed, then one believes that the guards at Auschwitz did what was right and praiseworthy to obey their orders to murder Jews. If one believes that one must always obey the law, then one will believe that Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad were wrong to break the law when they helped slaves flee to Canada. Jesus was crucified under human law. If one believes that one must always obey human laws and regulations, then one believes that the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus did right to obey their orders to crucify Jesus. St. Paul's words on the subject of obeying authorities should be seen as being true in general but not in every particular instance. St. Paul certainly would have defied the law and the emperor if these commanded him to sacrifice to idols or to worship the emperor. The Christian martyrs all disobeyed human law, such as when they refused to renounce Christ when the law ordered them to renounce Christ, such as when they refused to worship the Roman Emperor when the law ordered them to worship the Roman Emperor. One could expect to receive a twenty year sentence to a labor camp for speaking against Stalin or for not reporting someone who had. Must one then obey the law and snitch on people? Robert Conquest reports a bit of gallows humor in `Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps'. A man who was given a twenty year sentence to the gulag archipelago complained to a guard that he was innocent. The guard said he couldn't be innocent, because, if he was innocent, he would have received only a ten year sentence. The Justinian Code inflicted prolonged tortures and slow deaths on men convicted of homosexual vice. The executioners obeyed the law. It is madness to say the executioners were right to obey the law which commanded them to put homosexuals to death by slow torture. Laws from religious men who claimed they were obeying Divine Law once commanded executioners to not stop torturing women accused of witchcraft until they forced a confession out of them. No sane person today would say that those executioners did well to obey those laws, be we have people today who insist the executioners upheld Divine Law, because they were acting on orders from God's True Church, a Church which had never fallen away from the True Faith. Canon law in the Middle Ages ordered children to betray their parents to the inquisitors if they heard their parents speak heretical doctrines, or eat meat on a Friday, or any other such religious offenses which were outlawed by Rome.

Article II. Section 2 says the President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into actual Service of the United States. Article I. Section 8 says the Congress shall have power to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces. As one might well imagine, the parts of the Constitution written in the 18th and 19th centuries make no mention of the Air Force. No 20th century Amendment mentions the Air Force. This means that the federal Constitution makes no mention of the Air Force whatsoever. This means, if you care to be a Strict Constructionist, the States are in charge of the Air Force, because Amendments IX. and X. put the States in charge of the Air Force. We've become such a wretchedly backward nation, our States don't even realize that they are in charge of lots fancy jets and nuclear weaponry! One might say the Equity Clause in Article III. Section 2 gives the federal judicial Power the authority to set everything right, i.e., to give the Air Force to the Feds. Of course all this becomes rather childish. Common Sense says it is madness to make a big issue about how, under Strict Constructionism, Amendments IX. and X. give the States control of the Air Force. But the point of all this is to emphasize that Strict Constructionism - always obeying the letter of the law \- often leads straight to madness.

Apropos of Natural Law and the Divine Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Sophocles wrote that for human laws to endure they must conform to the `unchangeable, unwritten laws of heaven.' Sir William Blackstone wrote that all human laws which violate God's law are invalid. Augustine said that laws must be just in order to be valid. Aquinas wrote that if human law contradicts in any particular Natural Law, that is, God's law, then that human law is invalid. Bloch, in `Feudal Society', told us that in the Laws of Henry I. of England, any man who killed his liege lord was to perish under the most atrocious terrors. And what if his liege lord was a vicious tyrant who deserved to be killed? The feudal tyrants insisted he perish under the most atrocious tortures nevertheless, such as was the Justice of the tyrants under the sign of the cross. Burckhardt, in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, told us that Boccaccio and Dante advocated killing tyrants, and that Aquinas permitted conspiracies against tyrants who trampled upon the people. It was often impossible for assassins to get close enough to a tyrant save when the tyrant went to mass, and, thus, there are many famous examples in the Renaissance of murders transpiring while mass was celebrated. Machiavelli, in his `History of Florence', put a very eloquent speech into the mouth of Lorenzo the Magnificent after he escaped the daggers of the Pazzi conspiracy. The slaying of Galeazzo Sforza in the Church of St. Stephen in Milan by the disciples of Cola de' Montani give us an example of an instance where one might be justified in killing an evil tyrant, even in Church.

We might look briefly at a former Supreme Court justice. Paul Abraham Freund writes of a Justice Brandeis in The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963):

"Brandeis' judicial opinions reflected his distinctive methods and singularly coherent body of his beliefs. His major opinions are massive and close textured, grounded in mastery of the facts, and conveying withal a prophetic and didactic note. His fundamental beliefs were simple: that the limits of man's capacity for understanding are soon reached; that responsibility in the performance of manageable tasks is the great developer of men; that the widespread sharing of responsibility is both a moral duty and a practical necessity. In constitutional law, accordingly, he was solicitous of a viable federal system, with due scope to the states for legislative experiment. But by the same token he was ready to declare out of bounds the suppression of radical or unpopular sentiments, except where the propagation of these views created a proximate danger of unlawful action. His sense of fallibility of judgment extended to the judicial office itself; no one was more insistent that procedural and jurisdictional limits on the court's authority be scrupulously observed. Thus in the case of Charlotte Anita Whitney (Whitney v. California...1927) convicted under a California criminal syndicalism statute, Brandeis delivered a deeply felt opinion urging that penalties on speech could be justified only by a "clear and present danger" as applied earlier by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (q.v.); paraphrasing Pericles' funeral oration he declared that the founders of the U. S. constitution "believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of Liberty," and yet agreed that the conviction must be affirmed because the defendant's counsel had not properly raised the constitutional issue in the trial court."

Professor Freund is telling us that Justice Brandeis believed that Charlotte Anita Whitney was protected by the Constitution in doing whatever it is she did - presumably she agitated in favor of such things as sabotage of factories if the factory owners didn't give strikers what they wanted - but, because her lawyer didn't push the buttons which Justice Brandeis wanted him to push, he upheld her conviction, even though he thought she was protected by the federal Constitution in doing whatever it was she did. If that is proper procedure one must avoid at all costs falling into the clutches of a court which uses proper procedure! Then there is also the matter of this babbling about `liberty being the secret of happiness and courage the secret of Liberty.' The word Liberty is basically incoherent. Does it mean Complete Liberty? The term Complete Liberty is synonymous with Anarchy and The Law of the Jungle; whereas the terms No Liberty or Precious Little Liberty are synonymous with Tyranny. The main purpose of government is to place sane and equitable limitations upon Liberty. If one has too much Liberty, one is free to swindle, slay, steal, extort, cozen, perjure, suborn, defalcate, usurp, whore and whoremonger. Constitutions and laws, Supreme Courts and Senates, cops and prosecutors, prisons and electric chairs exist to crush Excessive Liberty. Therefore the word Liberty, rather like the words Catholic, Protestant and Muslim, is rather meaningless until it acquires modifiers to make it meaningful. Even with modifiers such as: Liberal Protestants, Arch-Catholics, Cafeteria-Catholics, Muslim Extremists, Moderate Muslims etc., it is difficult enough to speak coherently about these ideologies. Consider the term: Free Speech. A world with Absolute Free Speech is a world littered with profanity, obscenity, child porn, libels, threats, slanders, vengeance and bloodshed. A world with Precious Little Free Speech is a concentration camp.

What about laws which place restrictions on the Liberty of cops to indulge in Profiling? Where does one draw the line between cops having too much Liberty to Profile and cops having too little Liberty to Profile? Should the court permit the cops to hassle urkas [hardened criminals in Russia, also known as hoods or apaches, but basically hardened criminals of any nation, recognized by their ugly, sullen demeanors and their bodies covered with tattoos]? If a man looks like an axe-murderer, the ACLU, and the law, insist that cops are forbidden to hassle him and subject him to questions, and insist that the cops must have probable cause to hassle him. Some people say that, under Natural Law, Profiling is always forbidden. Others say that, under Natural Law, Profiling is not always forbidden. The latter say that if a guy looks like an axe murderer then the cops absolutely have to hassle him, and ask him a lot of prying questions, even if they don't necessarily intend to arrest him. Society - women perhaps - will pay a terrible price if the cops don't hassle men who look like axe-murderers.

It does not follow in logical fashion that, should the police begin to hassle urkas, the police will soon declare open season on urkas, and then before you know it, urka meat will be sold in supermarkets, and then not long after that, millions of Republicans in the USA will be throwing Liberals to lions in American stadiums. Apropos of police intuition in recognizing criminals, we read in Robert Conquest's `Kolyma the Arctic Death Camps',

`The police and the camp guards, rich in long experience, had a sixth sense in recognizing them. The police claimed that men of that class are marked with an indelible seal. This sixth sense showed itself one day. A criminal, sentenced for theft and murder, had escaped. He was armed. He was searched for more than a month all over Kolyma. The soldier Sevastianov stopped an unknown in a sheepskin coat near a petrol station at the edge of the road. The man turned and Sevastianov shot him in the forehead. He hadn't seen the [man's] face for this happened in winter and [he] was muffled up. The description Sevastianov had was vague (it isn't possible to verify everyones tattoo). The photo he had of the bandit was dark and blurred. But his instincts had not deceived him. From the dead man's coat, a rifle fell. A revolver was found in his pocket. He had adequately convincing papers. What should one think of the energetic conclusion dictated by this sixth sense? One moment more and it would have been Sevastianov who would have been shot down.'

Those who say that, under Natural Law, Profiling is always forbidden would say that the cop should have let himself be murdered. He was sinful to trust his instincts. He was Profiling. And Profiling is always a mortal sin in Liberal theology.

Continuing onwards with our look at American Civilization, Lord Acton informed us in his review of James Bryce's `American Commonwealth',

`Mr. Bryce...stops for a moment in the midst of his very impersonal treatise to deliver a panegyric on Alexander Hamilton...His merits can hardly be overstated. Talleyrand assured Ticknor that he had never known his equal; Seward calls him "the ablest and most effective statesman..."; Macmaster...and Holst...unite in saying he was the foremost genius among the public men in the new world; Guizot told Rush that "The Federalist" was the greatest work known to him, in the application of elementary principles of government to practical administration...In estimating Hamilton we have to remember that he was in no sense the author of the constitution. In the convention he was isolated and his plan was rejected. In "The Federalist," written before he was thirty, he pleaded for a form of government which he distrusted and disliked...the federal constitution...makes no allusion to the Deity...there is none in the president's oath...in 1796 it was stated officially that the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. No three men had more to do with the new order than Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson. Franklin's irreligious tone was such that his manuscripts, like Bentham's, were suppressed, to the present year. Adams called the Christian faith a horrid blasphemy. Of Jefferson we are assured that, if not an absolute atheist, he had no belief in a future existence...The story of the revolted colonies impresses us first and most distinctly as the supreme manifestation of the law of resistance, as the abstract revolution in its purest and most perfect shape. No people was so free as the insurgents; no government less oppressive than the government which they overthrew. Those who deem Washington and Hamilton honest can apply the term to few European statesmen. Their example presents a thorn, not a cushion, and threatens all existing political forms...It teaches that men ought to be in arms even against a remote and constructive danger to their freedom; that even if the cloud is no bigger than a man's hand, it is their right and duty to stake the national existence, to sacrifice lives and fortunes, to cover the country with a lake of blood, to shatter crowns and sceptres and fling parliaments into the sea. On this principle of subversion they erected their commonwealth, and by its virtue lifted the world out of its orbit and assigned a new course to history. The wisest philosopher of the old world instructs us to take things as they are, and to adore God...The contrary is the text of Emerson: "Institutions are not aboriginal...Every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case. We may make as good; we may make better."...A passage which Hamilton's editor selects as the keynote of his system expresses well enough the spirit of the Revolution: "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. I consider civil liberty, in a genuine, unadulterated sense, as the greatest of terrestrial blessings. I am convinced that the whole human race is entitled to it, and that it can be wrested from no part of them without the blackest and most aggravated guilt."

In the old days we Americans were prepared to cover the country with a lake of blood, to shatter crowns and sceptres and fling parliaments into the sea. Lately we've become a rather soft and accommodating lot, quite effeminate in many quarters. We are no longer a fierce war-like race. The only Americans who still practice the old ways of flinging parliaments into the sea are our activist judges. Lord Acton erred however when he said there is no mention of the Deity in the federal Constitution. It is something of a technicality, but Article VII. does say `...in the Year of OUR LORD...' One who takes an oath to support the Constitution also takes an oath to support the words OUR LORD in Article VII., unless of course he reserves the right to be insincere when he takes oaths. Lord Acton probably erred when he wrote `no government was less oppressive than the government which they overthrew.' In the Georgian Era of Merry Old England, children were hanged at Tyburn for petty larceny, note inscriptions 62-4 of Theodore Roscoe's `Picture History of the U.S. Navy' (Scribner's, 1956). Samuel Eliot Morison told us in `The Oxford History of the American People' that colonials weren't pressed into the Royal Navy, but Englishmen were. Ferocious punishments - such as being flogged to death or being keelhauled, i.e., being dragged along the keel of a ship's hull, where the barnacles would flay the wretches alive - awaited those who mutinied after being shanghaied into the Royal Navy.

Unlike our impulsive and bloody forebears, modern Americans, generally speaking, tend to not revolt when confronted with minor irritants, preferring instead to watch ball games or situation comedies, preferring to remain oblivious to the rending tumult of the world raging all round us. The great mass of Americans do not care to busy themselves with the business of the Supreme Court. The great mainstream knows no higher wisdom than to work hard and to play fair, secure in the confidence that the Supreme Court must be a very fine court indeed, for why else would it be called the Supreme Court? The American people, broadly speaking, don't care if judges say the Constitution means X, Y and Z when any half-wit can see that the Constitution doesn't mean X, Y and Z. The average American is convinced that American judges are the highest experts on American law, and it's always best to leave confusing legal matters to the experts.

From ancient times the standard criticism of Republics has remained the same: the people are too distracted and preoccupied with their own affairs to run a competent government. The suspicion that this is true no doubt contributes to the forces of the Judicial Oligarchy in America. If one knows that one is not willing to contemplate facts, to investigate evidence, to consider a multiplicity of possible solutions pertaining to a multiplicity of actual problems, if one knows that one is unwilling to do the work which citizens in a Republic must do in order to run a competent Republic, then one knows that one would be less than honest if one clamored for a true Republic.

§ 14. Satanic Oaths and Terminator Presidents.

Justice William Paterson (1793-1806) gave us the following:

`What is a Constitution? It is a form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first principles or fundamental laws are established. The Constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the power of the Legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it...What are Legislatures? Creatures of the Constitution; they owe their existence to the Constitution; they derive their power from the Constitution; It is their commission; and, therefore, all their acts must be conformable to it, or else they will be void. The Constitution is the work or will of the People themselves, in their original, sovereign, and unlimited capacity. Law is the work or will of the Legislature in their derivative or subordinate capacity. The one is the work of the Creator, and the other of the Creature. The Constitution fixes limits to the exercise of legislative authority and prescribes the orbit within which it must move. In short, gentlemen, the constitution is the sun of the political system, around which all Legislative, Executive and Judicial bodies must revolve. Whatever may be the case in other countries, yet in this there can be no doubt, that every act of the Legislature, repugnant to the Constitution, is absolutely void.

Justice Patterson might have said that every act of the Executive, of the Judicial power, and of Congress which is repugnant to the Constitution is void. The reader will become confused if he thinks that Patterson's definition of a fixed and certain Constitution bears much resemblance to American Constitutional Law. The Constitution is certain and fixed, save when it is formally amended, but American Constitutional Law is about as certain and fixed as a trip on LSD.

The federal Constitution presently tells us that Ex-Gov Schwarzenegger of California may never be President, as he hails from picturesque Austria. Despite talent and charisma, despite former in-law connections to the Kennedy clan - America's Royal Family - the Constitution doesn't permit foreign born Americans to become President of the USA. If the Supreme Court was to determine that it is a violation of due process clause of Amendment V. to have one law for Native Born Citizens - the Golden Americans - and a different law for the Alien-Born - the Second-Class Americans - then the Alien-Born ex-governor of California may indeed become President, even though the Constitution was never amended to allow foreign-born citizens to be President. Perhaps the rule which says foreign-born citizens may not become President is a violation of Justice, Equity, and Due Process of Law. Perhaps it isn't. If five or more Supreme Court justices say that it is a violation of due process of law to have one law for the Native-Born, the Golden Americans, and to have a different law for the Foreign-Born, Second-Class Americans, then we will have a new law of the land supplied by the Supreme Court. And perhaps, soon enough, without even having to amend the Constitution, President Schwarzenegger will be sworn into office by taking the following oath, Article II., i, 7:

`I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'

How curious it is that the inaugural oath is satanic. Matthew 5. 34-37,

"But I say to you, do not swear at all...let your `Yes' be `Yes' and your `No' be `No'. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one."

To reject Matthew 5. 34-37 is to reject John 14. 23-26, and to reject John 14. 23-26 is basically the same as renouncing Christianity.

I suppose oaths are satanic because they tend to lead people to tell lies, and lies are satanic. When one vows to love, honor and cherish someone till death do they part, there's a farely high probability that one will violate this vow - so don't take the vow. Get married, but don't make any promises. If the people trust a person enough to make him President, can't they trust him enough to let him be President without making him take an oath? With a creative interpretation of the due process clauses there shouldn't be a conflict between the Constitution and...oh, yes, there's a conflict between God and the Constitution, because God doesn't like these oaths found in Article II. and Article VI. The USA has lots of very strange Christians, don't you think? They want their Presidents to take a satanic oath, an oath which commands him to preserve, protect and defend a Constitution which contains something satanic. Non-Christians would think all of this is frivolous. But how can a sane Christian, someone who respects John 14. 23-26 and Matthew 5. 34-37, defend these oaths?

The due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. indicate rather clearly that capital punishment was seen by the Founders as Constitutional, because these clauses clearly imply that one may be deprived of ones life, provided of course one is executed via due process of law. For a time in the USA the Supreme Court declared capital punishment to be unconstitutional, as it violated the Amendment VIII. prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. The argument which says that judges must always look to what the Founding Fathers intended falls apart when we consider the original Article IV. Again, the original Article IV. enforced slavery: slaves who had escaped to the North had to be returned to their chains in the South. It would have been contrary to the original intention of the Founders for a judge to have ruled that, because slaves are people, because they are persons, they can not be deprived of their liberty without due process of law, as this is specifically forbidden by Amendment V. It certainly would have been just to try to free slaves, and it is certainly not a corruption of Amendment V. to say that it forbids slavery. But, 200 years ago, if the Supreme Court said that Amendment V. superseded Article IV., if the Supreme Court ordered all the slaves to be set free, then the USA would have ignored and scorned the Supreme Court. But it would not have been the Supreme Court which was corrupt - rather it would have been the people and Article IV which were corrupt.

The original intention of the Founders was that capital punishment was Constitutional. One can certainly make the argument that capital punishment is cruel, but it's rather difficult to imagine a just penalty for murder which would be pleasant, and subjecting someone to unpleasant living conditions for years in a prison might be considered cruel by many. A civilized society obviously can't have executions which involve burning people to death, throwing them to the lions etc., etc. People always think of the French Revolution as a time of extraordinary Terror, seeing the guillotine as a horrible instrument. But the guillotine was a huge improvement over the methods of execution used by the aristocrats. The guillotine was quick and painless, immensely more humane than the rack and the wheel and the stake which the aristocrats used to torture and execute people. The French Revolution was bloody but it was far less barbaric than the years following Louis XIV.'s revocation of the Edict of Nantes - that's when French Catholics tortured French Protestants in an attempt to change then into French Catholics.

The massive girth of American Constitutional Law hangs its prodigious gut over a belt many thousands of volumes long, for all of the decisions from all of the federal courts, from the Supreme Court on down, and all of Federal Law, all of the Congressional statutes, comprise American Constitutional Law. And then all of the statutes of all of the 50 States, and all of the court decisions from all of the 50 states, must be reviewed (by every responsible citizen!) to make sure none of these violate the federal Constitution. `New York Times v. Sullivan' is probably American Constitutional Law's greatest achievement in regards to Freedom of the Press, because you can not have a Press that will efficiently expose corruption and evil if reporters can be sued over honest mistakes, or even sued over reckless mistakes, and the Supreme Court's ruling in `New York Times v. Sullivan' prevents this from happening. Paul Newman once made a movie showing how evil can result from `New York Times v. Sullivan', but when you have to choose between two evils you have to go with the lesser of the two. The Feds had to invade the sovereignty of the States to enforce this ruling, and so much of American Constitutional Law deals with the Feds imposing their conquering will upon the several States. Sometimes the Feds uphold Justice and Natural Law when they invade the States, and sometimes they don't. Everyone has his opinions about what's just and what's unjust in regards to abortion in `Roe v. Wade', segregation in `Brown v. Topeka Board of Education', issues of Prior Restraints on the Press in `Near v. Minnesota', the rights of individuals to make contracts in `Coppage v. Kansas' and `Lochner v. New York'. In these landmark cases, the Supreme Court struck down State laws, and invaded the sovereignty of the States by sweeping Amendment X. aside, by imposing its own interpretation of Amendment XIV. on the States. One might certainly say that a judge must sweep Amendment X. aside if Amendment X. wars against Justice and due process of law in a particular case. Everyone can agree that Amendment X. protects States' rights, but not everyone can agree on what is just and what is unjust, and therefore not all agree on the meaning of the due process clause of Amendment XIV.

Americans find American Constitutional Law confusing, not because it is an inherently difficult subject, but, because, there are a few subtle matters which must first be mastered, and if these matters are never mastered one will never understand American Constitutional Law.

One must first make the fundamental distinction between the federal Constitution and American Constitutional Law. Article VI. Includes,

`This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof...shall be the supreme Law of the Land.'

American Constitutional Law is comprised of these `laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof.' As one might imagine, confusion and incoherence will arise when there are blatant contradictions between the Constitution and the laws of the United States which are made in Pursuance of the Constitution.

To interpret the Constitution means one gives an unambiguous meaning to an ambiguous part of the Constitution. The due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. are ambiguous because what is due process of law to Judge A is improper procedure to Judge B. Amendment I. is rather unambiguous because everyone agrees that the words `Congress shall make no law...' mean: `Congress shall make no law...'

Amendment IV. says that searches and seizures must be reasonable. This is ambiguous because what is reasonable to one person might be unreasonable to another person. Amendment IV. says nothing about the police being required to have a warrant to conduct a search or seizure. Amendment IV. says, if a warrant is issued, it must be issued on probable cause. A warrantless police search or seizure is perfectly constitutional if it is reasonable. American Constitutional Law, not the Constitution, says the police must first obtain a warrant from a judge before a search or seizure can be made. But what do Justice and Natural Law say? It all depends on the circumstances of the particular case. It would certainly be idiotic to say that under no conditions whatsoever may the police enter a citizen's house without a warrant signed by a judge.

Congress might pass laws which place restrictions on an Executive's ability to make searches and seizures. But the Executive's inaugural oath to defend the Constitution is clearly articulated in Article II. If an Executive believes a law passed by Congress restricts his Constitutional right to make reasonable searches and seizures, that Executive is bound by his inaugural oath to uphold the Constitution and to resist Congress. Of course Congress has the power to impeach, thus an Executive could be caught in the unenviable position where he is removed from office merely because he sought to obey his inaugural oath. Abraham Lincoln believed that to obey his inaugural oath to defend the Constitution he had to preserve the Union, because if he did not preserve the Union he would violate his oath to defend the Constitution. As part of his efforts to preserve the Union Lincoln suspended the writ of habeus corpus, and in `Ex parte Milligan' the Supreme Court ruled that he exceeded his authority in doing so.

The modern Conservative view of Justice and Natural Law is most swiftly paraphrased as being anti-Roe, anti-`Miranda', and pro-Amendment II. The Conservative devotion to Amendment II. is founded upon the premise which says that the Nazi death camps and all the gulags in the USSR would not have been the scenes of genocide if enough Jews in Nazi Germany and enough anti-Communists in the USSR had been armed. Amendment II. is perfectly clear and unambiguous in giving citizens the right to bear arms. There is nothing to interpret about Amendment II. There is nothing to interpret because there is nothing ambiguous about Amendment II. It gives citizens the right to bear arms and it places no restrictions on what arms they may bear. It doesn't say one must be in a well-regulated militia in order to bear arms. It doesn't say the right to bear arms may be infringed. It might not be the most perfectly constructed sentence in the history of Western Civilization, but it obviously gives people the right to bear arms, and it says this right shall not be infringed. Thus when legislators pass laws, and when judges uphold laws, which forbid citizens to own very sophisticated and lethal weaponry, such as machine guns and flame throwers, they are casting Amendment II. aside. They are not `interpreting' Amendment II. There is nothing to interpret about Amendment II. because it is unambiguous. A Strict Construction of Amendment II. means one has a Constitutional right to own H-bombs and nerve gas and machine guns, and it is always going to be incoherent to say that one can `interpret' Amendment II. to mean the right to bear arms may be infringed. Therefore the USA simply casts Amendment II. aside, because it would be insane to not cast it aside, albeit it is not cast completely aside. If it was cast aside completely, if people were not allowed to own shotguns and rifles, then that would be a violation of equity and justice.

Human laws exist to make life fair and equitable for human beings. If the laws are leading to evils and making people miserable, then one has a right to throw the laws aside, by unconstitutional or unlawful means if necessary. The United States of America was founded upon this simple logic, in breaking away from Great Britain. But the Equity Clause in Article III., Section 2, and with the modern enlightenment which says the Due Process Clauses of Amendments V. and XIV., must mean something, and therefore due process can be seen as synonymous with justice, allowing us to say that anything which is unjust is necessarily unconstitutional. But even if a government threw the clear words of its Constitution aside, but upheld justice by doing so, then there is no problem in doing this. To put this in Christian terms, if a human law violates the Divine Law, then ignore the human law and obey the Divine Law which is always consistent with justice.

If the government throws the clear words of the Constitution aside, but commits injustice by doing so, then the government is acting unjustly and is usurping power.

If part of the Constitution must be cast aside to avoid evils, then we have the right to cast it aside. Even if there was no Equity Clause, and no Due Process Clauses, we do not have to obey a Constitution if obeying that Constitution leads to evils.

Those who have taken oaths to defend and support the Constitution are of course hesitant to break the law and blatantly rebel against the Constitution. But by using a little creativity with Amendments V., XIV. and with the Equity Clause in Article III. Section 2, we can make adjustments so that the Constitution doesn't ever have to go to war with Justice and Equity.

The government might be bound and determined to go to war against Justice and Equity, but with a little creative interpretation, the Constitution need never go to war against Justice and Equity.

In David O'Brien's `Constitutional Law and Politics' (Vol I., 3rd edition, p. 74 we find a letter which Justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote to Justice Hugo Black. Frankfurter speaks of the evil which results from a lack of judicial candor: judges deceive the people when they claim they don't make the law but merely find or interpret the law.

The simple fact of the matter is that judges are often placed in the unenviable position of either upholding the literal meaning of the Constitution (such as the original Article IV. which sanctioned slavery) or of upholding Justice, by casting a clear Constitutional right or protection aside. The problem is not that judges must, often enough, make laws. The problem is they often make wretched laws.

This evil which Justice Frankfurter speaks about, this lack of candor from judges who do not wish to be plain-spoken, who do not wish to tell the people that parts of the Constitution, such as Amendments I., II., V., IX. and X. must, in some cases, be thrown out the window in order to uphold Justice and Equity, is perfectly understandable. The judges fear the people will react in a manner similar to the way Justice Davis reacted in `Ex Parte Milligan'. Here's another example of failure in our public schools. Why can't the public schools explain something which is so obvious that everyone ought to be able to understand it? I mean, it is evil to preach the philosophy which says that people must always obey the law. Furthermore, everyone should understand that there are times when Strict Constructionism leads the nation straight into the madhouse. Judges fear they will be seen as corrupters of the Constitution by millions of citizens if they stray from Strict Constructionism. But if one only has two options, either to betray part of the Constitution, or to betray Justice, then all Justice-loving people can agree it is best to betray part of the Constitution. But again, by taking sound though creative interpretations of the Due Process Clauses or Amendments V. and XIV., and doing the same with the Equity Clause of Article III. Section 2, the Constitution never has to go to war with Justice and Divine Law.

The federal Constitution was called a bundle of compromises by Max Farrand, editor of The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. He said there would not have been a Union of Northern and Southern ex-British colonies if the anti-slavery factions were unwilling to compromise with the pro-slavery factions. The original Constitutional provision, in apportioning the House of Representatives, which counted a slave as 3/5 of a person is commonly misunderstood. It doesn't say or imply that blacks are not human, or that they are 3/5 human. If slaves were counted like the whites, like five fifths of a person, then the Slave States would have had more representatives in Congress, which would have been bad for the slaves and the anti-slavery movement. The Slave States wanted slaves counted as 5/5 of a person. The Free States wanted them counted as 0/5 of a person. Still `the 3/5 of all other persons' clause shows rather clearly how committees tend to arrive at crazy-looking compromises.

The evil of slavery and the heroism of the Union soldiers who fought to end slavery - and over 600,000 of these Union soldiers were killed or wounded in the Civil War - would be the nutshell version of the history of the USA in the 19th century. If enough people in the South could have simply understood what every child today understands - slavery is evil - then, even if there was not enough support in the USA to amend the original Article IV., which embraced slavery, the due process clause of Amendment V. could have been used to declare slavery to be unconstitutional, even though the original Article IV. still remained and was still clear in upholding slavery.

§ 15. Free Speech in Amerika

Well into the 20th century, the Constitutional machine was belching smoke and grinding its gears over issues concerning elementary justice in free speech. The Espionage Act of 1917, `Schenck v. United States' and `Abrams v. United States', are three pre-eminent examples of Congress and the Supreme Court pouring sugar into the gas tank of Amendment I. Congress passed legislation which abridged free speech. Amendment I. forbids this. Yet the Supreme Court upheld these laws. Did the Supreme Court uphold Justice and Equity and the due process clause of Amendment V. when it upheld federal laws which trampled upon Amendment I? The Espionage Act of 1917 called for long prison sentences for anyone guilty of giving false information which hindered the war effort. Mr. Schenck was arrested for handing out flyers protesting the draft. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction. Mr. Abrams distributed some leaflets protesting the American presence in Siberia during the Russian Revolution. He was arrested and sentenced to twenty years in prison. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction. Less than a century ago, the Supreme Court upheld a twenty year prison sentence for something which, today, is not even a petit misdemeanor, and indeed this 'crime' which got Abrams a 20 year prison sentence - protest of US soldiers fighting overseas - is now something of a pillar of the Democratic Party.

Amendment I. does not say that one has a right to freely exercise ones religion. Amendment I. does not say that freedom of the press shall not be abridged. Amendment I. says that Congress - the Legislative Branch of the Feds - can not abridge your right to express yourself. Amendment I. says Congress can not prevent the free exercise of religion. Amendment I. says Congress can not abridge the freedom of the press. Everyone in 19th century America understood that the States were free to regulate speech and religion. Various Southern States before the Civil War would abridge your speech by hanging you by the neck until you were dead if you were twice convicted of speaking in favor of abolition. But matters changed after `Near v. Minnesota'. (1931). In this case the due process clause of Amendment XIV. was employed by a majority on the Supreme Court to cast Amendment X. aside, and to void a State law which placed prior restraints upon the Press. There's nothing rotten or corrupt about throwing Amendment X. aside provided justice and due process of law are upheld. There's nothing which reeks of judicial usurpation, provided the Supreme Court strikes down laws which do indeed violate justice.

Florida passed a law which said that newspapers may not print the names of rape victims. In `Florida Star v. B. J. F.' (1989) a majority on the Supreme Court ruled that States can not prevent newspapers from printing the names of rape victims, provided the newspapers obtained these names in a legal way. Now if a state determines that it wants to keep the names of rape victims out of the newspaper, and if it passes legislation to this end, why would the Supreme Court void this legislation? We know that Amendment I. is addressed to Congress and only to Congress, not to any State legislatures, such as Florida's. Amendment X. certainly gives Florida the right to place limitations upon some speech. Does the public have a fundamental right to know the names of rape victims? When Florida passes a law which prohibited editors from printing the names of rape victims, and then, when an editor is given a trial before a jury of his peer, and found guilty and sent to jail for violating this Florida law, has he been deprived of his liberty without due process of law?

We learn in Robert Wagner's `The First Amendment Book' that a woman was raped in St. Paul, MN and her attacker told her that he would kill her if she reported the crime. She reported the crime to the police, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press printed a story about the attack. The newspaper didn't give the victim's name but it reported her age and the street on which she resided. As she was the only 41-year-old woman living on this street which is only one block long, her attacker, if he was a reader of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, would know she reported him to the police. Thus if he was serious about his threat to kill her he would know where to find her. The victim telephoned the St. Paul Pioneer Press and told them in no uncertain terms what she thought of them. And perhaps the St. Paul Pioneer Press told her to calm down and stop being so hysterical, because, in all likelihood the creep wouldn't keep his promise to murder her, and besides, the paper bent over backwards for her in not printing her name in the first place, because - as she'd know if she'd been reading the paper - the Supreme Court had declared that Amendment XIV. gives newspapers the right to print the names of rape victims.

The Feds became comfortable in the 20th century at telling the States how to deal with the press, because for a very long time the States were passing unjust laws pertaining to the press. But Amendment I. still pertains only to Congress. And Amendment X. still exists. Merely because the Feds are right to use Amendment XIV. to shove Amendment X. aside in some cases, so that the Feds could throw down unjust State laws which pertained to the press, doesn't mean the Feds are right to throw Amendment X. aside in other cases, where the Feds trample on sensible State laws which pertain to the press.

60 Minutes once had a story on the McDonalds Corp, which had acquired the copyright to use the name McDonalds, if memory serves, in the United Kingdom. This means that, if the legal department at McDonalds is running on autopilot, the legal department will sue any restaurants which use the name McDonalds in Scotland, even if the people who run these restaurants are named McDonald, and even if this has been the name of their families for centuries. The people in the marketing department at McDonalds - the geniuses who know how to make money - recall the Happy Meal - probably have the brains to understand that a huge American Corporation will get a lot of negative publicity in the United Kingdom, and profits will therefore plummet, if the huge American Corp sues little people in Scotland for using their own name on their little restaurants. But if the legal department at the huge American Corp is running on autopilot, and if it does what it always does in matters involving copyright infringements, then McDonalds is going to get some bad publicity in the UK, and this news will spread to the USA and everywhere else. And so if the Supreme Court is running on autopilot, and if it assumes it understands Amendment XIV., and if it assumes it is part of due process of law to dictate an order to States ordering them to not muzzle newspapers when these newspapers print the names of rape victims, then the Supreme Court will have to expect it will get some negative publicity.

Amendment I. says Congress shall not abridge the rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. But, to combat child porn and other forms of particularly nasty content supplied by the press, the courts throw Amendment I. aside, and they let Congress abridge the rights of the press in some cases. In the case where the Supreme Court told Florida that it can not muzzle newspapers if they try to print the names of rape victims, the Supreme Court trampled on justice and various parts of the Constitution. Amendment I. places restrictions only on Congress. Amendment I. has nothing to do with the States and their laws pertaining to speech and the press. All of our laws which involve the Feds telling the States how to regulate and how not to regulate speech and the press - the so-call First Amendment issues - are really Fourteenth Amendment issues - because it is by invoking the Due Process Clause of Amendment XIV. that the Feds are able to cast Amendments I. and X. aside and dictate laws pertaining to speech and the press to the States. Students of Constitutional Law should try to remember that Amendment I. is only addressed to Congress. Due process of law, and Amendment XIV., are not upheld when the Feds tell the States that they must let newspapers print the names of rape victims. Merely because the Feds are right to tell the States how to regulate speech and the press in some cases does not mean the Feds are right to tell the States how to regulate speech and the press in all cases. The Supreme Court told Florida that Florida must let the names of rape victims be proclaimed to the public if newspapers want to proclaim these names. Did the Feds do what is right when they trampled on Amendment X. in overturning the Florida law? The answers are not obvious to the Supreme Court! But, obviously, the Supreme Court trampled on the rights of victims, trampled on justice and due process of law, trampled on Amendment I., trampled on Amendment X., trampled on Amendment XIV...

One might argue that Amendments IX. and X. are incompatible with America's Manifest Destiny, or with the Designs of the Deity, or with the March of Empire, call it what you will. That is, if Destiny says: America will be one nation with one government emanating from Washington D. C., then Destiny wars against Amendments IX. and X. A nation makes a big mistake when it goes to war against Destiny. Amendments IX. and X. take power away from Washington D. C. and they give it to the 50 State governments. The champions of Amendments IX. and X. hold that, even if the States pass wretched laws from time to time, it is best for the Feds to leave the States alone, and let the States take their own courses, thus giving the USA 50 little laboratories of democracy, and it may be that amazing innovations will be discovered in one of these laboratories, discoveries pertaining to the administration of government which will enlighten the nation and the world. That's one theory. But what does reality say? If Destiny, or the Forces of the Modern World, or Reality, call it what you will, force America to be one nation with one very powerful central government, then America is not going to be a collection of 50 nations, and one is fighting reality if States rights and Amendments IX. and X. war against reality. The converse of course holds as well. If reality demands that power vacate Washington D.C., then power will flow back to the States. The status quo for over 200 years now has been: the States have slowly been getting weaker and weaker and the Feds have slowly been growing stronger and stronger. Conservatives are generally seen as States Rights people. But if a pro-life Supreme Court ever decides it will defend the lives of the unborn, if it ever makes a declaratory judgment which overturns `Roe v. Wade', which makes all abortions in the USA illegal, which forbids the States to pass laws legalizing abortion, then Conservatives will see that there are benefits when the Feds have lots of power over the States. One only has to convince 5 Christians on the Supreme Court that abortion is evil, and then there will be changes in the abortion laws of the USA. You would think it would be easy to persuade 5 Christians on the Supreme Court to remember what Jesus said in John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

True Religion and Due Process of Law ought to be in perfect agreement with each other, right? I mean if God / Jesus was crucified, and if one says or implies God / Jesus is a fraud and a bogus deity, then John 15. 6 makes perfect sense. And if God / Jesus detests abortion and the pro-choice philosophy, and if God / Jesus is inclined to consign to hell judges who do not protect the unborn from abortionists, then it ought to be easy to convince 5 Christians on the Supreme Court to make a declaratory judgment outlawing all abortion in the USA, on the logic that abortion violates the due process clause of Amendment V.

Some possible causes of confusion for a judge might be, 1) he doesn't understand Natural Law, or Due Process of Law, or Equity very well (the 3 terms are more or less synonymous) \- he has trouble recognizing the difference between Justice and Injustice, and 2) a war is raging in the psyche of the judge. On the one hand he does not want to be a maker of laws, he wants simply to interpret the laws which originated in Congress and which the Executive has signed into law. But Reality says that the judges must, sometimes, make the law, such as by striking down the laws made by the Congress and the Executive and the States which make war against Equity, Natural Law, and Due Process of Law. And when one refuses to recognize Reality problems must result.

In `Gillette v. United States' the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Selective Service Act of 1967, and ruled that only those conscripts who asserted that all wars are unjust were eligible for conscientious objector status. Thus, a man conscripted into the infantry to fight in a war which he believes to be an unjust war, though he doesn't believe that all wars are unjust, will be denied conscientious objector status. His options are: 1) either go to jail as a lawbreaker, or 2) serve in an unjust war against will, perhaps in a position which will require him to kill enemy soldiers, even though Amendment I. says that Congress must not restrict the free exercise of religion.

Of course conscientious objectors are not forced to serve in the infantry; they are not put in positions where they will be forced to kill; they are given jobs in the Hospital Corps or Ambulance Corps, or in some such non-violent positions. It is not as if conscientious objectors are allowed sit out the war completely, such as by sitting on a beach in Hawaii.

It is madness to say that Natural Law (or Substantive Due Process of Law, or Justice) is upheld when people who are opposed to killing in unjust wars may be conscripted into the military and forced into positions where they must kill, regardless if the war the military is waging is just or unjust.

Since Amendment I. is addressed only to Congress, the justification on which the Feds dictate to the States and to local school boards that religion must not be taught in public schools is founded upon the logic that it violates the due process clauses of Amendments V. or XIV. to have religion taught in the public schools. One can make the case that this is true if religious study was compulsory in the public schools, but, if we are dealing with elective classes, classes which no student is required to take in order to graduate, then it is simply anti-religious bigotry which says that it is a violation of due process of law to have religion taught in elective classes in the public school.

§ 16. The Electoral College.

It's interesting to note the differences in opinion which divided the justices in `Baker v. Carr' (1962). It certainly looked as if Tennessee was violating Amendment XIV. And yet if the Supreme Court insisted on enforcing a rule which said: for there to be due process of law, the vote of every adult American must count the same as the vote of every other adult in America, then, the Supreme Court would have to declare the US Senate unconstitutional, because it violates this rule, and the due process clause of Amendment V. Voters in places such places as Rhode Island, Idaho, Wyoming and South Dakota etc. have more political power than do voters in California, New York, Texas, Florida etc. Why did Al Gore crash and burn in the 2000 election? Everyone knows Al Gore won more votes nationally than did George Bush, therefore, Al Gore crashed and burned in 2000 because the USA is incapable of getting rid of the electoral college. Why can't the USA get rid of it? Because the people in sparsely populated states such as Rhode Island, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota etc. do not wish to cede power to the people in heavily populated states such as California, Texas, New York, Florida etc. The people in the smallest State in our 50 State Union want to continue to have as many Senators as does the State of California. The people in all the small States want the current scheme defining the electoral college to continue, because, under this scheme, where the sum of the number of Congressmen a State has plus its 2 Senators equals the number of electors that State has - this being the foundation of the current electoral system - power is given to the small States at the expense of the large States, and thus a voter in Rhode Island wields more political power than does a voter in California.

If the Supreme Court was to declare the US Senate to be unconstitutional, because it is a violation of the Constitution (a violation of Amendments V. and XIV.) for miniscule States like Rhode Island and Delaware to have as many Senators as enormous States like California and Texas - for every citizen's vote must count equally for there to be due process of law and equal protection under the law - and if every newspaper printed huge headlines screaming the news that the Supreme Court had declared the US Senate to be unconstitutional, null and void and disbanded, millions of Americans would probably still skip the front page and would go straight to the Sports Section or straight to the Comics, such is the colossal indifference so many of our countrymen have for the actions of the government.

The United States of America made the laziest Banana Republic seem smooth-functioning during those languid days immediately following the 2000 election, because, among other reasons, A) it makes no sense to retain the electoral college, especially if the electors are expected to merely rubber-stamp the will of the majority, rather than act as guardians of the populace, free to choose whoever they deem the best person for the Presidency, and, B) though it makes no sense to retain the electoral college, it appears impossible to get rid of the electoral college, because it is too difficult to amend the Constitution to get rid of it. Perhaps, someday, America will simply ignore the electoral college, rather as America often ignores Amendments I., II., V., X., etc. The number of electors that a State has is equal to the number of Congressmen that it has plus the 2 Senators that every State has. By the laws of mathematics, this formula gives more power to individuals in the small States such as Wyoming, Idaho, Kansas and South Dakota and it subtracts power from individuals living in large states such as California, Illinois, New York and Michigan. But, again, it's difficult to get rid of the electoral college because it's difficult to amend the Constitution. The Founding Fathers insisted on having an electoral college, and now we're stuck with it. It is as if some dead white guys climbed out of their graves and snatched Al Gore's victory away from him! Whether zombies rose out of their graves to snatch victory from him, or whether an electoral college snatched it away, it's all the same thing to Al Gore and the Democrats: victory was snatched from their grasp. And who knows how events might have changed had it been the Gore Era rather than the Bush Era. If 150 million Democrats had not been meek and docile Liberals, if they had taken to the streets 13 years ago and had told the Republicans: you will either step aside and let Al Gore be President, or else you will get tumult and rampage until you relent, then things would have gotten interesting. Strict Constructionism says the USA can only get rid of the electoral college via a Constitutional Amendment. If we ever had a repeat of 2000 - only in this repeat 150 million people refused to accept the result of the election with great good humor and bright, smiling faces - if there was massive rioting and bloodshood in the streets, then many Americans who had wanted to keep the electoral college might change their tune, and they might wish the Supreme Court would just please kill the electoral college via the Equity Clause of Article III, or the due process clause of Amendment V.

William E. Scheuerman from Bloomington IN writes in The Nation (3.1.2010, p. 2),

`Your issue on Obama's first year only hinted at its most basic lesson: our anachronistic system is bankrupt. In any other democracy, an executive with Obama's skills and sizeable majorities would already have passed healthcare reform, climate change laws and banking regulation. The source of Obama's failure is our eighteenth-century government, crafted by men deeply skeptical of democracy. The Senate discriminates against voters in populous states. The Electoral College is a quaint leftover. The Supreme Court is more powerful than its foreign peers. Our constitutional amendment procedures are the most rigid on the planet. At every juncture, well-organized obstructionists can block legislation. Our system places undue burdens on those who seek reform while privileging defenders of the status quo. Your writers should not blame Obama but an obsolescent system badly in need of an overhaul. We elected a pretty decent new president last year. Now we need a new democracy.'

The Founding Fathers were more than deeply skeptical of democracy: they hated it! The Founders didn't want women or slaves or Indians to vote. The Founders allowed men without property to shed their blood in the Revolutionary War, but the Founders did not let them vote.

The Incorporation Doctrine says the rights given in the Bill of Rights - the first ten Amendments to the federal Constitution - are incorporated to the States - that is States can't pass a law which violates the Bill of Rights, as this law would therefore violate the due process clause of Amendment XIV. Again, there is a problem with Amendment I., which is addressed only to Congress, and it requires creative logic to say that something which is specifically addressed to Congress can also be addressed to the States. A more coherent reason than the Incorporation Doctrine, to use in explaining why the States are forbidden to trample upon the Bill of Rights, is the reason which runs as follows: Article V. says Amendments to the Constitution are part of the Constitution, and Article VI. says the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and common sense says, should there be a conflict between the supreme law of the land, such as a provision in the Bill of Rights, and an inferior law, such as a law passed by a state, then the supreme law trumps the inferior law, and the inferior law is rendered null and void. And of course if some part of the Federal Constitution unjustly invalidates a just state or federal law, then the Equity Clause or the Due Process clause of Amendment V. can be used to remedy the matter. So, again, the Federal Constitution is never forced to be in conflict with Justice.

In `Barron v. Baltimore' (1833), the Supreme Court ruled that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government, not to the States. If one was convicted of horse theft in ante-bellum Georgia, the Supreme Court, in `Barron v. Baltimore', determined that one did not enjoy Amendment VIII. protections against any cruel or unusual punishments Georgia might have been wont to dispense upon the bodies of horse thieves. This ruling in `Barron v. Baltimore' ignored Article V., which says Amendments to the Constitution are part of the Constitution, and it ignored Article VI., which says the federal Constitution is the supreme law of the land; and it ignored the logic which says the supreme law of the land takes precedence over the inferior laws of the land, such as state laws, should any conflicts arise.

The justices who ruled in `Barron vs. Baltimore' were not men who were too stupid to understand simple logic. The Supreme Court certainly understood the Supremacy Clause as far back as 1796 and `Ware v. Hylton'. But, in case the reader hasn't heard the news, judges are human beings, and human beings are subject to certain peer-group influences which affect the administration of justice and the adjudication of the law. If a federal judge is bound and determined to not anger his cronies in the States, a federal judge might be bound and determined to ignore clear words in Articles V. and VI.

§ 17. Yellow Dogs.

We're dealing with Yellow Dogs when we speak of `Adair v. United States' and `Coppage v. Kansas'. A Yellow Dog is someone who signs a Yellow Dog contract. A Yellow Dog contract is a contract one makes with a businessman promising him to not join a labor union, provided 1) the businessman promises to give one a job, or 2) the businessman promises to not fire one from the job one already has.

Laws were passed forbidding people to make Yellow Dog contracts, these being Populist, Pro-Union forms of legislation. Prosecutions would arise when starving, desperate men seeking jobs to make money to buy food for themselves and their wives and little ones broke the law and signed Yellow Dog contracts. Soon enough appeals from convictions were made to higher courts. Eventually the Supreme Court was called to bestir itself and render a decision. When do, and when don't, the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. - which some argue enshrine in halos of legality the Liberty of individuals to make contracts, such as Yellow Dog contracts - supersede the Constitutional authority of Congress and the States to forbid people to make contracts, such as Yellow Dog contracts? On these issues, people generally know exactly where they stand before they know how to explain where they stand, so it is basically a matter of finding the right dance to dance in trying to explain that one is unbiased, and that one is on the side of the Constitution and Perfect Justice. Regarding Yellow Dog contracts there are Two Schools of Thought, A) if you are Pro-Union then you believe that it is evil and idiotic to say that the Constitution protects Yellow Dog Contracts. You believe that judges who cast down laws forbidding Yellow Dog contracts, laws made by the will of the people's representatives in a great Republic, are corrupters of that great Republic, they are the Wicked men, ambitious for power, the very people whom Justice Davis so eloquently and prophetically mentioned in Ex Parte Milligan, B) if you are a Businessman, or if you are a starving man desperate for a job to make money to buy food for yourself, your wife and your little ones, then you will say: of course the Constitution protects the rights of the people to sign Yellow Dog contracts, one would have to be a brainless fool to fail to understand something this simple. Only a corrupt, greedy, hate-filled Union thug would say that Amendments IX. and X. can be used to prop up a corrupt State when that State become tyrannical and forbids Yellow Dog contracts. Look at their crude ad hominem - Yellow Dog - that shows you their base mentality.

So many of our judge-made laws, such as `Near v. Minnesota' - the Feds tell the States to back off the Press, `Engle v. Vitale' - the Feds tell the States and their public schools to get those voluntary prayers to God out of the public schools, `Brandenburg v. Ohio' - the Feds tell the States what State Law will be in regards to provocative speech, and `New York Times v. Sullivan' - the Feds tell the States to back off reporters \- were derived via the same reasoning which was first used in the Yellow Dog cases: the clear and unambiguous words of Amendments IX. and X. were cast aside by judges wielding their own interpretations of the due process clause of Amendment XIV.

No one today maintains that that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1792, or the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, or the Black Laws of the South immediately following the Civil War, or `Dred Scott v. Sandford', or `Ableman v. Booth' were glittering triumphs of American jurisprudence. But as American society plunged onward, rather like a huge Raft of the Medusa, through the turbulent seas of the 19th century, and then into the pounding surf of the early 20th, we begin to encounter Landmark Cases where the issues, in terms of justice and equity, are rather less clear cut than the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and it is not so easy to say: here is where justice and enlightenment reside, and there is where tyranny reigns. Congress passed the Keatings-Owen Act which prohibited the interstate shipment of products made with child labor. In 1918, in `Hammer v. Dagenhart', the Supreme Court struck down the Keatings-Owen Act, ruling it was an unlawful infringement on States Rights. We know that Article I. specifically gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. If the Keatings-Own Act was an unjust law perhaps it deserved to have been struck done via the due process clause of either Amendment V. or XIV., or via the Equity Clause, for Congress certainly has the authority under Article I. to prevent something manufactured in State A from being shipped into and sold in State B. Evidently, one has to conduct some historical research to determine where to draw the line between Justice and Injustice in this matter, because, on paper, Congress certainly was empowered by the Commerce Clause in Article I. to pass the Keatings-Owen Act, that is regulate interstate commerce. If there weren't enough kindly souls in the USA to help the poor children 91 years ago - if the adults in the USA were in such a dire state of spiritual depravity that children had to either toil, or beg, or steal, to avoid starving in the USA - then the Supreme Court did the right thing in protecting the jobs of child laborers.

In 1897 New York passed a law saying one could not work in a bakery for more than 10 hours per day or for more than 60 hours per week. Amendment X. tells us that, under the federal Constitution, New York has the right to make such a law, and the Feds can't stop New York from doing so. In `Lochner v. New York' the Supreme Court said New York's law violated Amendment XIV., because the law interfered with the liberty of individuals to form contracts, such as the contract an employee makes with his employer to work for more than 60 hours in a bakery in a week. So, again, one has to find the line between Justice and Injustice. If New York passed an unjust law, then the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. can be used to invalidate this law. The Feds took Amendments IX. and X. and threw them aside. And then the Feds invaded the sovereign sanctity of the Empire State. Perhaps New York knew something the Feds didn't know. Perhaps there were sociologists in New York who discovered that children suffer when their parents work such long hours. Perhaps the Feds knew something New York didn't know - perhaps working more than 60 hours in order to make enough money to provide for ones children is better for ones children than working less than 60 hours and not earning enough money to pay the rent, pay the doctor, pay the grocery bill, and pay all that is required to be paid when raising children.

In 1903 Oregon passed a law which said women are forbidden to work more than 10 hours per day in a factory or a laundry. In `Muller v. Oregon' the Supreme Court upheld this law and rejected arguments saying it violated Amendment XIV. Perhaps Oregon had evidence which said it was bad for women, bad for children, and bad for Oregon when women toiled for more than 10 hours per day. But if a woman has herself and several little ones to birth, feed, clean, clothe, house, educate, medicate, civilize and chastise, and if she can't make it by working only 10 hours per day, and if neither Oregon nor the Feds are going to help her out with some cash, how could this law possibly be a just law in her case?

§ 18. Dogs Must Learn the Law under the Tyranny of Ex Post Facto Laws

Federal law, that is, law passed by Congress, says that employers must pay workers time and a half after 40 hours. Since the Constitution does not give Congress the authority to regulate intrastate commerce, one might think that Congress would not tell businesses engaged strictly in intrastate commerce to pay their workers time and a half over 40 hours. One would be wrong. Congress does tell them to pay up, and the Supreme Court agrees that Congress has the authority to do this. Most workers agree as well.

It is Article I. Sec 8 and Amendment X. which say the Feds are forbidden to regulate intrastate commerce. Congress may regulate interstate commerce, commerce between the states, but not within any state. Yet in Shreveport Rate Cases (1914) the Court announced the `Shreveport Doctrine': the federal government has the power to regulate rail rates both within states and between states. In `Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority' (1985) the Supreme Court ruled that the city of San Antonio and its city-owned transit company must comply with federal minimum wage and overtime laws. As we earlier in this chapter, Harry Blackmun did not explain in plain English why Congress had the right to tell the City of San Antonio what it was going to pay its bus drivers. Blackmun wanted to give some bus drivers higher wages, but, evidently, he felt that he couldn't come straight out and say this - he felt that he had to first hypnotize people with gibberish; he had to first anesthetize them so they wouldn't scream that he was a corrupter of the Constitution when he started operating on the Constitution.

Now the city of San Antonio lies entirely within the State of Texas. The San Antonio city line never leaves Texas to cross the Oklahoma line, or the Louisiana line, or the Arkansas line, or the New Mexico line, or the Old Mexico line. San Antonio is bound on all quarters by the Great State of Texas. Therefore, under Article I. Sec. 8, and under Amendments IX. and X., Congress has no authority to regulate commerce within Texas, such as within the city of San Antonio. Yet Congress does regulate intrastate commerce, such as within the State of Texas, by telling the city of San Antonio what it must pay its transit workers. Unlike some parts of the world which are cursed with generalissimos \- grinning brutes in their epaulets and gold braid, with their henchmen and their evil-smelling prisons, grinning brutes sit neither on the bench of Supreme Court nor do they repose in voluptuous luxury in a dissolute Senate or in a profligate House of Representatives. It is not true that our Senators wear togas. It is not true that they are lascivious gluttons who chase after wanton young hussies. Our Senators only rarely recline on scrolled divans, drinking wine from golden goblets, their brows wreathed in laurel leaves. Our Senators do not apotheosize themselves. They do not make the rabble worship them as gods. And yet Congress has the audacity to regulate intrastate commerce when the Constitution strictly forbids the same. How can this be? The neophyte's confusion would rival the eternal confusion of Hamilton Burger - the District Attorney who was forever accusing innocent people of murder, people whom Perry Mason was forever having to rescue from the gas chamber - if he didn't understand how the game was played. Senators win votes by making promises to people, such as promising them higher wages. To get those votes, and to fulfill those promises, the Senators might have to regulate intrastate commerce. They might need to trample upon the Constitution. But what if Justice demands in some instances that the Constitution be cast aside? Then throw it. But what if Justice demands that, in other instances, the Constitution not be thrown aside? There are indeed pros and cons to be weighed by our Senators. On the bad side the Senators violate their oaths to support the Constitution when they wantonly throw it aside. But, on the good side, they win extra votes, and they get re-elected, and they get to remain Senators in Washington D. C. Let us suppose that Justice demanded that Amendments IX. and X. be cast aside, let us suppose the Feds were right to invade the sovereignty of the State of Texas and the City of San Antonio, let us suppose the Supreme Court upheld Justice and Due Process of Law, when it to told the tax payers of San Antonio to start paying more money to San Antonio's bus drivers. But we know the Supreme Court is not always infallible when it takes liberties with the Constitution. Conservatives recall Roe v Wade, Brewer v Williams, Escobedo v Illinois and `Miranda' v Arizona, and Liberals recall Dred Scott v Sandford, Abrams v United States, Schenck v United States and Bush v Gore whenever they search for evidence which says the Supreme Court is fallible.

If Congress was to pass a law stating that membership in the ACLU is a federal offense, and, moreover, even if one had been a member of the ACLU for only thirty minutes thirty years ago, nevertheless, since one was once a member of the ACLU, one is guilty of a federal offense, then, this law would be an example of an ex post facto law. Jeremy Bentham remarked that the English Common Law arose via ex post facto laws and in a manner similar to a man's relationship to his dog: the hound would do something which angered the master; the master responded by chastising the dog. As one can hardly make a dog understand that he is forbidden to do certain things, until he does these things, and is then quickly slapped for doing so, dogs must learn their jurisprudence by suffering under the tyranny of ex post facto laws. The English Common Law evolved out of a conglomeration of ex post facto laws. An Englishman performed action X. At the time that he performed action X there was no statute prohibiting action X. If a judge decided that action X was repugnant to justice, then he ruled action X to be illegal, and he punished the accused for having performed action X, even though at the time that the accused performed it there was no statute outlawing it. Over the centuries, as the English magistrates became accustomed to dealing with offenses A, B, C, D, etc. in a unified manner, this unified manner became the English Common Law.

The American Constitution specifically forbids ex post facto laws, in Article I., Sec. 9, 10. Therefore the Constitution would need to be amended in order for Congress to pass ex post facto laws, unless, of course, the government simply ignored the Constitution. Might the federal government pass and enforce ex post facto laws, and ignore the clear words of the Constitution? It might if these laws seemed equitable, laws which upheld Justice and Due Process of Law in the eyes of our lawgivers. We know that the literal words in the Constitution are often cast aside, and often for good reason but not always for good reason. If Congress and the people will cast the Constitution aside in order to get overtime pay and a guaranteed minimum wage, as was done in 1985, at the time of Garcia v. San Antonio, then, perhaps, Congress and the People and the Supreme Court will enact ex post facto laws, without first troubling to amend the Constitution. If Americans can be enticed to sell out Article I. Sec. 8, perhaps Americans can be enticed to sell out Article I. Secs. 9 and 10.

`The Economist' has an interesting article (2.8.08, p. 89) called `Genetic Engineering: Conceiving the Future', which is a review of Ronald Green's `Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice' (Yale University Press, 2007). The article informs us that scientists will soon be snipping and splicing human DNA to fix faulty genes as well as to add enhancements. Scientists will be able to make our children more resistant to diseases, as well as more beautiful and more intelligent. The Economist warns however that one slip-up might create a new genetic illness. It also asks if future generations will cease to be human altogether because of genetic engineering.

If a scientist was to see that no laws currently prevent him from slicing and splicing human DNA and creating Designer Babies, and, as he sees that the Constitution forbids ex post facto laws, he might think he can proceed with impunity as far as criminal prosecution is concerned, believing there is no risk of ever being prosecuted under an ex post facto law should things go wrong with his genetic engineering experiments on humans. But if he doesn't know that American Constitutional Law is forever casting the literal words in the Constitution aside, for reasons of justice and politicized justice, then he ought to be aware. If a scientist was to create a new genetic illness which resulted in hundreds or thousands or millions of deaths for earthlings, Congress and the States would be under immense political pressure to pass ex post facto laws against those who created Designer Babies, and who unleashed a man-made plague upon the planet, and the Supreme Court would be under pressure to uphold these laws as Constitutional, arguing that the Equity Clause, or one of the due process clauses, in these cases, supersedes the prohibition against ex post facto laws in Article I. Sections 9 and 10.

The Economist most certainly suggested that that the risks involved in human genetic engineering and Designer Babies are real, and the risks look rather daunting. Many people are intimidated by these matters because they don't understand the science involved. They fear that brainy scientists in academia will see them as idiots if they take a strong stand against human genetic engineering. But the really confused people are those who rush in to something before they weigh the real risks against the real rewards. Scientists are forever giving us things which are not all that wonderful for humanity: H-bombs, A-bombs, Nerve Gas, Biological Warfare etc. No doubt many of us who reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility nevertheless think Pope John Paul II. was infallible when he said in an address to a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (10.23.82),

`I condemn, in the most explicit and formal way, experimental manipulations of the human embryo, since the human being, from conception to death, cannot be exploited for any purpose whatsoever.'

No doubt many Atheists who have long since given up on God, and who are frustrated with humanity, frustrated with the human race in failing to eradicate social evils, would feel tempted to give Genetic Engineering a chance, seeing that Social Engineering has been a miserable failure. And of course whenever we are feeling especially frustrated it is always wise to rush into something hastily! No doubt in the future, when a genetically engineered human commits rape or murder, we will need lawyers to argue that they can not be held responsible for their crimes, because, obviously, these crimes might have resulted from design errors made by their human designers. Conservative talk radio hosts such as Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh would certainly have something new to gripe about if vast armies of millions of murdering bloodthirsty mutants were to arise due to the fact the Democrats in Congress had resisted Republican attempts to pass laws against human genetic engineering.

The American Republic often resembles a Judicial Oligarchy. So many of our laws are dictated by unelected judges not by the elected representatives of the people. A common misconception in America says the Founding Fathers created a federal government with three equal branches. The truth of the matter is that the Founders made Congress the most powerful branch. The Executive is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, but Congress can pass laws and override Presidential vetoes, and Article I. Section 8 says, among many other things, that Congress has the power to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces. And the trump card that Congress holds is that she can impeach and remove from office Supreme Court justices and Presidents, but Supreme Court justices and Presidents can't impeach and remove from office Congressmen and Senators. And of course the people are supreme in a Republic because a member of Congress won't find it wise to impeach anyone if he knows he will regret it when he aims to be re-elected. In `United States v. Butler' 297 U.S. 1 (1936) Justice Harlan Stone asserted that while the legislative and executive branches are subject to judicial restraint, the only restraint upon the judiciary was their own self-restraint. The confusion in Stone is astonishing given the clear authority of Congress to both impeach, and to control the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Under the Constitution, Congress is free to abolish every federal court save the Supreme Court, and Congress is empowered by the Constitution to impose rules on the Supreme Court when it exercises appellate jurisdiction, such as: you won't hear any appeals! You're through with those! Without even impeaching any justices, Congress has the authority to basically crush the Supreme Court, which is what would happen if Congress took away the Supreme Court's authority to hear appeals.

§ 19. R.I.P. Amendment X.

Again, as everyone knows, the Commerce Clause in Article I. states that Congress has the authority to regulate interstate commerce. Amendments IX. and X. of course tell us that Congress lacks the power to regulate intrastate commerce. The Mann Act made it a federal offense to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes. But it would be a violation of Amendments IX. and X. for Congress to attempt to restrain the prostitution trade within a state. Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act which made crimes of violence which were motivated by gender a federal offense. Again, in `United States v. Morison' (2000) the Supreme Court considered a rape case. A student at Virginia Tech said she was repeatedly raped by two players on the Virginia Tech football team. Virginia Tech found insufficient evidence to discipline one of the men but it suspended the other for two semesters. The Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff's claim that Congress may regulate non-economic violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct's aggregate effect on interstate commerce. In his dissent, Justice Souter said there was much evidence saying that violence against women affects interstate commerce, but a majority on the court held that rape and such gender motivated crimes are not economic activities, and, if something is not an economic activity it can't be an interstate economic activity, and if something is not an interstate economic activity, Congress can not use its powers under the Commerce Clause to regulate such activities.

If the Commonwealth of Virginia is particularly inept at prosecuting rape cases, then there would be a strong incentive to let the Feds prosecute rape cases in Virginia, and cast Amendments IX. and X. aside, especially if doing nothing meant that rape would proliferate in Virginia. If VA was simply incompetent at prosecuting rape cases one would hope there was a more coherent way to make rape a federal offense than by saying, essentially, rape is a form of interstate commerce, and therefore Congress can regulate rape under the Commerce Clause. We know that it is always going to be embarrassing incoherence to say that rape is a form of interstate commerce, which is basically what the Liberals on the Supreme Court argued in United States v. Morison. One would have to be a very lost and confused Liberal to see no ugly farce in this sort of reasoning. What's wrong with the Equity Clause? If VA is unable to prosecute rape cases then the Feds will have to do it in VA by sweeping Amendments IX. and X aside, using the broom of the Equity Clause in Article III. Section 2. If one rereads the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, one might be swayed to declare that Amendment X. must never be cast aside, and swayed to believe that all Federal laws trespassing upon the Constitution and upon the Rights of the States are usurpations, but if crying abuses arise in one or more of the States, one forgets about the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1789, and one is swayed to argue for Federal intervention. It's not as if we don't have centuries of experience in throwing Amendments IX. and X. aside.

The Supreme Court tells rape victims that newspapers have a Constitutional right, under the due process clause of Amendment XIV., to print their names in newspapers, `Florida Star v B. J. F.' 491 U.S. 524 (1989). Such errors from Supreme Court justices result from the hypnotic powers of stare decisis, it takes hold of their minds, grips them, refuses to relinquish its grasp. The Inquisition is the supreme example where evil is perpetuated by stare decisis, i.e, by reasoning which says: since our illustrious predecessors said it was good it must indeed be good, and anyone who says otherwise is a damn fool. The Supreme Court was not mesmerized by stare decisis in `Lawrence v. Texas' (2003), for the verdict here overturned `Bowers v. Hardwick' (1987). In the latter case the Supreme Court ruled that the States could indeed outlaw homosexual deeds between consenting adults. 17 years later the Supreme Court said the States had to tolerate these homosexual deeds and could not pass laws against them. In `Romer v. Evans' the Supreme Court invalidated a Colorado amendment to the Colorado Constitution. This anti-homosexual amendment was said to be in violation of the equal protection clause of Amendment XIV. Will the Supreme Court soon trample on Amendment X. and invalidate state laws against prostitution, these being in violation of the equal protection clause or the due process clause of Amendment XIV? The Supreme Court says the States can't outlaw homosexual deeds, but they can outlaw heterosexual deeds when money is exchanged, unless these heterosexual deeds are performed in pornographic films, then money can be exchanged for sex. And some people dare to say the USA has a farce for a legal system! If the prostitutes' lobby was as rich and as persistent as the homosexual lobby and the porn lobby, then, obviously, prostitution would be legal today. The laws against prostitution exist not because people are outraged at the thought of vice, but, because, 1) politicians believe they will lose more votes than they will win if they agitate for legal prostitution, and 2) laws against prostitution are seen by many millions as being helpful in dissuading girls from entering into a life of victimization and degradation. But such good intentions might only be heaping more heartache on more girls, something which often seems to happen with good intentions.

§ 20. The Homogenation of the American Nation.

Perhaps if Amendment X. could be resurrected from the dead, American might see some improvements in her culture. It's romantic to envision an America where, when one drives from New York to Pennsylvania one travels from one intoxicating culture to a completely new and yet equally delightful culture, and when one drives from Pennsylvania to Ohio one drives from one bewitching society into yet another brave new world. Presently there is very little difference between the culture of the rich in Palm Beach and the culture of the rich in Aspen and the culture of the rich in Marin County. The culture of the poor in Chicago is the same as the culture of the poor Houston. The culture of the Jerry Springer Show crowd is the same in Sioux City as it is in Seattle. As Spiro Agnew so rightly knew, if you've seen one American inner city slum then you know what all the rest look like. How does the University of Michigan differ from the University of Washington? How is Iowa State University any different than Florida State University? They all offer the same degrees in: Advertising, Marketing, Physical Education, Business Management, Billboard Management, Barnyard Management, Bean Counting, Communications, Home Economics, Semeiotics, Queer Theory, Gender Studies, Urban Studies, Marxist Studies, Women's Studies, Deconstruction Studies, Marriage and Family Studies, Death Studies etc., etc. The professors are all stamped out of the same machine. I suppose I might be missing some delicate nuances somewhere. Perhaps American culture would be, if not more elevated and refined, then at least more original and less pre-fabricated - and, even if it couldn't be more intoxicatingly exotic and enchanting, then it might at least be less banal in its goose-stepping uniformity - if the Supreme Court ceased to trample upon Amendment X. Everyone knows that America is a Mass-Market, Big-Business, Big-Union, Big Public Sector, Big-Military-Industrial-Complex, Big Abortion, Big Land-Grant University, Big-Cop-Land, Big-Criminal-Class type of nation, with Big Slums and Ghettos, with a toxic culture, to quote Gertrude Himmelfarb. Durant said the Restoration society in England was the most rotten society ever. Part of Parliament was in the pay of Louis XIV. and the other part took bribes from Charles II. In America graft is more subtle. Few are so crude to actually take cash under the table in return for favors, but everyone fights for their special interest group at the expense of the commonweal, and this is rather like taking bribes. Everyone implores the government to give them money, everyone says: give to my group because we have been the most conspicuous victims in the culture of victimization! Well, not quite everyone. Thomas Jefferson wanted the federal government to keep out of the business of the state governments; he believed that cities, steel mills, factories, mining operations, shipyards, munitions works, and all the paraphernalia of Big Business led straight to corruption and tyranny. In Jefferson's vision of America we would all be naturalists or architects, poets or philosophers who supported ourselves by working our own idyllic farms, cultivating our gardens while living the simple life. Things didn't quite work out that way, and now we're stuck with the tyranny and the corruption.

§ 21. `As God is My Witness, I Swear I Will Never Go Hungry Again'.

TV and the movies help to explain to the mass market how the Law often wars against Justice. Sometimes one can obey the Law and at the same time trample on Justice. And sometimes one can break the Law and uphold Justice.

In `Gone With the Wind', our heroine obeys the letter of the law but she is nevertheless unjust. Scarlett O'Hara stands up in the field and says, `As God is my Witness, I swear I will never go hungry again!' And then, when she launches her lumber mill business, she refuses to hire ex-slaves, as their labor is too expensive. She instead uses cheap convict labor - prisoners in chains who will be lashed if they refuse to provide their labor. Scarlet wanted to make sure her lumber mill business succeeded, so that she would never go hungry again, and so that she would get rich and would be able to live in luxury. Therefore, as the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers and no end of other labor unions would tell you, she violated no human laws, but she violated Divine Law and Natural Law: she trampled on Justice, by using the convict labor.

Dateline's `To Catch a Predator' is a TV reality show. The show's staff goes on the internet and looks for men who are looking to have sex with teenage girls. Then the staff lures the lusty gentlemen to a house where a Lolita is supposedly waiting. Then they spring the lights and the TV cameras on the men and rub their noses in the dirt for awhile. Then they bring the cops in to make the busts. Everyone agrees it is very wrong for 40-year-old men to have sex with 13-year-old girls, even if the girls are only too willing. It's fine for the cops to lure guys into some sort of trap, but they have to stifle the publicity, to make sure the innocent don't get hurt. A little kid will be tormented at school by other kids who taunt him by reminding him his daddy was caught on TV, trying to do you know what. If a mother sees her son exposed on national TV in this way, it would destroy her life. That's why a sane society protects the innocent by having laws which protect the innocent. Dateline and NBC are in a very competitive industry - it's a jungle out their - you either make $$$ in the economic jungle, at the cost of inflicting emotional trauma on the innocent if necessary, or else the Corporation will toss you aside and find someone who knows how to make $$$.

`The Friends of Eddie Coyle' is a film which asks some questions pertaining to Natural Law. Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) is busted by the cops for driving a truck and its freight of stolen whiskey. In order to shorten his prison sentence Mitchum is looking to make a deal with the cops. What could he give a cop which would inspire him to tell a prosecutor that Mitchum has been cooperative in helping the cops fight crime, thus spurring the prosecutor to ask the judge to give Mitchum a lighter sentence? One of the friends of Eddie Coyle is gunner runner named Jackie Brown (played by Steven Keats). Mitchum decides to rat on his gun running friend, hoping the cop (Richard Jordan) will be grateful and will then talk to the prosecutor about getting Mitchum a lighter sentence. The cop is appreciative after the gun dealer is set up by Mitchum and then busted by the cops, but the prosecutor needs more proof that Mitchum is being a good boy before he will ask the judge to be lenient. Mitchum then decides he has to rat on some other friends, friends who are fairly brazen at home invasions and bank robberies. So, we must place ourselves in Mitchum's position - suppose we were down on our luck - and suppose we found it necessary to raise some cash by driving a truck full of stolen liquor. What if we had kids and what if we were behind in the rent, and the eviction notice was coming soon. Is it all that contrary to Natural Law to try to help ones family by raising some cash by driving a truck loaded with stolen booze, especially if one is not 100% certain that the booze was stolen? And once we have driven the truck, and gotten busted for it, what can and what can't we do, under Natural Law, to try to get a shorter prison term for ourselves from a judge willing to deal? To win the confidence of a gun dealer and then to rat on him to the cops seems like a dirty thing to do. He certainly shouldn't be selling illegal guns - even if Amendment II. says what it says - but it still feels dirty and lowdown to win the confidence of the gun dealer and then squeal on him. Mitchum wanted desperately to avoid prison because it would hurt his kids, and, the last time he was in prison the guards busted his knuckles. With the friends who brazenly perpetrate home invasions and bank robberies, one might tell them to knock it off, or else, if they don't knock it off, one will inform the cops - a threat which might get one killed if these friends are not great friends. Is it permissible, under Natural Law, to turn informer, to rat on ones friends, and to tell the cops about these friends / bank robbers / home invaders? They killed a bank employee, so, we can certainly say that the cops needed to be told about these people, even if a friend has to turn informer and betray his friends. Not everyone agrees with me on this. Some people insist that under Natural Law you must never betray a friend. But Mitchum rats on his bank robbing friends. Jordan, the cop, already knew about these criminals because a different informer told him about them. This informer, played by Peter Boyle, who is also a bar tender and a contract killer for the mob, ends up putting a bullet in Mitchum's brain after they see a Boston Bruin's versus Chicago Blackhawks hockey game. The mob knew that Mitchum was up for sentencing, so they suspected he might be willing to turn informer to get a lighter prison sentence, so, when the bank robbers were busted, the mob felt certain that Mitchum must have talked to the cops. But, again, the cops already knew about the bank robbers, because, Peter Boyle, the bartender-informer-contract killer, told Richard Jordan, the cop, about these bank robbers before Mitchum told Jordan about them. Mitchum's information was old news, and what good is old news to a cop fighting crime? So, the mob gives a contract to Boyle, the bartender-informer-contract killer, to kill the informer-truck driver, Mitchum, and of course the mob didn't know that Boyle had informed the cops about the bank robbers before Mitchum did.

Jean-Pierre Melville's Un Flic (A Cop) is remembered today because it fails rather miserably in attempting to make a toy train look like a real train, and because Catherine Denueve is rather convincing in playing the role of a beautiful destroying angel, and because Michael Conrad, who later played the desk sergeant on Hill Street Blues, showed he had star quality when he was a little younger. Un Flic is also of interest because the character played Alain Delon, a detective, used some sort of cruel compulsion to squeeze information out of the character played by Michael Conrad. Though Delon had probable cause to arrest Conrad, and though he had evidence to suspect Conrad was an accomplice to murder, and though we might not protest too vehemently if Delon used some mildly unpleasant tactics against Conrad, nevertheless, both Left-Wingers and Right-Wingers today would protest if Conrad was subjected to cruel tortures to make him confess his guilt and to betray his accomplices. In Flic Story, a film directed by Jacques Deray and starring Alain Delon, Jean-Louis Trintagnant, Paul Chauchet etc., we have a cop who is forever bloodying the faces of suspects, forever roughing them up to make them talk, and Delon has to tell him to knock it off. None of the beatings could be called torture - for by torture we probably mean the infliction of agonizing pain - but, still, the cop's actions were beyond the pale.

`Dirty Harry' is a movie which deals with the question: when do Justice and Natural Law demand that torture be used on people? The scenario which we had in `Dirty Harry' presents the argument which says Justice and Natural Law demand that a perpetrator be tortured, for in that movie it was essential that Clint Eastwood, or rather, Inspector Harry Callahan, learn quickly where the psycho was keeping the 14-year-old girl, as she was about to die by suffocation. There are two schools of thought on torture: 1) under Natural Law it must never be used, and 2) under Natural Law it may be used in very rare circumstances.

In scenarios such as the one in `Dirty Harry', when a kidnapper is coming to collect the ransom money, and he has already told the police the kidnapped girl will die of suffocation if he is arrested, then, if he is arrested, and if he won't reveal her location, it is necessary to twist his arm to force him to reveal the girl's location, because that's what must be done to save her life.

To resume our look at the movies, in the film `Strozek', which pulls out a lot of props to show the USA to be a crass and materialistic nation, we have conflict between a world which requires that one have some talent at making money and people who have no talent at making money. It's quite different from Steven Spielberg films such as Jaws and Close Encounters, which show a genius for portraying Americans as harmless or colorful bumpkins. In Strozek , the director, Werner Herzog, gives us some symbols from German and American culture: fiercely Teutonic-looking pimps; feuding Wisconsin farmers brandishing shotguns as they plow their fields; lecherous, ham-fisted, wide-buttocksed truck drivers; a hillbilly who pulls a rotten tooth out of his head with pliers; a rabbit driving a toy fire engine; a dancing chicken. In one remarkable scene we're shown a prematurely born baby - precisely the sort of `potential life' so many medical and legal experts in America say is fair game to be slaughtered provided it is hunted while still inside a woman's body.

A German film called `The Lives of Others' was a favorite of William F. Buckley Jr.'s. He said it was the greatest movie ever made. The basic plot has an East German state police officer spying on a writer suspected of being a dissident/traitor. The East German cop discovers the writer is indeed a dissident, someone hostile to the Communist regime. But the cop develops a conscience, and he breaks East German law, and indeed he becomes a traitor to East Germany by keeping the East German Communists in the dark about the existence of this anti-Communist writer.

Klaus Kinski stars as a 16th century Spanish nobleman, the fictional conquistador Aguirre, in Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God. At the end of the film, when all of his comrades-in-arms have been killed off by the Indians, Aguirre, who has now gone insane, speaks of marrying his daughter - she's already dead - and speaks of raising up an empire to rival the empire of Cortez in Mexico. He grabs a monkey and directs his discourse and his grandiose delusions to the writhing little animal. The raft he is standing on is slowly spinning in circles on a huge river, and, rather like America's legal system, the raft is drifting deeper and deeper into a jungle.

Herzog and Kinski made a work of art in Cobre Verde, or at least the last half of it is a work of art. These two collaborated to make a great film called Fitzcarraldo, in which a tribe of headhunters haul a big steamboat over a hill separating two tributaries of the Amazon. The headhunters did this ostensibly to seem like kinder, gentler sorts of headhunters to the white men on the big, god-like white boat, but, in reality, they did it because the river on the far side of the hill was the river which had all the plunging cataracts and ferocious waterfalls. The headhunters believed it was time some human sacrifices were made to appease some angry river-demons. The image of a tribe of headhunters struggling to drag a steamboat up a hill is rather like the image of the Democratic Party struggling to convince the world that Roe and `Miranda' are triumphs of human jurisprudence - because not all nations on earth have incorporated the precepts of Roe and `Miranda' into their own legal codes.

In The Great Silence, a lively Spaghetti Western from Sergio Corbucci, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Klaus Kinski, we have a tale about bounty hunters who are authorized by the laws of Utah to kill fugitives and collect rewards. The problem is the fugitives are good men and the State authorized bounty hunters are devils from hell.

The plot in Rambo: First Blood, begins to unfold when the hick-town cop (Brian Dennehy) hassles John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone). Now of course John Rambo didn't look like an axe-murderer or any sort of bad guy; he merely looked like a movie-star-drifter, someone with highly specialized skills but who couldn't keep a job at a car-wash. From looking at him you wouldn't assume that he had been a ferocious killing-machine and killer of Commies in Vietnam. A former governor of Minnesota - Jesse The Body Ventura - once said in his deep, tiger-like growl of a voice: `You haven't hunted until you've hunted man.' This was so colorful or bizarre it was not unkindly received by millions of Liberals in Minnesota, though these Liberals might also have been hesitant to admonish him about it, perhaps because they suspected he was a human time-bomb that might explode like John Rambo exploded if he was agitated. It's always good fun for writers to weave speculations about a man, even a good man, like The Body, or John Rambo, who goes into the jungle, into a vicious world where one must either kill or be killed, and there in the jungle he will have the law of the jungle imprinted on his heart! And woe to those who make enemies with men who have the law of the jungle written on their hearts! Joseph Conrad of course dealt with this theme in `Heart of Darkness', and it was picked up by Coppola and Brando in `Apocalypse Now'. One has to demonize those who one kills, whether they are actually evil or not, because, only a psycho would kill people who he believes are good people who are fighting for a just cause. Jane Fonda, who, again, looked like a beautiful angel in `Joy House' - she had the dyed blonde hair which she needs to have to look her best - caused distress in people in the USA when she went to North Vietnam. When young men go into jungles to fight and kill human beings, the young men must believe they are fighting evil. Bad things will happen to ones psyche if one believes one is killing good people. If a beautiful angel is socializing with the North Vietnamese, then she is pushing the idea to Americans that the North Vietnamese regime is not perpetrating evil - because, if it was perpetrating evil, why is she in North Vietnam? If a GI sees one of his buddies impaled by a Viet Cong booby trap, he won't have troubling seeing evil in the enemy; but the enemy is comprised of both fanatics and ordinary people, and if the daughter of a man who was famous for playing roles in movies where he fought against injustice - recall `The Grapes of Wrath', `12 Angry Men', `The Oxbow Incident' etc. - is delivering the message that the leaders and the soldiers of North Vietnam are basically good people who are not doing anything wrong, then this message wars against the message which says the leaders and the soldiers of North Vietnam are perpetrating evil, and therefore they must be killed if that is what it takes to stop their evil.

Some people in the USA can see that it was wrong for 40 and 50 and 60-year-olds, sitting at home in the USA, to compel via conscription 18-year-olds to do their fighting for them in Vietnam. Belloc, in his biography of Napoleon, informed us that Bonaparte had 19 horses shot out from beneath him during 20 years of campaigning. He was always fearless in the face of the bullets and the cannon balls. He never compelled anyone to fight his fights. He never lounged in Paris and made someone else risk his neck while he reposed in voluptuous luxury and French decadence. Now if it is 1967, and if one wishes to argue the case that it is wrong-headed for America to conscript and compel eighteen-year-olds to fight in Vietnam, one can either argue ones case by, 1) wearing filthy Bohemian garb and shouting foul language against the draft (or one might go to Hanoi), or 2) one can make oneself look respectable, and never use obscene language while one is inveighing against the draft. If one adopts either strategy it might be wise to politely hint that LBJ is a less than heroic figure because he forces, via conscription, adolescents to fight his fight, while he sits far away from the front lines. If one adopts the first strategy, becoming a foul-mouthed hippie, then the majority bloc in the American electorate, the old folks over 30 who can't be trusted, might decide that Vietnam is the perfect place for the younger generation, and decide that dodging bullets and booby traps in jungles controlled by the Viet Cong is the perfect cure for hipsters who need to be broken of the bad habit of using foul language. The hippies in the 1960s made an attempt to be `Clean for Gene' - Senator Eugene McCarthy - but going undercover and masquerading as clean-cut American youth was never something the hippies got very good at.

As with the theme of `Antigone', so much of the modern cinema deals with conflict between Law and Justice. In `Coffey', Pam Grier takes a shot gun and uses it to blow a man's head off. The man was a pimp and a drug pusher, and the movie implies he was vile enough to deserve what he got. If he was in fact a sensitive pimp /drug pusher, a man who loved kittens, sunsets, long walks on the beach - if he was a man who was good to his girls, a man who had been slandered so that that Coffy got the wrong impression about him, then she certainly made a big mistake in the shotgun scene!

We know that executing someone without a trial will always be a violation of Procedural Due Process of Law, but we need to know a few things about the executed person to determine if the execution upheld or violated Substantive Due Process of Law. In Escape from Sobibor we learn that some Jews and Russians killed the SS men at the Sobibor concentration camp. Evidently, none of the prisoners was enough of a stickler for proper procedure to demand that the SS men first be given trials, before a jury of their peers, before they were executed.

In Cape Fear the producer and director go to great lengths to have the drama resolve itself in a way which upholds both justice and the letter of the law. Many would argue that Gregory Peck's character should have simply put a bullet in the brain of Robert Mitchum's character at about the middle of the film, though this would have made it more of a Clint Eastwood movie than a Gregory Peck movie, and then what do you do for the second half of the film? Peck hires some youths to beat up the psychopath played by Mitchum. Substantive Due Process of Law would not have been violated if Peck's character put a bullet in the head of Mitchum's character, and a great injustice would have been perpetrated if a jury sent Gregory Peck's character to the gas chamber. But the Law is often rigidly inflexible in these matters. If A shoots and kills B because B is a dangerous psychopath who needs to be killed, but if it hasn't actually been proven in court that B is a dangerous psychopath, then the Law will make no end of trouble for A if he shoots and kills B.

In Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid, Jean Paul Belmondo murders the detective whom he had hired to find his thieving, murdering, runaway mail-order bride (or at least the woman he thought was his mail-order bride). This woman, played by Catherine Denueve, cleaned out the bank account of the character played by Belmondo, was an accomplice to at least two murders, and would later try to murder Belmondo with poison. No one says that Belmondo was right to murder the detective, but we still want Belmondo and Denueve to elude the police and to live reformed, law-abiding lives when the movie ends - a rather unlikely possibility!

In Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life we have a young, light-skinned black girl who refuses to accept the fact that she is indeed black. Well, that's not very mature, and not very politically-correct of her either, but we are dealing with a kid, and one who is trying to find some happiness in a world filled with whites. The film has some very powerful scenes. The film historian who provided commentary on the Netflix disc said that when he showed the film in India everyone there wept during the scene, when the ice in the daughter cracks, and she embraces her dark-skinned mother in the Los Angeles nightclub. Sirk was a great director in German theatre before he fled the Nazis and immigrated to America. The German filmmaker Ranier Maria Fassbinder was influenced by Imitation of Life when he made Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, a film about an older German woman who marries a younger Arab man, an action which ignited a good deal of animosity from the woman's adult children. Imitation of Life is a supreme example of a work art which preaches a sermon. The Hiding Place, which we visited earlier, chronicles the story of Corrie ten Boom, and it is another example of a film which preaches a sermon while at the same time it fulfills some exacting canons of cinematic art.

Tony Montana, the gangster played by Al Pacino in Scarface, exhibits some scruples and refuses to murder a man, because the man has a family, and audiences are quick to see in Tony Montana a modern, caring, sensitive sort of gangster. In Borsalino & Co., Roch Scaffini, the gangster played by Alain Delon, stuffs a gangster/right-wing Industrialist named Volpone into the fire-box of a steam locomotive. Volpone did some very nasty things: he used acid on a girl to destroy her face, and he shot up a lot of Scaffini's soldiers, but, still, one hesitates to applaud when one man throws another man into a fire-box.

The basic plot of The Verdict runs as follows: Paul Newman played an alcoholic, ambulance-chasing attorney who is about ready do whatever washed-up lawyers do when they hit rock-bottom. A pal of his tosses him a gift worth $70,000. Newman merely has to make a settlement with the archdiocese of Boston - and the Catholic Church is ready to settle - and he will collect the nice sum of $70,000 which ought to keep him in booze for a few more years. Eventually he decides to roll the dice and risk everything, including financial disaster for his client, by refusing to settle and by taking the case to court, where he will probably lose, and will likely win no money for either himself or his client. Eventually, through hard work, good lawyering, and the magic of Hollywood, Paul Newman was able to get a jury to see things his way, and the Catholic Church was ordered to pay millions of dollars to Newman's client.

How was the Catholic Church guilty? The Catholic Church owned the hospital which employed the surgeon, who, though usually he was an excellent surgeon, was quite careless and culpable in his work one day. He was exhausted and he made a human mistake, and then he compounded his mistake with damnable lies. The admitting nurse wrote on a form that the patient had eaten 1 hour before surgery was scheduled, but the surgeon neglected to look at that form. Well, the patient vomited while under the anesthesia. When the operating team discovered the patient was unable to breath, his wind-pipe being blocked with vomit, they went right to Code Blue. But by the time they could clear his breathing tube and get air back into his lungs, the oxygen-depleted patient had suffered irreparable brain damage. The wily surgeon then had to think fast to cover his mistake. He decided to threatened to destroy the career of the admitting nurse if she refused to alter the admitting form, by changing the 1 into a 9, making it look as if the patient ate 9 hours before surgery not 1 hour, thus misleading investigators by having them believe that the patient had indeed eaten 9 hours before surgery rather than 1 hour, thus getting the surgeon off the hook for failing to read the form.

One might say this exposes a crazy legal system because the Catholic Church is doing good work in running her hospitals, and the Catholic Church can't be held responsible if one of the doctors in one of her hospitals makes a mistake and then compounds this mistake with damnable lies.

In order to get first-rate legal talent, large sums of money might have to be dangled in front of talented people, people who have the perseverance and the know-how to find the facts underlying difficult cases. It takes money to hire people with the skill to crack open perjuring witnesses; it takes money to hire people with the eloquence to persuade juries that they have discovered the key facts. Either the State will have to pay, or an insurance company, or the culpable surgeon's non-culpable employer will have to pay, but, one way or another, an organization which is not at fault has to pay up, because, usually, the person who is at fault doesn't have the funds to cover the expenses, the medical and legal fees for instance, which his actions have caused. The State basically says: organizations will just have pass the costs of litigation on to their customers: one way or another innocent citizens are going to pay the bill for the cost of litigation in the USA, either the State will collect it via higher taxes, or private organizations such as Churches which run hospitals will have to collect it by charging higher fees to patients, but, one way or another, innocent people will have to pay for the mistakes of guilty people.

§ 22. The Mexican Connection

As everyone knows, the history of the New World is the history of slavery and economic oppression. The Spanish sought gold, serfs and converts. The English and the French, and their Indian trading partners, tore the hides off of millions of woodland animals in order to make money, by satisfying the craving of the masses for fashionable furs in Europe. The first cash crop in the New World was either tobacco or sugar-cane to use in making rum. All the modern vices were inherent at the beginning: Capitalistic exploitation of Labor - cruelty to humanity - rum, tobacco, fur trading - cruelty to animals. The Spaniards turned the Indians into serfs, while importing African slaves. The English imported African slaves and drove the Indians westward. The keynote of the development of the New World was greed for quick profits at the expense of justice, equity and humane economic planning.

The human heart is susceptible to romance and intrigues, the thrill of cabals and plots and schemes. A fine epitome of the human inclination to indulge in Wild Romanticism is found in Fletcher Pratt's extraordinarily eloquent `A Short History of the Civil War', (Pocket Books, 1956, pp. 217-8),

`There was a man named Bickley. He was a surgeon of high degree, rich beyond the necessity of labor, wedded to a lady from New Orleans, and dwelling on an estate where he stewed in the romantic juices of Cagliostro and Walter Scott. This was in `54; William Walker, the comet of the Isthmus, was trailing his momentary glory through the southern skies and Dr. B. was thrilled to the inner recesses of his being by the thought - "There, with the grace of God, go I." Literary romantics seldom leave wife and three meals a day for filibustering expeditions in Nicaragua. Bickley took his adventure internally by drawing up plans for an Invisible Empire, the Knights of the Golden Circle, with passwords, temples, tylers, grand, lesser and supreme councils and a terrifying ritual which included a live snake suspended over the head of the neophyte and an oath to curdle his blood...Object of the Empire - to rescue Mexico from barbarism. On a trip to Louisiana, Bickley initiated some of his wife's relatives as a parlor game. To his astonishment they took it seriously and brought so many friends to share the delicious horror that he began to believe it himself. Die-hard slavery men took it up, who could see no safety for their institution but in conquering territory southward to balance the great northwest, forever free by geodesy. The thing snowballed through the uncertain years of Buchanan's administration; at the election, there were 50,000 members, largely in Texas, where the conquest of Mexico seemed a not-unrealizable project.'

Thucydides told us the Athenians invaded Sicily largely because they were sick of living the quiet life. Baudelaire warned us about ennui, and those who are bored with their lives might be tempted to chase after desperate ventures if these are also romantic or potentially lucrative ventures. Thus, the religious who are bored with their lives, and who are engaged in desperate ventures which hold out promises of romance, wealth or glory, should ask themselves if their venture has any piety or justice in it. Whether one is a knight of the Golden Circle or a pilgrim on the Mayflower, self-doubt is a malady common to humankind. The Nazis offered hope to Germans seeking escape from the dinginess of human existence after World War I; Hitler offered these defeated, Teutonic peoples the prospect of glory, romance, adventure, revenge. John Crow told us in his The Epic of Latin America that the credo of the Spanish conquerors of the New World was: Glory, Gold, Gospel. Manifest Destiny, the movement which held that the United States of America was destined to extend her boundaries from sea to shining sea, was essentially a movement founded upon romance, visions of grandeur, and the profit motive. In his A New American History, Woodward tells us that the White Man's Burden to help, with force if necessary, the less fortunate people on the planet was conditional: `Provided of course that the weak and servile peoples possess fertile lands, mines, forests, or something of that kind. Otherwise they could shift for themselves.'

Professor Crow, in `The Epic of Latin America', writes of the Mexican-American war of 1848, informing us that Captain Kirby Smith, who would later become a Confederate general, spoke of the shame and disgust he felt over those American soldiers who raped Mexican women and who murdered Mexican civilians. Ulysses S Grant, also an officer in that war, said he hated every minute of it and said he had a burning sense of guilt when he considered how wicked and unreasonable the war was, reproaching himself later in life for not having the moral courage to resign.

This Mexican-American War gave birth to the perennial Latin American hostility toward the USA, as Washington and Franklin, Jefferson and Monroe were honored by the generation of Latin Americans who won their independence from Spain. The history of Latin America is the history of oppression and battles: evil Indians cutting the hearts out of other Indians; the Conquest of the Spaniards over the Indians; the tyranny of the rich Spaniards over the Indians and the poor Spaniards; the fight of Bolivar and San Martin, of Hidalgo and Morelos to throw off the Spanish yoke; the fight of the Conservative Catholics against the Anti-clericals and the Liberal Catholics; the fight between the forces of Capitalism against Communism.

One always got the sense that if the USA liberated Cuba from Castro, and freed all of the Catholics languishing in Castro's prisons, and turned the island over to a Catholic government friendly to the USA, most of Latin America would have been hostile to this US invasion of Cuba.

Still holding to the themes of Justice, Equity and Due Process of Law, one argument which justifies the American conquest - and the violence which accompanies any conquest \- of the land which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Mexican deserts to the Canadian line, says: the huddled and teeming masses of Europe required a sanctuary where they could escape from oppression, poverty and starvation. It is certainly unjust to crowd all of these wretched Europeans into the slums of European cities when there are unimaginably vast tracts of cultivable land in the New World. This land beckoned the oppressed people in Europe and Asia to come and grow crops, to mine the earth and cut timber and build great cities filled with factories, hospitals, schools, universities: the New World exists to give hope to the downtrodden people of the Old World; it is a place where people can build new and better lives for themselves and their children, where they can prosper and live to witness the prosperity of their children and grandchildren. If one can prove that Native American society was less than equitable, then one has yet another reason to justify taking the Native American land and giving it to the impoverished European immigrants. Durant tells us in Our Oriental Heritage that it is true that women exercise some authority in every society, and that the Iroquois squaws had equal rights with the braves, but this was the rare exception to the general rule that the braves oppressed the squaws. The braves enjoyed the thrill of the chase and rested when the game was handed over to the squaws to be cooked and dressed. When the Indians of Lower Murray saw the pack oxen of the whites, they thought these were their wives. The chief of the Chippewas said: `Women are created for work...in lean times they can be satisfied by licking their fingers.'

In the beginning there was a First Conquest: some Indians first took land away from other Indians, and then different Indians took it away from them. The Spaniards took the land which is now Mexico away from the Indians, such as the bloody, human-sacrificing Aztecs. Then the Mexicans took the land away from Spain, recall Padre Hidalgo and the grito de Delores, as well as the cries of ¡Death to the gachupines! If the conquerors deliver justice and equity better than their predecessors did, then a justification can be made for their conquest. Father Hidalgo was unable to control the violent passions of his 50,000 man Indian army when it destroyed those loyal to Spain in Guanajuato. The royalist soldiers were massacred, their wives and daughters violated. The impression left on the memory of the Mexican historian Alamán, who witnessed the bloodbath in Guanajuato as a boy, was so horrible that he described the Mexican Revolution as `a monstrous union of religion with assassination and plunder' - see `The Epic of Latin America', John Crow, p. 496.

The agents of Spain would capture and execute Hidalgo. His severed head was put on display in an iron cage. After Father Hidalgo the next champion of the Indians to arise was another priest - Father Morelos. He too was unable to control the sanguinary passions of his Revolutionary Army - who all marched under the banner of the Indian Virgin - and Morelos, like Hidalgo, was captured, excommunicated, and executed by those loyal to Spain. A few years later, a soldier and opportunist named Colonel Augustín de Iturbe achieved the final separation of Mexico from Spain. Via the Plan of Iguala, Iturbe united the remnants of Hidalgo's and Morelos's Indian armies with the Creole upper classes, and everyone was united under the Roman Catholic Church, with Iturbe becoming Emperor of Mexico in the uniting process. His Supreme Majesty was eventually chased out of Mexico by various other Mexicans, such as General Santa Anna, who everyone in the USA remembers because everyone remembers the Alamo.

§ 23. The Attorney for the Defense: A Foreign Lawyer Cries Out in Favor of the USA

We need to hear some kind and reassuring words, preferably from a kind and benevolent genius, about the United States of America. Before we read these words let's read a little about the biography of the man who wrote them in the Encyclopedia Britannica (1963),

`TWEEDSMUIR, JOHN BUCHAN, 1st BARON (1875-1940), Scottish author and statesman, outstanding in his generation for achieving an equal reputation as both a creative artist and as a man of affairs...brought up in Fife, the Scottish Borders and Glasgow, educated at Glasgow university and Oxford, where he began to publish fiction and history, and was called to the bar in 1901. After working on Lord Milner's staff in South Africa (1901-03), he became a director of Nelsons, the publishers...During World War I he held a staff appointment and in 1917 became director of information...After the war he became assistant director of the British news agency, Reuters, and was member of parliament for the Scottish universities, 1927-35. His biographies Montrose (1928) and Sir Walter Scott (1932) are illuminated by compassionate understanding of the tangled web of Scottish history and literature. In 1935 he was raised to the peerage and appointed governor general of Canada. His love of Canadian people and places and his foreknowledge of approaching death combined to produce the pity and terror of his fine novel Sick Heart River...1941; U.S, title Mountain Meadow...'

Consulting other sources we see that John Buchan was a classical scholar: he took a First in Greats at Oxford. He won the Stanhope and Newgate Prizes in poetry. He was a lawyer. His first public service was in South Africa at the end of the Boer War. He was President of the Oxford Union. He wrote, by himself, the 24 volume Nelson's History of the War. He was President of the Scottish Historical Society. He married Susan Grosvenor in 1907, and was the father of four children. Though often in ill-health, and in pain from a duodenal ulcer, and saddled with no end of professional and social and family duties, he somehow managed to write 130 books and contribute significantly to 150 more. Part of Buchan's charm is that he was always improving himself. He was very active in worldly affair and yet he was also constantly reading, and contemplating - he would go for 30 or even 50 mile hikes on Sundays, elongated strolls over England and Scotland, which gave him plenty of time to think about things. He would converse with everyone from day laborers to kings, from peddlers to generals, from professors to industrialists to trade unionist to farmers etc. Some of his early books are rather dreary, but he improved himself, and many of his later novels show a genius for creating characters, mood and plots. He was a prolific author of magazine articles. He wrote histories and biographies. In 1918 he was made director of Intelligence in the Ministry of Information. In 1930 he began work in support of the Jews in the Holy Land. John Buchan thrived in his manifold careers: classical scholar, philosopher, biographer, poet, novelist, historian, lawyer, commoner, nobleman, expert on British tax law, expert on the American Civil War, expert on World War I, member of the British Parliament, leader of a large news agency, leader of a large publishing house, leader of Canada, war correspondent, military intelligence officer, angler, sportsman, naturalist, mountain climber, husband, father, Protestant Zionist....

Consulting Wikipedia on John Buchan, one sees that the great writer and former governor general of Canada had official titles and degrees which seem to go on and on forever - His Excellency The Right Honourable Sir John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir of Elsfield...GCMG, GCVO, CH, DCL(hc) MA Oxon, DD(hc) LLD(hc) Toronto, LLD(hc) Harvard, LLD(hc) Yale, LLD(hc) McGill, LLD (hc) Mont, LLD (hc) Glasgow, LLD(hc) StAnd. He started out as a Tory but he became a Gladstonian Liberal. He was also a great outdoorsman and nature lover. Tweedsmuir Provincial Park in British Columbia was named in his honor. He's essentially unknown in 21st century America, such is the nature of our juvenile culture, of our self-mesmerized Republic. And of course we're pre-occupied with the struggle to figure out why everything is spinning out-of-control in the USA, such as the outsourcing of our manufacturing jobs, our insane legal system, our insane tax laws, our insane national debt. Everyone knows the hammer of trying to pay for entitlements (Social Security and Medicare) will soon be falling mercilessly on various people's children and grandchildren, but the politicians resist the cure because they know they will be voted out of office if they try to put entitlements on a sound financial footing.

G. M. Trevelyan, the English historian, once wrote to John Buchan's widow,

`I don't think I remember anyone whose death evoked a more enviable outburst of sorrow, love and admiration.'

Lord Tweedsmuir writes in Memory-Hold-the-Door,

`I FIRST discovered America through books...when I became interested in literature I came strongly under the spell of New England. Its culture seemed to me to include what was best in Europe's, winnowed and clarified...Lowell was the kind of critic I wanted, learned, rational, never freakish, always intelligible. Emerson's gnomic wisdom was a sound manual for adolescence, and of Thoreau I became - and for long remained - an ardent disciple...while I was at Oxford, I read Colonel Henderson's Stonewall Jackson and became a student of the American Civil War...Since those days my study of the Civil War has continued, I have visited most of its battlefields, I have followed the trail of its great marches, I have read widely in its literature; indeed, my memory has become so stored with its details that I have often found myself able to tell the descendants of its leaders facts about their forbears of which they had never heard...I dare to say that no American was ever more thrilled by the prospect of seeing Westminster Abbey and the Tower, Winchester and Oxford, than I was by the thought of Valley Forge and the Shenandoah and the Wilderness. I came first into the United States by way of Canada...My first recollection was that no one had told me how lovely the country was. I mean lovely, not vast and magnificent. I am not thinking of the Grand Canyon and the Yosemite and the Pacific coast, but the ordinary rural landscape. There is much of the land that I have not seen, but in the East and the South and the Northwest I have collected a gallery of delectable pictures. I think of the farms which are clearings in the Vermont and New Hampshire hills, the flowery summer meadows, the lush cow-pastures with an occasional stump to remind one this is old forest land, the quiet lakes and singing streams, the friendly accessible mountains; the little country towns of Massachusetts and Connecticut with their village greens and elms and two-century-old churches and courthouses; the secret glens of the Adirondacks and the mountain meadows of the Blue Ridge; the long-settled champaign of Maryland and Pennsylvania; Virginia manors more Old-England perhaps than anything we have at home; the exquisite links with the past like much of Boston and Charleston and all of Annapolis; the sunburnt aromatic ranges of Montana and Wyoming; the Pacific shores where from snow mountains fishable streams descend through some of the noblest timber on earth to an enchanted sea...I like, too, the way in which the nomenclature reflects its history, its racial varieties, its odd cultural mixtures, the grandiose and the homespun rubbing shoulders...I have no objection to Mechanicsville and Higginsville and Utica and Syracuse...And behind are the hoar-ancient memorials of the first dwellers, names like symphonies - Susquehanna, Shenandoah, Wyoming...`The largeness of Nature and of this nation were monstrous without a corresponding largeness and generosity of the spirit of the citizen.' That is one of Walt Whitman's best-known sayings...Racially they are the most variegated people on earth. The preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon stock disappeared in the civil War. Look today at any list of names in society or a profession and you will find that, except in the navy, the bulk are from the continent of Europe. In his day Matthew Arnold thought that the chief source of the strength of the American people lay in their homogeneity and the absence of sharply defined classes, which made revolution unthinkable. Other observers, like Henry James, have deplored the lack of such homogeneity and wished for their country the `close and complete consciousness of the Scots.' (I pause to note that I cannot imagine a more nightmare conception. What would happen to the world if a hundred and thirty million Scotsmen, with their tight, compact nationalism, where living in the same country?) I am inclined to query the alleged absence of classes, for I have never been in any part of the United States where class distinctions did not hold...I have known places in the South where there was a magnificent aristocratic egalitarianism. Inside a charmed circle all were equal. The village postmistress, having had the right kind of great-great-grandmother, was an honoured member of society, while the immigrant millionaire, who had built himself a palace, might as well have been dead...No country can show such a wide range of type and character...I am as much alive as anyone to the weak and ugly things in American life: areas, both urban and rural, where human economy has gone rotten; the melting-pot which does not always melt; the eternal coloured problem; a constitutional machine which I cannot think adequately represents the efficient good sense of the American people; a brand of journalism which fatigues with its ruthless snappiness and uses of speech so disintegrated that it is incapable of expressing any serious thought or emotion; the imbecile patter of high-pressure salesmanship; an academic jargon, used chiefly by psychologists and sociologists, which is hideous and almost meaningless...These are defects from which today no nation is exempt, for they are the fruits of a mechanical civilization, which perhaps are more patent in America, since everything there is on a large scale...Against economic plague-spots she can set great experiments in charity; against journalistic baby-talk a standard of popular writing in her best papers which is a model of idiom and perspicuity; against catch-penny trade methods many solidly founded, perfectly organized commercial enterprises; against the jargon of the half-educated professor much noble English prose in the great tradition. That is why it is so foolish to generalize about America. You no sooner construct a rule than it is shattered by the exceptions...American hospitality, long as I have enjoyed it, still leaves me breathless. The lavishness with which a busy man will give up precious time to entertain a stranger to whom he is in no way bound remains for me one of the wonders of the world...I maintain that they are fundamentally modest. Their interest in others is a proof of it; the Aristotelian Magnificent Man was interested in nobody but himself. As a nation they are said to be sensitive to criticism; that surely is modesty, for the truly arrogant care nothing for the opinion of other people. Above all they can laugh at themselves, which is not possible for the immodest...The United States is the richest, and, both actually and potentially, the most powerful state on the globe...indeed, to her hands is chiefly entrusted the shaping of the future. If democracy in the broadest and truest sense is to survive, it will be mainly because of her guardianship. For, with all her imperfections, she has a clearer view than any other people of the democratic fundamentals. She starts from the right basis, for she combines a firm grip on the past with a quick sense of present needs and a bold outlook on the future...Disraeli, so often a prophet in spite of himself, in 1863, at a critical moment of the Civil War, spoke memorable words: There is a grave misapprehension, both in the ranks of Her Majesty's Government and of Her Majesty's Opposition, as to what constitutes the true meaning of the American democracy. The American democracy is not made up of the scum of the great industrial cities of the United States, nor of an exhausted middle class that speculates in stocks and calls that progress. "The American democracy is made up of something far more stable, that may ultimately decide the fate of the two Americas and of `Europe.'" For forty years I have regarded America not only with a student's interest in a fascinating problem, but with an affection of one to whom she has become almost a second motherland...I have known all of her presidents, save one, since Theodore Roosevelt, and all of her ambassadors to the Court of St. James since John Hay [1897]; for five years I have been her neighbor in Canada...It is the task of civilization to raise every citizen above want, but in doing so to permit a free development and avoid the slavery of the beehive and the antheap. A humane economic policy must not be allowed to diminish the stature of man's spirit. It is because I believe that in the American people the two impulses are of equal strength that I see her in the vanguard of that slow upward trend, undulant or spiral, which today is our modest definition of progress.'

No one spins a yarn like Buchan, as London's Guardian has rightly declared. Buchan is the equal of Robert Louis Stevenson and Jack London in terms of literary quality, and in terms of quantity, Buchan's literary output is to London's and Stevenson's as Siberia is to a studio apartment in Greenwich Village. Alfred Hitchcock made a film out of `The Thirty-Nine' Steps and considered making a film out of Greenmantle but ultimately passed on the project out of respect for `a literary masterpiece' (Hitchcock by Truffaut, François Truffaut, 1968, p. 122). Novels such as Nostromo, Under the Volcano, Remembrance of Things Past, War and Peace, and The Brothers Karamazov are greater creations than any novel of Buchan's, but, nevertheless, as an artist and a storyteller, as a creator of literary passages full of thunder and lightning, not many writers compare with John Buchan. Buchan's best romances are rather like Balzac's The Chouans, which is aimed for a wider audience than Old Goriot, Lost Illusions, History of the Thirteen, The Country Doctor, The Wild Ass's Skin etc. It has a strong love-interest in it which allows it to succeed in the mass market.

Consider Buchan's marvelous evocations of nature in his best novels: the hills and heather of Scotland in The Thirty Nine Steps and Witch Wood and John MacNab and Huntingtower; the charm of the English countryside in Midwinter; the African landscapes in Prester John; the Norwegian saeter in The Three Hostages; the flight to the Danube through the Teutonic forest in Greenmantle; the treks over the Swiss Alps and over the enchanting Isle of Skye in Mr. Standfast; the seashore and the falcon hunt in The Island of Sheep; the Grecian scenes in The Dancing Floor; the Canadian wilderness of Quebec and the Northwest Territories in Sick Heart River.

Buchan wrote, at or just before the beginning of World War II, that the future of the world largely depended on America. And yet, again, he is essentially unknown in America. One can find some politically incorrect and insensitive language in his novels. He was, after all, a white man born in the 19th century, into an impoverished clergyman's family in Scotland, and no doubt by the time he was Governor General of Canada, and elevated to the peerage, he had evolved, he had grown, he was more sensitive and sophisticated than he was in his youth. There is certainly politically-incorrect language in some of Mark Twain's books, but everyone in America knows the name of Mark Twain and everyone knows he was a great writer. One would have to be a very petulant and Politically-Correct critic to accuse Kerouac of implying that most Arabs have terroristic inclinations, merely because, in On the Road, Dean Moriarty, while driving to New York, wears a sweater round his head and pretends he is an Arab intent on detonating a bomb in Gotham. Kerouac used word `fag' when he meant `gay man.' In Politically Correct Canada today you're considered to be guilty of a hate crime if you use the word `fag.' Buchan is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century - and people don't know about him in the USA. Buchan made the transition from Tory to Gladstonian Liberal, but some of the language in his early books is definitely from a Tory. One of the striking advantages Buchan had over so many writers, who like Buchan were voracious life-long readers, is that Buchan personally knew no end of geniuses and famous people. We read in Buchan's autobiographical collection of essays Memory-Hold-The-Door (1940),

`When I first knew him [Lawrence of Arabia] he was in the trough of depression owing to what he thought to be the failure of his work for the Arabs, which involved for him a breach of honour. Mr. Churchill's policy eventually comforted him, but it could not heal the wound...In 1920 his whole being was in grave disequilibrium. You cannot in any case be nine times wounded, four times in an air crash, have many bouts of fever and dysentery, and finally at the age of twenty-nine take Damascus at the head of an Arab army, without living pretty near the edge of your strength...'

Buchan was on intimate terms with all classes of people; he was friends with statesmen and royalty - FDR, David Lloyd George, Arthur Balfour, Ramsey Macdonald, King George V etc. He knew no end of British leaders and every American president, except for one, from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt; he knew all of our ambassadors to the Court of St. James from John Hay -1897 - onwards. He was pals with generals, admirals, soldiers, sailors, judges, lawyers, scientists, businessmen, professors, dons, tradesmen, policemen, doctors, nurses, spies, shepherds, fishermen, farm hands, factory workers, peddlers, Eskimos etc., etc. For more interesting words from the former Governor-General of Canada, and author of Memory-Hold-the-Door,

`I have other fantastic experiences in my recollection...In April, 1937, I addressed crowded sessions of the Senate and House of Representatives in Washington without having had the opportunity to prepare speeches. In September, 1939, at Ottawa I was out of bed in the small hours of a Sunday morning to declare war on Germany on Canada's behalf, and had staying in the house at the time a son of the late Emperor of Austria!...Of the French commanders I had only a surface knowledge. I met most of them, and, like everyone else, was impressed by Foch's flaming spirit, and Pétain's calm mastery of his craft, and the paladin-like dignity of Gouraud...He [British General Douglas Haig] had not Sir John French's gift of speaking to the chance-met soldier. Once, I remember, he tried it. There was a solitary private by the roadside, whom he forced himself to address. Haig: "Well, my man, where did you start the war?" Private (pale to the teeth): "I swear to God, sir, I never started no war."...I knew Ramsey Macdonald long before I entered Parliament...He will be a hard personality for historians to judge, since the evidence, to a writer a hundred years hence, will seem a mass of contradictions. He was the chief maker of the Labour Party, and according to his critics he did his best to destroy it...He had the starkest kind of courage...his critics said that, though his business was to succor the underdog, he disliked the breed. That is not true. His sympathies were always with the under-dog, and he disliked it only when it became smug and patronizing, and talked bad economics. Yet I think here lay his great limitation. In one of his letters Rupert Brooke wrote that he could "watch a dirty, middle-aged tradesman in a railway carriage for hours, and love every dirty, greasy, sulky wrinkle in his weak chin, and every button on his spotted, unclean waistcoat." Ramsey Macdonald lacked this catholic, enjoying zest for human nature, this kindly affection for the commonplace, which may be called benevolence, or, better still, loving-kindness...he had developed what seemed to me an undue fastidiousness. He loved plain folk, but they must be his own kind of plain folk with his own background...He had all the qualities of a leader, fearlessness, decision, a temperamental mastery; but it was the irony of fate which made him the leader of the Labour Party...I can only speak of him as I knew him, and that was in his decline. I never heard him in his great days when he was a famous platform orator and a formidable debater...He had tramped over all my Border hills and knew every shepherd by name, and once, when he was the most talked-of man in Europe, he suggested that he and I should go off for a week's walking there. "I want some pleasure," he said, "before the lean years begin."...[[Felix Gilbert tells us about Ramsey MacDonald in The End of the European Era, 1890 to the Present (W. W. Norton, 1970): `Most prominent among the opponents of the war [World War I] was Ramsey MacDonald (1866-1937). An intellectual who looked like a peer of the realm, MacDonald was rather removed from the down-to-earth trade union leaders who dominated the party organization. But MacDonald showed remarkable courage during the war, struggling against the tide of national hysteria and sponsoring meetings at which conscientious objectors expressed their pacifist views...in 1917, he greeted the Russian Revolution as an inspiration for labor movements all over the globe and advocated the formation of workers' and soldiers' councils in Britain...Ramsey MacDonald was asked by King George V to form the government...[the] first Labor government...MacDonald's approach was idealistic. He had been an opponent of the war and he wanted to liquidate the consequences of the war as quickly and as thoroughly as possible as a prerequisite for the building of a peaceful international order...John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) described the reparations settlement as follows: "Reparations and interallied debt are being mostly settled on paper and not in goods. The United States lends money to Germany, Germany transfers its equivalent to the allies, the allies pass it back to the United States government. Nothing really passes - no one is a penny worse."...Keynes did not mention one issue...the loans had to be repaid with interest...The system functioned for a number of years, but it ran into trouble when the requisite combination of low German wages and world prosperity began to disappear.']...It is fitting to pass from Ramsey MacDonald to King George V...I was occasionally summoned to discuss with him public opinion in foreign nations. What struck me was his eager interest, his quick apprehension, and his capacious memory...He did me the honour to be amused by my romances, and used to make acute criticisms on questions of fact. Of one, a poaching story of the Highlands [John MacNab] he gave me a penetrating analysis, but he approved of it sufficiently to present many copies of it to his friends...He was immensely considerate of all those who served him...In his long illness of 1928-29 he was constantly thinking of the comfort of his doctors and nurses...When I received at his hands an appointment to a great imperial post, he gave me wise advise. One thing he impressed upon me was to be sympathetic to the French people in Canada, and jealously to respect their traditions and their language...His simplicity, honesty, and warm sympathy made themselves felt not only in Europe but throughout the globe, so that millions who owed him no allegiance seemed to know and love him. He was a pillar of all that was stable and honourable and of good report in a distracted world...He feared God and loved and served his people, and, through them, all peoples.'

In William Stevenson's Spymistress: The Life of Vera Atkins. The Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II (Arcade, 2007) we read, p. 315, that French President François Mitterrand, in 1995, honored Ms. Atkins, an Englishwoman of Jewish and Romanian extraction, for her valor in fighting the Nazis, by appointing her commander of the Légion d'Honneur. On page 156 we read that John Buchan has his name inscribed in Israel's Golden Book. This means he gave a large sum of money to the Zionist cause. It's true that one can find passages in some of his romances which incline one to think he had an anti-Semitic side to his personality, and Gertrude Himmelfarb once accused him of anti-Semitism. In his Introduction to Buchan's The Power-House J. C. G. Grieg writes: `One can not stress too strongly that, although, Buchan could put anti-Semitic remarks into his characters' mouths...Buchan himself was a supporter of - and speaker for - the Zionist cause, and as early as 1905 he had an article in The Spectator commenting adversely on Russian anti-Semitism.' Gertrude Himmelfarb is the wife of the late Irving Kristol, and the mother of William Kristol. These people are the Jewish equivalents to the late Gentile William F. Buckley Jr. For 50 years prior to his passing in February of 2008, William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of National Review who once worked for the CIA, had been America's pre-eminent apostle of the Conservative Philosophy. He used exalted language in his non-fiction, his speeches, his debating performances, and on his TV show Firing Line, but the prose in his spy novels is more or less down-to-earth. He was the big brain behind the Conservative Movement which swept Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan into power. Buckley was able to defeat the Know-Nothings in the Republican Party, and was therefore able to make the Republicans attractive to enough non-WASPS - to enough Catholics and Jews - to enable the Republican Party to win presidential elections in a nation where the majority of the people are Democrats. Old school versions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, such as the one found in Franco's Spain, contained the following doctrine, `Question: What kind of sin is committed by those who vote for Liberals? Answer: Generally, a Mortal Sin.' Buckley was an ardent Roman Catholic Conservative who might have agreed with this teaching. But he was driven to attain distinction in intellectual and polemical pursuits, and he was genteel, with a lightning quick wit, and therefore he was able to attract a wide range of people, even people who reject the doctrine which says one will burn in hell if one votes for Liberals.

Gertrude Himmelfarb and her family, along with Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter, are the big brains behind the NeoCons -the Jewish Conservatives in the USA. These people continue the fight to broaden the base of the Republican Party, by striving to make it more respectable in the eyes of Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Liberals, Union Guys, Welfare Recipients, Marginalized Females, Alienated Libertarians, Non-Traditional Subgroups - Gays, Lesbians, Bi-Sexuals, Trans-Genders, People Uncertain or Ambivalent About Their Sexuality etc., people who were raised in families or alternatives to families where they had been indoctrinated to despise the Republican Party, thus the NeoCons fight to expand the Republican Party beyond its core supporters of White Gentile Heterosexuals who hate high taxes and the gluttonous public sector. In the 19th century, the Republican Party was the Anti-Slavery Party, whereas the Democrats - who evolved out of a Party known as the Jeffersonian-Republicans - were, even in the North, willing to turn a blind eye to the slaves suffering under the tyranny of cruel White Democrats in the South. But as the years fell away like sands in the hour-glass, as the 19th century faded into the past, a new king, so to speak, who had not known Joseph, arose over Egypt, and the new Republican kings came to be seen as the bitter enemies of the black man and the working man and the homosexual man, whereas the Democrats came to be seen as sweet and beautiful angels in the eyes of these people.

Lord Tweedsmuir's public career certainly began inauspiciously. After years of studying the Greek and Roman classics and no end of ancient and modern philosophers at the universities of Glasgow and Oxford, and after he became a lawyer, he went to South Africa, where, Lord Milner put him in charge of concentration camps! The British weren't gassing the Boers they held in captivity, but, nevertheless, to be put in charge of concentration camps, right at the beginning of the 20th century, has a rather ominous ring to it.

Apropos of Lord Tweedsmuir being a Zionist and a great expert on World War I, and apropos of how logic and the search for sane public policy and good government are inextricably bound up with religion, consider that everyone seems to think that the Great War - World War I - was a colossal botch. The French and German dead numbered in the millions. 700,000 British soldiers lost their lives in the Great War. Another 1.7 million were wounded. When one attempts a tally of the suffering endured by the maimed, recall that chemical weapons were used. Corporal Hitler had been gassed and that ordeal probably didn't sweeten his temperament any. The dead, by comparison, were often enough the lucky ones. Many thousands of German Jews died fighting for Germany in World War I, an inconvenient truth which Hitler chose to ignore. In any event, the British, by winning World War I., were able to get the ball rolling in the creation of the modern State of Israel, that is the British evicted the Turks, and the Jews would have found it more difficult to establish the State of Israel if the British had not evicted the Turks. Thus, if one is a fan of the modern State of Israel, one can't say the Great War was a complete disaster, though it was in most respects a complete disaster. The ramifications of the Great War involve the creation of Israel, the rise of Hitler and the Second World War, the emergence of the regimes behind the Iron Curtain, and all the horrors and all the genocide which we associate with those Communist regimes. Though of course if the allies had been smarter in helping the good people in Germany survive and succeed after the Great War, Hitler and the Nazis would not have come to power.

Lord Tweedsmuir grew up in an epoch where people reverenced books. To be considered educated, to be considered a gentleman, one had to read a lot. Few were titans of erudition like Henry Charles Lea, Henry Thomas Buckle and Lord Acton, who inhaled books and manuscripts as if they were air, but statesmen such as Teddy Roosevelt read an entire book, or at least skimmed over one, every day, for year after year. We might say that we now live in an age where erudition is not shunned, but, nevertheless, our most influential intellectuals seem to be working as stand-up-comedians, whereas, a century ago, one had to keep on reading book after book after one had already graduated from schools such as Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard, Yale and Princeton in order to be considered truly first-rate upstairs. Yet when thousands of young British scholars, as well as many thousands of young French and German scholars, yearned to throw themselves in front of machine guns, future generations will tend to question the efficacy of all their book-learning.

On the theme of Essential Lore in Western Civilization, specifically some information pertinent to the birth of the State of Israel, and the Balfour Declaration, consider another extract from Memory-Hold-The-Door. Lord Tweedsmuir informs us,

` I came of a Liberal family, most of my friends were Liberals, I agreed with nine-tenths of the party's creed...But when I stood for Parliament, it had to be the other side. Now that the once omnipotent Liberal Party has so declined, it is hard to realize how formidable it was in 1911...Mr. Gladstone had given it an aura of earnest morality, so that its platforms were also pulpits and its harangues had the weight of sermons. Its members seemed to assume that their opponents must be lacking either in morals or mind. The Tories were the `stupid' party; Liberals alone understood and sympathized with the poor; a working man who was not a Liberal was inaccessible to reason, or morally corrupt...I remember a lady summing up the attitude thus: Tories may think they are better born, but Liberals know that they are better born...I had innumerable Liberal friends, who would speed me from the door with `I'd dae onything for ye but vote for ye.'...Mr. Gladstone once paid a visit to a Tweedside country, and in the afternoon went out for a walk and came to a gate which gave upon the glen. It was late in November, a snowstorm was threatening, and the sheep, as is their custom, were drawing out from the burnside to the barer hill where drifts could not lie. An old shepherd was leaning on the gate, and to him Mr. Gladstone spoke in his high manner. `Are not sheep the most foolish of all animals? Here is a storm pending, and instead of remaining in shelter they are courting the fury of the blast. If I were a sheep I should remain in the hollows. To which the shepherd replied, 'Sir, if ye were a sheep ye'd have mair sense.'...During those years I moved among a good many social groups. I had friends in commerce and finance, in the army and navy and civil service, in most branches of science and scholarship, and especially in the law and politics...Andrew Lang was a close friend...With G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc and Maurice Baring I never differed - except in opinion. I was fascinated by Rudyard Kipling's devouring interest in every detail of the human comedy, the way in which conversation he used to raven the heart out of a subject. I knew Thomas Hardy fairly well and revered his wonderful old age 'like a Lapland night,'...Of the greatest figures I saw most of Henry James. Would that I had seen more of him, for I loved the man, and reveled in the idioms of his wonderful talk...an aunt of my wife's, who was the widow of Byron's grandson, asked Henry James and myself to examine her archives in order to reach some conclusion on the merits of the quarrel between Byron and his wife...she wanted a statement of their contents deposited in the British Museum. So, during a summer week-end, Henry James and I waded through masses of ancient indecency, and duly wrote an opinion. The thing nearly made me sick, but my colleague never turned a hair. His only words for some special vileness were `singular' - `most curious' - `nauseating', perhaps, but how inexpressibly significant.'...The Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, had in his character every traditional virtue - dignity, honour, courage and a fine selflessness. In temperament he was equable and generous. He was a most competent head of a traditional Government and a brilliant leader of a traditional party. But he was firmly set in the old ways...Like his colleagues he was immensely intelligent, but he was impercipient. New facts made little impression on his capacious but insensitive mind. His Irish policy ignored the changed situation both in the south and north of Ireland, and was a score of years out of date. He had no serious philosophy to meet the new phenomena in the world of labour and in the national economy...If it be a statesman's first duty to see facts clearly and to make the proper deductions from them, then I think Arthur Balfour was the greatest public figure of that time...A statesman should not be judged by his policy alone, since much of that may be the work of others...One key to the understanding of Arthur Balfour was his conversation. Unhesitatingly I should put him down as the best talker I have ever known, one whose talk was not a brilliant monologue or a string of epigrams, but a continual effort which quickened and elevated the whole discussion and brought out the best of other people. He would take the hesitating remark of a shy man and discover in it unexpected possibilities, would probe it and expand it until its author felt he had really made some contribution to human wisdom. In the last year of the War he permitted me to take American visitors occasionally to lunch with him in Carlton Gardens, and I remember with what admiration I watched him feel his way with guests, seize on some chance word and make it the pivot of speculations until the speaker was not only encouraged to give his best, but that best was infinitely enlarged by his host's contribution. Such guests would leave walking on air, feeling no special obligation to Arthur Balfour - that was his cunning - but convinced that they were bigger men than they had thought...He had few of the attributes of a popular leader, since he was unrhetorical and fastidious and hated all that was showy and glossy, and his mental processes were often too subtle for popular comprehension. Yet he was a great party leader because of his overwhelming power in debate, and of a moral elevation of which the nation became increasingly aware. His character will be a puzzle to future historians, and it sometimes puzzled even his friends, since it united so many assumed contradictories...He had none of the Victorian belief in progress. He saw no golden age in the future, and doubted the existence of any in the past. Hope and dream, he would say, but if you are wise do not look for too much; this world is a bridge to pass over, not to build upon. But at the same time he revered the fortitude of human nature, the courage with which men stumbled up the steep ascent of life. It was the business of a leader, he thought, not so much to put quality into his following as to elicit it, since the quality was already there...The battle of the Somme was one long nightmare...My time in France was purgatorial...lengthy journeys in the drizzling autumn and winter of 1916, damp billets, and irregular meals reduced me to such a state of physical wretchedness that even today [1940] a kind of nausea seizes me when some smell recalls the festering odour of the front line, made up of incinerators, latrines and mud...From the start of the War it was clear that an old régime was passing away...My youngest brother and my partner in business fell at Arras. Hugh Dawnay, whom I put first among the younger soldiers, died at First Ypres; Cecil Rawling, with whom, before the War, I had made plans for an attempt on Everest, fell as a brigadier at Passendaele...Oxford contemporaries like Raymond Asquith and Bron Lucas, and younger friends like Charles Lister and the Grenfell twins, all were dead...I acquired a bitter detestation of war, less for its horrors than for its boredom and futility...To speak of glory seemed a horrid impiety. That was perhaps why I could not open Homer...'

The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963),

`BALFOUR, ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR, 1st EARL OF (1848-1930), British statesman, was a brilliant aristocratic intellectual who held a key position in the conservative party (q.v.) after 1880 for nearly 50 years, and was prime minister from 1902 to 1905...He was educated at Eton and Trinity college, Cambridge. His family background was highly intellectual and his mother, in particular, was a woman of much wit and intelligence...In 1879 he published his Defense of Philosophic Doubt in which he endeavored to show that scientific knowledge depends just as much as theology upon an act of faith...In the great Victorian struggle between science and religion, Balfour was on the side of religion...When he was 27, a romantic tragedy occurred which was to cast a shadow over the rest of his life. He was a close friend of Alfred Lyttelton, a nephew of Gladstone...In 1875 Balfour became unofficially engaged to Alfred's sister. A month later she died. Balfour never again seriously considered marriage...Throughout this period he seemed to most people a languid exquisite, rather than a man of action, an amusing and witty social figure no doubt, but one of the last people for whom political success could have been predicted. He moved in a circle of rich, clever and delightful men and women -"The Souls" - a brilliant society of which he was a central figure. Few observers of this period were able to discern the toughness which lay behind all this glitter, that streak of "cool ruthlessness" which Winston Churchill described (in Great Contemporaries, 1937)...Gladstone, by announcing a policy of Home Rule for Ireland, split his party...On the formation of Lord Salisbury's second administration (July 1886) Balfour held the post of secretary for Scotland. In March 1887 he was made chief secretary for Ireland with a seat in the cabinet. To the outside world the promotion of a dilettante man of fashion to the most difficult administration post appeared incredible...Balfour was an implacable opponent of Home Rule and he suppressed the Irish insurrection with great efficiency, earning the soubriquet in Ireland of "Bloody Balfour." At the same time he strongly opposed the evils of absentee landlordism, and by his Light Railways, Congested Districts, and Land Purchase acts pursued a policy of "killing Home Rule by kindness," which, though failing in its ultimate purpose, did much to improve conditions in Ireland. Balfour had made a name for himself as a formidable parliamentary debater and on the death of W. H. Smith in 1891, he became first lord of the treasury and leader of the house of commons...In July 1902 Salisbury resigned and Balfour succeeded him. His premiership lasted more than three years. It ended in political disaster and an aura of failure has hung over it ever since. But this is not a fair verdict: the period saw many constructive reforms for which Balfour deserves much personal credit...One [episode] which Balfour could and should have avoided was the decision to meet the shortage of workers in the Rand mines after the South African War by mass importation of indentured Chinese coolie labour. This raised not only humanitarian objections, but also the less disinterested protest of organized labour in Britain which perceived a dangerous precedent...The Versailles peace negotiations of 1919 were almost wholly conducted by Lloyd George and Balfour had little responsibility for the outcome. One important event during his tenure of the foreign office was his decision in favour of the Zionist aspirations for the creation of a Jewish national state in Palestine and its embodiment in the Balfour declaration of Nov. 1917.'

§ 24. The Case for the Prosecution Resumes: Porn, Abortion, Nukes, the Tawana Brawley Hoax etc.

70 years ago a foreign genius, John Buchan, wrote some very kind words about America. Today even Conservatives who are not among the Blame America First Crowd, to borrow Jeanne Kirkpatrick's phrase, concede that America is corrupt and decadent, a licentious nation, a true Babylon, a land where physicians have slaughtered 50 million unborn babies with the blessing of the USA since 1973. Conservatives seem to be of two minds on the matter of America. There is never any shortage of speakers at Republican National Conventions to inform the world that America is the greatest nation on earth. But Conservative writers are also very adept at painting America as a hellhole. Recall the account of the partial-birth abortion from George Will, and that was an example of one of the more humane types of abortion. Recall that Robert Bork told us that pornography is now America's largest industry. Recall that it was Mario Cuomo who told us that someone has proven that human beings must always obey human laws and regulations. You probably think the guards at Dachau did wrong to obey the laws that ordered them to murder Jews, but what are the chances that you are right and Mario Cuomo is wrong?

A few decades ago Sir Winston Churchill wrote some very complimentary words about America. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Churchill wrote that all of his worries were over. All of his fears that Germany would destroy England suddenly vanished. As early as 1941 - when there was indeed still some fighting left to be fought to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese! - Churchill could sleep in peace again. Sir Winston knew with perfect certainty that with America in the fight England could not possibly lose. It was only a matter of time before England's enemies would be ground into the dust. Churchill had studied the American Civil War and he knew all about America's resolve to fight when sufficiently motivated to fight. He knew all about America's enormous capacity to produce bullets, bombs, machine guns, tanks, artillery, submarines, planes, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, battleships etc. The power of our industries in everything from Show Biz to ships and planes, cars and computers, spacecraft and medical technology, are obvious sources of pride to the millions in America. But we must take the good with the bad, and the bad would include the years when slavery was embraced by the USA. Whenever one is confronted with a massive code of laws one runs the risk of getting lost in the minutiae. Roe and `Miranda' are the names of the two most worthless demons which are currently residing in the soul of America.

Consider the Supreme Strategy for our nation's defense. The philosophy behind it is probably more Right-Wing than Left, and therefore it might be pertinent to a review of Right-Wing illogic. The acronym MAD stands for Mutually Assured Destruction. This strategy rests upon the logic that America will never, save for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, launch a nuclear first-strike; but, should incoming nuclear missiles by seen on our radar screens, the American president will immediately launch a massive nuclear retaliation against the vile instigator of the aggression. If the American president is credible in stating that he will launch massive nuclear retaliation, then the MAD strategy has an excellent chance to deter aggression. But if enemies of America are convinced that the American president is soft, that he is not a killer, and that he will not launch a massive, retaliatory nuclear strike, then the MAD strategy might fail in a monumental way. A president who is an humanitarian, when informed that Chinese or Russian or North Korean or Iranian missiles are honing in on America, might not respond to this nuclear attack with massive nuclear retaliation; he might not want to incinerate and irradiate millions of foreigners, because, a) doing so won't stop the fearful missiles closing in on America, b) he might not want to have on his conscience the knowledge that he incinerated and irradiated millions of innocent women and children, and c) he might believe that he will flush his chances for heaven right down the drain if he incinerates millions of innocent women and children.

There would be crushing pressures on humanitarian presidents to scrap the last act of the MAD theater should the moment of truth arrive. Thus, the American people have reason to not elect humanitarian presidents, especially if the American people insist on deploying the MAD strategy. Massachusetts had determined that the character of the late Senator Edward Kennedy was pristine enough to be a senator for Massachusetts, but most Americans determined that he was not pristine enough to be President of the USA. There was this incident with a bridge, a dead woman, a tardy phone call to the police etc., etc.

In Ted Kennedy's defense, a very worldly person is precisely the type of president America needs if America wishes to employ the MAD strategy. It is irrational to demand that presidents be as kind and gentle as St. Francis, and also demand that they irradiate cities and burn women and children in colossal fireballs when the moment of truth arrives, that is, when the enemy missiles with the nuclear warheads appear on our radar screens. America should either, 1) elevate to the Presidency only men who have proven themselves to be cold-blooded assassins, men who will never give the enemies of the USA the impression that that will play the role of Hamlet - weaklings - when the enemy missiles suddenly appear on our radar screens, or 2) abandon the MAD strategy altogether, in which case America could, like friendly and efficient Switzerland, deploy millions of citizen-soldiers and secret agents highly trained in the use of conventional weaponry to ward off foreign aggressors.

Perhaps Christians such as Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan would have launched retaliatory nuclear strikes. But, obviously, only Christians who have fallen away from the True Faith would burn to death thousands or millions of innocents in either first-strikes or in retaliatory thermonuclear strikes. I suppose that is not obvious to Christians who have fallen away.

It is very easy to give a speech which will be well-received at a symposium of university professors and students if one begins the address with: `Comrades, we know it is Republican madness to give someone like Ronald Reagan the exclusive power to wield the nation's nuclear arsenal, to incinerate and irradiate the entire planet on his caprice or policy...'

Similarly, if one is addressing a group of Republican guys, one probably won't be shouted down if one begins with: `Gentlemen, since it is taking a serious risk merely to give ones wife a credit card, a man would have to be out of his mind if he thinks giving Hillary Clinton the keys to the nuclear arsenal and the power to irradiate and incinerate the entire world is a wise course of action...'
There is no need to amend the Constitution in order for Congress to take the nuclear arsenal away from the Executive, as Article I. Section 8 says the Congress shall have power to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces. Perhaps one really can't know what the best course of action is in regards to nuclear weaponry. Who knows? We know that Congressman X has reasons to keep the Executive in charge of the nuclear arsenal, because, if Congressman X agitates for a change, and than if something terrible happens after this change, then Congressman X will catch hell from the people. But if Congressman X does not agitate for a change, if the Executive retains command of the nuclear arsenal, and then if something terrible happens involving these nuclear weapons, the Executive will catch hell from the people but Congressman X won't. Congressman X is generally a great expert at knowing what is best for Congressman X.

No one interested in the subject of American legal procedures can ignore the Tawana Brawley Hoax, which runs as follows: in upstate New York a young black girl was found in a garbage bag with her body smeared with dog feces. The letters KKK were carved into her tennis shoes. She told the police that she had been gang raped over the course of several days by a group of white racists. The case polarized the state of New York and much of the USA. The medical staff which first examined her determined immediately that she was faking unconsciousness. When the girl's arm was raised over her face as she lay on the examining table and then released, it should have fallen and struck her in the face, provided she was unconscious. Her arm didn't strike her in the face because she arrested its fall. She had to be conscious to do this. Therefore she was pretending to be unconscious. Because she was pretending, her story about being gang-raped by white racists became immediately suspicious; and it became more suspicious when no bruises were found on her body; and it became very suspicious when she gave conflicting accounts of the `crime' which had been perpetrated against her. There were no broken bones, no bruises, no cuts or abrasions. She was certainly strong enough to have removed herself from the garbage bag. She was faking unconscious at the hospital, perhaps she was faking unconsciousness while in the garbage bag. Why didn't she get out of the garbage bag and clean herself up? She didn't want to do this because, A) though she was faking unconsciousness at the hospital, she wasn't faking it earlier, or B) she didn't want to get out of the garbage bag because she was plotting something.

Why would she want to fabricate a story about being gang-raped by the KKK? Could it be she was dreaming of television cameras in her future? Might her name be broadcast round the country and round the world? Was she aspiring to be a world-famous 20th century African-American martyr? Might celebrities and other rich people be expected to befriend her, and possibly make her comfortable if not precisely rich, out of genuine concern, as well to make themselves look good in the eyes of the African-American community? It wouldn't be right to leap to any cynical conclusions before looking at the evidence. Reporters with the New York Times revealed that her step-father was in the habit of beating her when she was late in arriving at home. Therefore she had a motive to tell a fib to avoid a beating from her illustrious step-father. But does this motive give us the complete explanation as to how she could summon the force of will to tell and maintain a lie before the entire nation? Perhaps she believed that white people are evil racists. Perhaps she believed this ideology with a fair amount of zeal, such that this ideology helped her to tell and maintain a lie before the people of the USA. Those who believed her story with an intense white-hot fervor reasoned that no young girl would ever smear dog feces on herself merely to make a lie seem more credible. Thus they insisted she had to be telling the truth despite a few discrepancies. Therefore, many reasoned, those who didn't believe her were evil. Whitey was being whitey again. These white folks were the same as the people who enslaved blacks for centuries: vicious white devils. It is rather natural to believe that no girl would smear dog feces on herself merely to make a lie seem more credible. But people do the strangest things. If the public had been informed a lot earlier that she had no bruises and was faking unconsciousness, the controversy might not have been fanned into a conflagration of hate. Of course many would not have believed that she was lying and that she was faking unconsciousness merely because a white nurse and white cops said she was. Tawana Brawley's lies certainly could have led to riots and murders.

In `The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America', by Philip K Howard, we see FDR's words, p. 184, in which he explains in profound terms how we solve problems. FDR's wisdom runs something like this - and we must try our best to follow the complexity of it all - if a problem exists, try something which you think might solve the problem. If what you tried didn't work, then try something else. Now be honest and face up to the truth when things don't work. But don't get discouraged! We all make mistakes from time to time. Just keep trying until you find something that fixes the problem.

The drugs laws in the USA are not working. They haven't been working for decades. They are a source of evil and they have not been a solution to evil. There's a huge bloodbath taking place in Mexico because the gangsters there are trying to maximize the profits they can make. The drugs laws have brought only more violence and more despair to North and South America. This is all wild speculation according to critics who say one can't trust this crazy philosophy of FDR: if something doesn't work try something else. The people in favor of the drug laws respond with their own philosophy as to why we should not give up on the status quo in enforcing the drug laws: winners never quit, and quitters never win.

In `The Audacity of Hope', Barack Obama writes about a man named Mac Madison, a war veteran who lost his left leg in Vietnam. He owns a soul-food restaurant on Chicago's West Side and does admirable work in helping to make the West Side more inhabitable for more people. The conversations between Mr. Madison and Mr. Obama often dealt with the lives of the black youth in the tough neighborhoods of Chicago - where dealing drugs and running in gangs seem to thousands of black youth the best hope that they have. Prohibition - both in banning alcohol and in banning hard drugs - while well-intention, seems to be just another example showing how good intentions lead to wretched results. Why not repeal Prohibition of hard drugs? We could at least try treating drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, PCP, heroin, LSD and meth like whiskey - ban it to those under 21. We might try to help the addicts with treatment programs rather than jails. Prohibition creates criminal classes. It creates gangsters. Prohibition creates opportunities to make easy money via smuggling. If people don't have easy ways to make money via selling drugs, they will have to learn to be doctors or mechanics or construction workers or truck drivers or oil-rig workers etc. they will have to learn to develop their characters at least enough so that they can report to work everyday. In America you really never mature until you have to get a job and are forced to support yourself. We can't make drugs illegal because that drives the price of drugs sky-high, which leads to opportunities for easy money, which causes youth to fall into undisciplined lives, into lives which lead to turf wars, killings of innocent bystanders, battered prostitutes etc. Who wants to work at McDonalds when your friends are getting rich trafficking in drugs? Under Prohibition, the opportunity to grow rich via illegal trafficking is too tempting to too many young people. And when one has to buy expensive drugs to satisfy ones addiction, one will get the cash by robbing and murdering, by staging break-ins and home invasions, muggings and carjackings. The cynical anti-Prohibitionist says that people are in favor of banning drugs because it is a way to create more jobs for unionized cops and prison guards, for public defenders and public prosecutors, for judges and social workers etc. The less cynical anti-Prohibitionist says the evidence surrounding Prohibition only proves yet again that good intentions often produce evil results.

Buckle's words in `History of Civilization' in England merit repeating,

`It would be easy to push the inquiry still further, and to show how legislators, in every attempt they have made to protect some particular interest, and uphold some particular principles, have not only failed, but have brought about results diametrically opposite to those which they proposed. We have seen that their laws in favour of industry have injured industry; that their laws in favour of religion have increased hypocrisy; and that their laws to secure truth have encouraged perjury. Exactly in the same way, nearly every country has taken steps to prevent usury, and keep down the interest of money; and the invariable effect has been to increase usury, and raise the interest of money.'

§ 25. Stealth Candidates.

Paul Johnson writes in `A History of the American People' (p. 964) that from 1987 to 1994, over 72,000 people were arrested for protesting in front of abortion clinics. Some were incarcerated for over two years for doing nothing more than chanting and singing. In 1994 Congress passed a law which made peaceful picketing of an abortion clinic a federal crime punishable by 10 years in prison.

Whenever a candidate for the Supreme Court comes before the Senate to be judged on his or her fitness for the Supreme Court, a favorite tactic used by these candidates, to evade tough questions, is for the candidate to say that he mustn't answer such questions, as he might need to deal with the issues raised in such questions in actual cases in the future, and, if he talks about his inclinations on these issues he will disqualify himself, should he need to deal in the future with these issues on the bench. But, perhaps, the right of the public and the Senate to know who they are elevating to the Supreme Court outweighs that argument. And merely because one has stated strong opinions in public on a subject doesn't mean one is incapable of being a fair judge, unless one is an inherently corrupt judge. Conservatives have of course used the tactic to good advantage to elevate pro-life judges to the Supreme Court, therefore both Liberals and Conservatives have reasons to like stealth tactics.

A Senator might ask a candidate: is it right to put someone in jail for 10 years if he peacefully pickets an abortion clinic? He might ask: was it right for the Supreme Court to strike down the Florida law which said newspapers are not to print the names of victims? And, do the people have a fundamental right under Natural Law to know the names of rape victims? If candidates for the Supreme Court refuse to answer tough questions it will be impossible to assess the qualifications of these candidates for the Supreme Court. If all else fails we might have to say that if a candidate for the Supreme Court is unwilling to answer some simple questions about his legal philosophy, then he is simply unfit for the Supreme Court.

Justice Ginsburg was a pioneer in blazing the trail which shows other candidates for the Supreme Court the shrewdest way to sidestep probing questions on ones quest to become a Supreme Court justice. She employed the tactic which has become the standard template: I can't answer that question, Senator, because, if I answered it, or if any other candidate answered it, he would be disqualified and unfit to judge future cases which pertain to that question, because he has made his biases public knowledge.

And of course Senators have an inducement to not disparage this sort of sophistry, because, Senators want the magical sophistry available to be used by one of their own preferences for the Supreme Court. Ever since Richard Nixon, the most glaring fracture line in the American Republic has been between the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers. If one can't win the support of one of these two factions, one can't win the presidency, one can't be elected to Congress, and one can't be elected governor of a State. There are slightly more pro-choicers in the USA than pro-lifers, and, when pro-choice Democrats control the Senate, pro-life Republicans, if they are to elevate pro-life judges to the Supreme Court, will have to promote stealth candidates: people who say they can not reveal their pro-life opinions, because, if they revealed these opinions in public, their publically revealed bias would disqualify them from adjudicating abortion cases. The Republicans have been successful in getting stealthy pro-life judges elevated to the Supreme Court, and we can thank Justice Ginsburg for showing Republicans how one does this.

Still, despite all these clandestine maneuverings, the citizens of a Republic need to know the difference between a less than intelligent question and an intelligent question when assessing candidates for the Supreme Court. Asking a candidate if he is a Strict Constructionist, or if he is a Judicial Activist, are not intelligent questions, because they are too broad. One has to focus in on specific issues. There are times when Strict Constructionism is wise. And there are times when it is idiotic. A Strict Constructionist upholds the letter of the law or the Constitution. To uphold the letter of Amendment II., to take a Strict Construction of it, means the USA must not infringe on the right of the citizens to bear arms, which means that private citizens have the right to possess H-bombs, nerve gas, flame throwers and machine guns, as these are arms. The federal Constitution has such things as Due Process Clauses, and an Equity Clause, but even if these things didn't exist, judges still have the right, under Natural Law, to throw a human law aside if that law violates Justice. Asking a judge to enforce laws which he finds to be unjust makes no sense. If the people think a judge is unjust in his decisions, then impeachment and removal from office would be a remedy open to the people.

The Left can see that Strict Constructionism must fail, at least at times, and therefore it is folly to hoist your flag atop the pole of Strict Constructionism. But Judicial Activism also fails again and again. The average American knows the Feds blew it in the case involving the Florida law which prevented newspapers from printing the names of rape victims. He or she can see that the Feds blew it but the average person can't understand the Supreme Court's reasoning when it voided the Florida law. The average citizen doesn't care to learn the lingo of the Constitutional Law surrounding the Commerce Clause and the Due Process Clauses, surrounding Amendments I., II., IV., V., IX., X., XIV. etc., he doesn't want to learn about Yellow Dog Contracts, about the Brandeis Doctrine, the Incorporation Doctrine, about the dissenting opinions in Gitlow v. New York and the majority opinion in Near v. Minnesota, about how the Feds can toss Amendments IX. and X. aside and invade the sovereignty of the States by applying Amendment I. to the States via the due process clause of Amendment XIV.

Still on the theme of Strict Constructionism, we have laws which treat juveniles like rapists and child molesters because these juveniles have forwarded pictures of their naked 16-year-old girlfriends on their cell phones to other friends. If prosecutors and juries take a Strict Construction of various laws against child porn, they will end up treating harmless juveniles like serial rapists. To take a Strict Construction of a law, and to then require 7-year-olds to get government permits to sell lemonade, or to treat a prankster like a rapist, to make him register as a sex offender, to basically ruin his life, is the sort of thing one would expect from an insane nation.

§ 26. The Sexual Revolution in the USA.

Susan Jacoby states in `The Age of American Unreason', p. 204, that in 1968 a Gallup poll found that only 15% of Americans favored making abortion more accessible, whereas in 1972, 64% wanted it more accessible. That is a huge swing in 4 years. Did the shock of the Vietnam War - the evil of conscripting young people and shipping them across the Pacific to fight and die in the jungles of Vietnam - hasten the nation's descent into decadence, into the USA giving its blessing to more than 50 million abortions? It seems the USA did not require centuries to move from being a nation of strict segregation of the sexes in college dormitories to being a nation where co-ed dorms were standard procedure. The Sexual Revolution elapsed in the blink of an eye.

In `South Wind' there's a character named Amy Wilberforce, a woman who hails from a very proper and ancient English family, the sort that dines on strawberries and cream as they watch a game of lawn tennis on the lawn of their hereditary estate. Amy falls in love with a sailor. Then he drowns and poor Amy is crushed by the loss of her sweetheart. She removes herself to a Mediterranean island where she gets drunk on a nightly basis. She also likes to take off all her clothes and walk naked, at 4: 00 am, down the streets and over the gardens of the island, her body luxuriating in the warm South Wind laden with the salt air of the sea and the intoxicating fragrance of the lotus and orange blossoms.

One always got the impression that if Al Gore could have loosened a little and been more like Bill Clinton his career might have included the Presidency. Imagine a stealthy United States Senator running naked in the predawn hours of Washington D. C., with the Watergate Complex on his left, the Kennedy Center lit up in the distant darkness, and the scent of honeysuckle and hawthorn blossoms being inhaled vigorously into the Senator's heaving lungs as he plunges along the banks of the Potomac. He might imagine himself an ancient reprobate in the Senate of ancient Rome! Once he has caught his breath he will have time to think about cleaning up his act. Yes, he might think about ceasing to be such a shameless libertine. It should be easy enough to stop his bad habit, easy enough to rejoin the civilized world, by switching back to the pro-life position which he formerly professed in his younger days. While he thinks about it he might plunge onwards, running naked by the Potomac, as here he can always plunge into the current and swim for Virginia should a cop or a concerned citizen try to bust him. A Senator can easily avoid an indecent exposure charge on his record, something which would kill his chances for the Presidency even in our Liberal Era. A Senator can not be arrested even when running naked in public if he tells the cops he is on his way to the Senate to cast his vote - the federal Constitution is quite clear on this matter. The Founding Fathers were so wise and prescient! Still, he's got to avoid negative publicity to win the Presidency, and therefore he might care to stash some pants in the trees on Roosevelt Island, or somewhere down the Virginia shore from Arlington National Cemetery to the Pentagon. There must be no slip-ups! He might enjoy letting out a Tarzan yell and then dive into the river should any German or Japanese tourists be lurking nearby and spying his movements. Even if rumors started flying about him and his liberating habit, that's not a bad thing, as it will hint to the public that he's one of them - a man of the people - a man with flaws but a man with all the great good sense of the American people - just the sort of liberated Democrat required to beat those hide-bound tea-baggers or those Born-Again Christian types who can quote John 1ii. 16 and who reasons that once you're saved you're saved, and therefore you're free to sin. You know that at least three quarters of our college professors and 99% of the directors in Hollywood would find a new appreciation of Al Gore if they knew he ran naked through Washington D. C. in the predawn darkness, so cynical are these rich bohemians about pious folk who exude morality, family values and wholesome goodness. The rich bohemians seem terribly convinced that every pious bumpkin is a self-righteous prig. Could it be they know something?

§ 27. Chicago

If one had to choose only one American city to study closely, Chicago is not a bad choice. It's more or less the archetypal American metropolis. It's centrally located; it has huge slums; its wealthy sections repose like a big beautiful diamond in the ring of Middle America; it's so multi-faceted in its cultural sparklings and its rainbow coalitions etc., etc. Chicago was always seen as a North Side, South Side sort of town, but one can't forget the West Side. There's a great scene in `La Bonne Annee' starring Lino Ventura where une femme jolie is playing hostess to two groups of her friends at a restaurant on the Riviera. One group is intellectual, sophisticated, cultured; the other group is two blue collar guys who are also jewel thieves. The working class South Side of Chicago and the rich, genteel North Side are a little like this soiree in `La Bonne Annee', where the blue collar guys keep calm on the surface, but beneath the surface they're steaming at the sophisticates, who are smug but are not obnoxious or rude. All of these people are basically good people (they were decent sorts of jewel thieves) - but the two groups simply don't have anything in common. The tension rises in the blue collar guys until they give up trying to converse with the cultured elites, they give up trying to find some common interests on which they can base a civil conversation. The following is a paraphrase of an epitome of Adam Cohen's and Elizabeth Taylor's `American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation'.

African-Americans in Chicago saw Mayor Daly as Pharaoh - the harsh overlord and task-master - with Martin Luther King, Jr. cast in the role of Moses - the Liberator who sought to bring his people to the Promised Land.

Richard Daly was born on the South Side in 1902. From the blood and manure of the slaughterhouses near his home there arose a sickening stench which forever befouled the air. "Bubbly Creek" which flowed through Daly's neighborhood derived its name from the decaying animal carcasses in its dark waters. Rudyard Kipling, writing about his visit in 1889, said that Chicago was filled with white savages. Dreiser, when employed as a newspaper reporter, marveled at the brutality of this filthy city. On his rounds through the tenements he would see men tanning the hides taken from dogs and cats. Displaced farm-hands and poverty-stricken immigrants toiled for their subsistence on block after block of blighted slums. Country girls fled the farming towns in hopes of finding better lives in the big city: the brothels did a brisk business swiftly corrupting the country girls. Chicago saloonkeepers perfected the Mickey Finn, a drink laced with chloral hydrate, which, when slipped to patrons made it quite easy to steal their watches and their wallets. Young Richard Daly would watch the hogs and the cattle being driven to slaughter. Thousands of his neighbors labored in the slaughterhouses, where pigs with chains on their hind legs were hooked to a huge wheel. The machine lifted the squealing animals into the air, carried them across the building to a place where a butcher would cut their throats. With the blood drained and collected to use as fertilizer, the pig, often still squirming, was dropped into a vat of boiling water. The cattle were not treated much better. Upton Sinclair, who chronicled the horrors of the slaughterhouses in The Jungle, wrote of Daly's neighbors - people who had their fingers eaten away by the acids used to pickle the meats.

On his first day in Chicago in 1918, the black poet Langston Hughes innocently strolled across Wentworth Avenue and was soon beaten up by a gang of whites. In his youth Daly was a member of a gang called the Hamburg Athletic Club which would pick fights with blacks who wandered into their white neighborhoods. His enemies would later portray Daly as a young thug but there was never any evidence which said that Daly had once terrorized blacks.

In the 19th century WASPS discriminated against the white ethnics newly arrived from the continent of Europe. In the 20th century the whites discriminated against blacks, such as those fleeing the impoverished soil of intolerant Dixie. White realtors banded together and refused to sell homes in white neighborhoods to blacks. The white realtors soon learned they could make a lot of money for themselves by telling whites in middle class neighborhoods that it was only a matter of time before their neighborhoods became black slums. Thus the whites sold their homes at cut-rate prices to these cunning realtors, who then sold the houses at gougers' prices to middle-class blacks. Soon the middle-class blacks were under pressure from their poor relations to provide them with some relief by way of inexpensive rooms. The middle-class black neighborhoods therefore saw an influx of poor blacks In time these middle-class black neighborhoods became lower-class black neighborhoods, at which time anyone with the money to escape knew it was time to escape, and with the flight of the last of the middle-class black residents, the neighborhoods degenerated suddenly into slums.

There were white riots in Chicago when black children swam too close to a white beach. Black World War II veterans were attacked by white mobs when the veterans took apartments in white neighborhoods. A white riot ensued when Mrs. Howard, a black woman, moved into a white neighborhood. Black riots ensued in Chicago after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the early part of the 20th century St. Monica's Parish was reserved for black Catholics. There were instances of black priests and black nuns being attacked by white Catholics. By the middle of the 20th century the white Protestant and Catholic clergies were pre-dominantly integrationist while the white laity was still strongly segregationist.

Two political philosophies ruled Chicago: Machine vs. Reform. The Reform Philosophy holds that trading jobs for votes is a sign of moral degradation. The Reformers held that jobs must be given to the most qualified applicants, not to some politician's friends and relatives, and to the friends and relatives of his political cronies. The Machine Philosophy holds that it is unnatural and inhuman to ignore the cries for help from your friends and family and not give them jobs and favors (liquor licenses, taxi licenses etc.) when it is in your power to do so, but to instead give these jobs and favors to strangers, to people who are perhaps `more qualified' in some doctrinaire technical sense, but who are nevertheless strangers. Civil service jobs are not brain surgery, so it is basically idiotic, according to the Machine Philosophy, to make a big issue about qualifications. If a cop is a substandard cop for his first year or two on the job - who cares as long as he becomes a good cop after 3 or 4 years - especially if he goes on to have a distinguished 40 year career on the Chicago police force? The Machine Philosophy grew out of the discrimination which White Anglo Saxon Protestants visited upon the white ethnics. These white ethnics, after arriving in Boston, New York, Chicago etc., from Ireland, Poland, Italy etc., found themselves oppressed by the WASP establishment, and the ethnics banded together in their various tribes and clans and began to discriminate in favor of themselves.

Unlike cities such as Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles and Kansas City - which saw their downtowns swallowed up by their slums in the 1960s and 70s - Mayor Daly formed barriers round downtown Chicago to keep poor, sullen or angry blacks far away from Chicago's affluent Gold Coast. The elegant shops along North Michigan Avenue form one of the most exclusive retailing districts in the world, and Mayor Daly meant to keep it that way. Democrats in Washington D.C. were highly impressed with Daly's ability to deliver votes to Democrats. How did he do it? What magic did he command? JFK would not have won the presidency on the strength of corruption in Illinois alone, but, combined with voting corruption in Texas, JFK was able to defeat Richard Nixon in 1960. With federal money flowing into Chicago from Daly's friends in Washington D. C., Daley was able to build barriers - huge public housing projects - `vertical ghettos' - to warehouse poor blacks and to keep them far away from the white, sparkling clean avenues of chic downtown Chicago. One of these vertical ghettos is called Cabrini Green, named in honor of St Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), the founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, and first United States citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

§ 28. Good Complexity and Bad Complexity

Mark Twain wrote about a Jewish man who was forced by the US government to live a nightmare. He thought he was signing up to deliver the mail at a salary for $400 per yer, but a clerical error was made and he mistakenly signed a contract which said he would deliver the mail for $ 4 per year. The US government held him to the contract he signed - it forced him to deliver the mail for an entire year for $4. If he broke the contract then a friend of his who put up $1200 bond would lose the $1200. So the Jewish man walked 30 miles every day delivering the mail, earning a salary of $4 that year. The US government paid him 8 cents a week and demanded that he walk 150 miles every week, or else the Jewish man's friend would lost his $1,200 bond - as the government would have stolen that too. Under Strict Construction, there is no evil here. What's the problem? The Jewish man signed a contract saying he would deliver the mail for a salary of $ 4 per year. He made the mistake so now he has to pay for his mistake. The law's the law. Life is unfair, deal with it. Twain succeeded in eventually getting Congress to right the wrong, but Twain was mad because Congress still cheated the man out of $13 when all was said and done. This might seem an exceptionally rare case of American stupidity, but stupidity in the USA exists on a massive scale everywhere you look. Colorado purchased Satanic material with money from Colorado tax payers. One of Colorado's prison inmates required the Satanic material in order to practice his Satanic religion, so the judge reasoned that Colorado citizen had to pay for these materials. America often lets murderers and child molesters out of jail faster than kids who experiment with drugs. As we've seen the Supreme Court freed a vicious killer, a man who actually led the police to the body of the little girl he had murdered, because the Supreme Court didn't think the police got the murderer to a lawyer fast enough. The USA was attacked on 9.11.2001 because Jihadists hate the American-Israeli alliance. The Supreme Court has declared that American school children are not to be told the religious reasons - which are the main reasons - why this American-Israeli alliance exists, why Jihadists exist, and why the USA was attacked on 9.11.2001. In the future, there may be more attacks on America, there may be attacks on school children, but the Supreme Court is inflexible in its decree: children in American public schools will not be informed about the religious reasons for the existence of this American-Israeli alliance.

Consider how American Liberals were successful in their plot to export the `Miranda' madness beyond our shores. The police in the United Kingdom must tell arrested suspects that they have the right to remain silent, and now the thugs in the UK can multiply as they have in the USA. England no doubt has been successful in developing many of her own strains of ideological ills without any help from the USA. Apropos of this England, the home of George Orwell, we read in National Review (11.6.06) that 14-year-old Codie Stott, a school girl in England who doesn't speak Urdu, objected to being placed in a science study group with five Urdu-speaking students. She was arrested and detained for several hours, suspected of violating a `Section 5 racial public order offense.'

Given that we have no end of examples of insanity in the laws and policies of the USA, one really can't be too shocked to learn that, even in recent years, long after those ignoble decades when slavery was legal in the USA, the USA is still capable of perpetrating evil and idiocy on a huge scale. One really can't be too shocked to learn that our tax code is just another wretched example of wretched idiocy. Consider the 1040 Instruction Manual for 2008. Turn to page A-I and cast your gaze in awe and wonderment at the marvelously intricate machinery by which the USA gathers Internal Revenue,

`You can deduct only part of your medical and dental expenses that exceed 7.5% of the amount on Form 1040, line 38...You cannot deduct insurance premiums paid with pretax dollars because the premiums are not included in box 1 of your Form(s) W-2. If you are a retired public safety officer, you can not deduct any premiums you paid to the extent they were paid for with a tax-free distribution from your retirement plan. CAUTION ! If, during 2008, you were an eligible trade adjustment assistance (TAA) recipient, alternative TAA (ATAA) recipient, or a Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation pension recipient, you must reduce your insurance premiums by any amounts used to figure the health coverage tax credit...[page A-7] Contributions You Can Deduct...If you drove to and from the volunteer work, you can take the actual cost of gas and oil or 14 cents a mile. But, if the volunteer work was to provide relief related to a Midwestern disaster area, the amount is 36 cents a mile (41 cents a mile after June 30, 2008) see Pub. 4492-B for more details...Generally, you can deduct only 50% of your business meal and entertainment expenses...However, for individuals subject to the Department of Transportation (DOT) hours of service, that percentage is increased to 80% for business meals consumed during, or incident to, any period of duty for which those limits are in effect...you can fully deduct meals, incidentals, and entertainment furnished or reimbursed to an employee if you properly treat the expenses as wages subject to withholding...[page F-4] CAUTION ! For property acquired and hedging positions established, you must clearly identify on your books and records both the hedging transaction and the item(s) or aggregate risk that is being hedged...CAUTION ! In the case of a partnership or S corporation, the election must be made by the partner, shareholder, or member. This election cannot be made by tax shelters, farming syndicates, or corporations required to use the accrual method of accounting under section 447 or 448(a)(3)...If the preproduction period of any adult plant you produce is more than 2 years, you can elect to currently deduct the expenses rather than capitalize them. But you cannot make this election for the costs of planting or growing citrus or almond groves that are incurred before the end of the fourth year beginning with the tax year you planted them in their permanent grove...Generally, if you use the cash method of accounting and your prepaid farm supplies are more than 50% of your other deductible farm expenses, your deduction for those supplies may be limited. Prepaid farm supplies include expenses for feed, seed, fertilizer...They also include the cost of poultry that would be allowable as a deduction in a later year if you were to (a) capitalize the cost of poultry bought for use in your farming business and deduct it ratably over the lesser of 12 months or the useful life of the poultry, and (b) deduct the cost of poultry bought for resale in the year you sell or other wise dispose of it...Do not include the cost of transportation incurred in purchasing livestock held for resale as freight paid. Instead, add these costs to the cost of the livestock, and deduct them when the livestock is sold...Line 36...Enter the net profit or deductible loss here and on Form 1040, line 18, and Schedule SE, line 1a. Nonresident aliens - enter the net profit or deductible loss here and on Form 1040NR, line 19...Partnerships - do not complete line 37; instead stop here and enter the profit or loss on this line and on Form 1065, line 5 (or Form 1065-B, line 7)...Paperwork Reduction Act Notice. We ask for the information on this form to carry out the Internal Revenue laws of the United States. You are required to give us the information...If you have comments concerning the accuracy of these time estimates or suggestions for making this form simpler, we would be happy to hear from you.'

It's simply a million times easier for politicians to hide pork and vote-buying corruption in an insanely convoluted tax code than it is in a sweet and simple tax code. An honest US government would reduce its tax paper work problem by putting a match to all of our tax laws. All of the bogus complexity in our tax code is just a way to drug, hypnotize, and incapacitate the typical American, so that pork - special favors - can be given by politicians to special interest groups under a cloak of complexity, so that the politicians can maximize the number of favors they can bestow, and hence maximize the number of votes they can buy. A politician might say the tax code must be complex in order to maximize fairness and equity. To believe that one might have to be the biggest simpleton in the world!

`The Nation' has an interesting article regarding Rev. Rick Warren (2.9.2009) from Jon Wiener, a history professor at University of California Irvine. Now A) on first inspection a Conservative might think The Nation is simply trying to kick dirt on a Right-wing pastor, B) on second inspection one will find only more proof that the USA's tax laws are so bad it boggles the mind to contemplate just how bad they are, C) on third inspection one is left with the wisdom that the American way has become such a farce that one might as well surrender to the insane system, that is, if the government is willing to give you money, then just take the money, and don't worry if it is ethical or not to take it, and D) on forth inspection one will acknowledge that the philosophy in (c) will not decelerate the nation's descent into madness, but it might help to shine a light into the minds of some voters, to help them see that the USA can't win with such idiotic laws. The government of the USA decides what is a legitimate church, that is, it determines which churches merit tax breaks, and the government decides which organizations are not legitimate churches, and which are not worthy of any tax breaks. Until recently the IRS permitted clergymen to deduct a `reasonable' amount of their housing expenses from their income tax. Rev. Warren deducted 100% of his salary one year, $77,663, saying it all went to his housing costs, and the government, or at least a tax court, said - that's reasonable! Well, everyone knows it would be unreasonable to the point of being crazy to pay more in taxes than you absolutely had to pay! The Clergy Housing Allowance Clarification Act of 2002 was approved unanimously by Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush on 5.20.2002. This law lets all clergymen, that is, all government-recognized clergymen, to deduct all of their housing expenses from their income. This law also put an end to the government's case against Rev. Warren, who seems to have been seeking mostly to emphasize to people how surreal and rotten our tax system has become. The article ends by slamming everyone, slamming even Progressives such as Ted Kennedy, Paul Wellstone and Barney Frank, as everyone in Congress and in the White House were unabashed purveyors of special-interest pork. Every one of them did what was politically expedient rather than what was best for the nation. Every one of our lawgivers, comprehending the votes he would lose during his next election battle, should he be seen by the voters as an enemy of religion - as a damnable renegade in the eyes of God, as an infidel so degenerate and base he would deny good clergymen the right to deduct 100% of their housing costs from their incomes, was relieved to see that his own interests in getting re-elected conflicted with neither the special-interests of the clergymen nor with Divine Justice! And so the Congressional-Special-Interest-Pork-Corruption-Subversion-of-Sanity-Scandal goes on and on. In giving out pork via a convoluted tax scheme, in exchanging tax favors for votes, our lawgivers resemble junkies who can't resist just one more blissful fix of the divine heroin.

Those in the Public Sector would throw tantrums and issue threats if revenues were reduced under a sweet and simple tax code, or if the Private Sector was allowed to hold on to more of its own money. Some parts of the Public Sector would cry like colicky babies over any reduction given to the Public Sector. I suppose one has to become something of an expert at knowing which parts of the Public Sector are acting like babies and crying without cause, and which parts of the Public Sector are being too stoical, and are not whining at all, even though they are deserving of more money. Giving help to those who cry with the most mournful wails makes some sense, but not if the people who are crying are making 6 figure salaries! Tuition at our public universities has gone up four times faster than the price of gas over the last 20 years. The Liberals rage at the oil companies for price gouging, but where's the Liberal rage at greedy universities which are oppressing poor students? The Student-Loan program is a way to pile debt upon students and a means to transfer wealth from poor people (students) to rich folks (professors and administrators).

In order to have a healthy, vibrant, beautiful and smooth-functioning society we need farmers and physicians, teachers and soldiers, policemen and truck drivers, lawyers and bankers etc. We need bookkeepers but we don't need accountants. The profession of the CPA has arisen because of political ineptitude. Our politicians made our tax laws and our accounting laws idiotically complex. Americans pay $300 billion dollars every year to have accountants do their taxes for them. All that is required is a sales tax and / or an income tax, the latter being one where there are no forms to be filled out, and no refunds; the income tax is simply withheld from each paycheck - no forms, no refunds, just automatic weekly deductions right from the pay check. The sales tax is founded on the pillar that money is worthless paper until it is spent. There is no sense in hoarding paper. Corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, property taxes etc., all this is merely make-work for accountants. If you want to soak the rich you only need tweak the rates on the graduated sales tax and the graduated income tax and it is easy to soak the rich. If you want to soak the rich and the middle class, you merely tweak the tax rates on the sales and income tax rates. These are taxes where no complicated forms and no legions of accountants are required, because the taxes are immediately collected at each sale and in each pay check. Determining just how graduated the sales and income taxes should be, and how much the Feds should get and how much the States should get, and how much should be spent on nuclear submarines and how much on schools, how much should be spent building stadiums for the professional sports teams and how much should be spent on museums, on the CIA, the NSA, the DEA, the FBI, the NEA etc., etc., will always be contentious. But under sane tax laws the USA wouldn't need to spend $1 much less $300 billion every year on accountants to do their taxes for them, and the accountants could be re-trained to do productive, soul-fulfilling, sensible work, as found in the professions of: farmer, teacher, doctor, mechanic, used car salesman etc.

The complexity which we associate with brain surgery, with rocket science, with finding the perfect lenses, cameras, lights, actors and dialogue to make cinematic art - is the sort of complexity which can't be simplified beyond a certain point. In order to remove tumors from brains, to send rockets to the moon, to capture on blank film a coherent and beautiful motion picture - human beings must wrestle with complexity, and if their talents and training are sufficient, and if the complexity which the Universe throws at them is not insurmountable, they will succeed in removing tumors, in lifting rockets into space, and in creating movie magic.

To write an equitable tax code, starting with a pen and a few blank sheets of paper, we see that the Universe imposes some complexity upon us. We know it is wrong to impose the same tax on everyone - we know it is better to impose the same tax rate, or perhaps, a graduated tax rate, but certainly not the exact same tax, on everyone. One discovers soon enough that one can impose, for instance, a 50% rate on people who earn a million dollars, and a 30% rate on people who earn $100,000. It might take one page, or ten pages to write an equitable tax code for a nation, but it is insane to think the Universe imposes such complexity on us that 80,000 pages are required to write a sane and equitable tax code. The federal tax code of the USA is 80,000 pages long. As everyone knows, the USA is a huge madhouse. There is nothing complex about an income tax and a sales tax. A property tax and an inheritance tax might be necessary to appease the Public Sector. The key is to keep everything simple - no paperwork - nothing to calculate in paying your taxes! The Public Sector will certainly want to soak the rich. Getting rid of corporate taxes and capital-gains taxes angers Unions because Unions think these taxes are the only ways to soak the rich. But one can soak the rich via income, sales, inheritance and property taxes, though of course it is stupid to take too much from the rich, because it kills incentive to work, and because one of the Ten Commandments is a commandment against theft - and one doesn't want to be damned to hell for stealing via an inequitable tax rate! Under a simple tax code, the government is still deciding, via legislation and the tax rates, who in the Public Sector gets what and how much. The government, guided by the will of the voters, will still decide how much money farmers and policemen and admirals, university professors and school teachers and postal workers get. The people are still going to elect the politicians, and the politicians are still going to try to make themselves popular with a majority of the voters. But a 10 page tax code - the code which tells us how revenue is raised, not how revenue is to be spent - gets us to the same place as the 80,000 page tax code. The pork and unabashed bribery in our current tax code will vanish in the simple tax code. In a 10 page tax code, the government is perfectly capable of crushing the rich and enriching the poor, or crushing the poor and enriching the rich, or crushing the middle class and enriching the poor, or perfectly capable of finding an equitable set of tax rates which work best for the entire USA. A miser can hoard up dollars but it is all worthless paper until he spends it on tangible wealth. And when he spends it - that's when the government takes its cut via a sales tax. Under a 10 page tax code the nation doesn't have to burn $300 billion every year on make-work for CPAs and tax lawyers and tax preparers. The CPAs and tax lawyers can be re-trained and taught to be productive, trained to create real wealth, not phony, dollar-shuffling, illusionary wealth.

The universe throws a certain amount of complexity at us - in religion, law, economics, government policy, science, art etc., and we mustn't make things more muddled in our minds than they already are. Note how Mr. Justice Harry Blackmun got his mind extraordinarily muddled up. In his less than Olympian wisdom he declared the human fetus to be `potential life.' Scientists have discovered life, animate matter, and scientists have discovered inanimate matter, but, unlike Justice Blackmun, scientists have yet to discover `potential animate matter.' Byron White and William Rehnquist could not find in the Constitution a citizen's right to an abortion. Blackmun and Burger, as if on some extravagant scavenger hunt, like Ponce de Leon seeking the Fountain of Youth in the swamps of Florida, insisted that they had indeed discovered the right to abortion in the Constitution, a right which superseded Amendments IX. and X. It seems one only has to turn to the left after reaching `Griswold v. Connecticut', where the boundaries of the contours of the penumbra of the right to privacy were first charted, and then one supposedly can't miss seeing the Constitutionality of legal abortion. The indefatigable Blackmun took it upon himself to dictate to the nation what the precise law of the land would be in regards to killing the unborn: no restrictions during the first trimester; restrictions only to guard the mother's health in the second trimester; the states may outlaw abortion in the third trimester. In America there are several schools of thought regarding the question of when it is the human fetus first becomes human life. If a legal code can't answer this question coherently, then this code will have difficulty determining what constitutes murder and what doesn't. If one is unsure where one draws the line between murder and not murder one might always err on the side of safety rather than on the side of homicidal recklessness. In the USA one finds States where if a criminal shoots and kills a pregnant woman along with her unborn child, he is guilty of two counts of murder. Thus the law considers the unborn child to be a person. And yet in the same State, a pregnant woman can abort her unborn child, and the State says that no murder is involved, because the Feds insist she is aborting `potential life' not human life.

When we attempt to understand General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, Genetics and Organic Chemistry etc., we can't complain about the complexity we meet, because the universe is complex, and we have to deal with that fact. But human beings, not God, created the banking regulations, and no end of other regulations. And it is a basic tenet of legal philosophy that you never make laws more complicated than they have to be. Whenever human beings produce very complex laws and regulations, one is wise to suspect something either rotten or incompetent is being perpetrated! What usually makes laws complicated, such as our federal banking regulations, is that they are, like our federal Constitution, `bundles of compromises.' The laws are not complex because they must be complex in order for them to be just and equitable. The laws are complex because they must be complex in order for them to get enough votes to get them passed in Congress. Laws in the USA are enacted in the following way: Congressman Bart Stupak, for instance, tells Congresswoman Michele Bachman: I will only vote for your bill provided you put some things that my constituents want into it. And then Congressman Henry Waxman tells Congressman Bart Stupak: I won't vote for that thing unless you put some pork for my constituents into it. And then Barney tells Henry: you must put some goodies that I want into that bill dripping with greasy pork fat or else I won't vote for it. And then Nancy tells Barney: I will vote for that piece of corrupt legislation only on the condition that you kowtow good and long to my wishes, and that you see to it that my demands and all of my conditions are included in that bill. And then Barack says: it will all be vetoed unless you wily politicians put what I want put into that crazy, convoluted, monstrosity of a bill.

Our laws are complex, not because Justice and Equity demand that they be complex, but because politicians, up to their old tricks, must make them complex in order to satisfy special-interest groups. And of course the politicians must kowtow to special-interest groups if they hope to win their next election campaign. Dictators can justify their tyranny by saying that Republics are, by their very nature, doomed to be corrupt and incompetent, and therefore, a wise and benevolent autocracy is the best form of government. And of course the main problem with having a wise and benevolent autocrat is that he will eventually die and then the people with be stuck with his worthless descendants. Therefore, the only solution is to enlighten the people who live in Republics, to, somehow, educate the brutes! to teach them to be less brutish and more discerning in choosing and supervising their elected representatives.

Christianity of course says that a person will always be deluded and brutish until he has the Divine Law written on his heart. Therefore the key in educating voters is to make sure they have the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on their hearts. The key is to educate the people so that they speak with the authority of God on religious matter, so that, 1) they will attain heaven and avoid perdition, and 2) so that they will know the difference between just laws and unjust laws, so that they can direct a sane government.

Governments exist to make life better for the people, such as by beating down Anarchy by establishing Just and Equitable laws. The first thing one must do in the Art of Government is identify everything which is either evil or idiotic. Now in the USA there's far too much brainpower being diverted away from true professions - medicine, nursing, teaching, construction, farming etc. - and being diverted into bogus professions - accounting, tax law etc. Accounting is a bogus profession? Bookkeepers with a thorough grasp of high school math are required in a sane society, but so many of our financial laws and banking laws and accounting laws and tax laws are wretchedly idiotic. It is idiocy to say that they are complex because they have to be complex to secure Equity and Justice. They are complex because Congress is out of control.

If something which is man-made - tax laws, banking regulations, financial laws etc, - are terribly complex, when Justice and Equity don't demand that they be complex - then you have to assume that this man-made complexity is the result of greed or stupidity.

And you always be suspicious of those who refuse to speak in plain language. Recall Justice Blackmun's convoluted reasoning for giving higher wages to the bus drivers in San Antonio. He couldn't use plain language, because, he was thoroughly befuddled, or, because he knew if he used plain language he knew he would have been accused of corrupting the Constitution. It's a basic rule of Philosophy that if you can't explain yourself in plain language then you are confused. The only justification for trampling on Article I. (the Commerce Clause) and trampling on Amendment X. is because Justice demanded that they be trampled on, and Justice demanded that those bus drivers get higher wages. If that's what you believe then say it in plain English.

A principal difference between Natural Law and Human Law is that the former can not be amended by human beings. The first requirement we have to make upon human laws is that they be just and equitable. The second is that they not be more complicated than necessary. A Physicist and a Biochemist, a Brain Surgeon and a Nuclear Scientist must accept the Laws of Nature as they exist. It would make no sense for a Brain Surgeon to say that he can dispense with complexity, that he is free to crack open skulls and start slashing away with his scalpel, with reckless abandon, in order to cure his patients. It would make no sense for a Physicist to announce that he does not believe in the H-bomb, because the idea of the H-bomb clashes with his conception of a benevolent universe.

The USA would be wise to enact one simple tax code based upon a sales tax, and a very simple, formless graduated income tax. The government could then give low-interest loans to accountants and IRS agents -and tell them to get some training in a useful profession - because only bookkeepers, but not CPAs or other accountants, or IRS agents, would be needed if the USA had sane tax laws and regulations. Our tax laws and our accounting laws are artificially complex. And the people who are making money off of this bogus complexity have monetary reasons to say that they must be complex in order for them to be Just and Equitable, in order for them to conform to Natural Law. But money has a way of corrupting people's vision.

The Enron Scandal, where many shareholders in Enron lost their life savings, resulted because the accounting laws are so complex that it became easy for wily executives to hide mountains of subsidiary debt. It was possible for executives to make a corporation which was drowning in debt look like a thriving corporation, thus cheating some or many people out of their life savings. The government and the people bear some responsibility here. The government ought to know that it shouldn't create conditions which allow the dishonest to thrive. We don't need any complicated accounting laws. But a Senator or Congressman can give favors to certain people by creating complicated accounting laws, and thereby earn money and votes for the Senator or Congressman.

Let us look at how politics is played in the USA. We have things which are called special-interest groups. They have names such as: United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC, the world's largest non-profit lobbying group), National Rifle Association (NRA), American Association of Retired People (AARP), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Organization of Women (NOW), North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League (changed in 2003 to NARAL Pro-Choice America), Planned Parenthood, Feminists for Life, Catholics United for Life, Jews for Life, Priests for Life, National Cops for Life, Physicians for Life, Dykes on Bikes, Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Smoking, Girl Scouts of America, Boy Scouts of America, American Bar Association, American Medical Association, American Enterprise Institute, American Tort Reform Association, American Trial Lawyers Association, Citizens Against Government Waste, Citizens for Tax Justice, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Law Suit Abuse, American Bankers Association, Mortgage Bankers Association, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); Teamsters; Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco Workers Union; Machinists and Aeronautical Workers Union, Screen Actors Guild (SAG); American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); United Auto Workers, United Mine Workers of America, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, United Association of Journeymen Pipefitters, Brotherhood of Railway & Airline Clerks, Brotherhood of Carpenters and joiners, United Steel Workers of America; United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, American Federation of Government Employees, American Sewing Guild, United Concrete & Masonry Contractors Association, Hotel Motel Association, Grocery Manufacturers of America, American Farm Bureau, American Newspaper Publishers Association, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Tobacco Institute, People for a Smoke Free Society, American Conservative Union, United Negro College Fund, National Education Association, National Association of Women Business Owners, American Association of University Women, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee, Communist Party of America, National Hog Farmer, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, Minneapolis Police Relief Association, Minneapolis Urban League, Minneapolis Society of Financial Services Professionals, St. Paul Women's Bowling Association, St. Paul Firefighters Local 21, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, St. Paul Association of Responsible Landlords, St. Paul Tenants Union, Islamic Center of Minnesota, Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent De Paul, Sisters of St. Joseph, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, Focus on the Family, Sons of Norway, Daughters of the American Revolution, Fatherhood Initiative, Mothers Against Drunk Driving etc., etc.

These and thousands of other American special-interest groups like them are in contact with our glorious lawgivers on the federal, state, county, municipal, township, school board, hospital board and park board levels. A lawmaker is like a windmill, a hockey puck, a punching bag and a pogo stick in that he senses the external pressures being exerted upon him, and he springs into action under these pressures and leaps to the defense of his beloved America. The American government - her politicians and judges - acting under pressure from special interest groups who have numerous voters behind them, use their Constitutionally appointed powers to enact and enforce laws. Via the Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers, via the accreditation and certification processes in our universities, via police powers, via powers to tax and spend, via powers to subpoena, incarcerate, execute and rehabilitate, via powers to litigate, investigate and intimidate, via government's powers to grant licenses to sell liquor, run saloons, operate gambling halls, horse tracks, casinos, operate taxi services, operate beauty salons, to operate day care centers etc., etc., the American government, at both the Federal, State, County and Municipal levels, strictly controls a great many aspects of our lives. In 1994 the Chamber of Commerce declared the USA had 41,000 laws pertaining in one way or another to how hamburgers are served in restaurants, for there are state and federal laws and municipal ordinances pertaining to how cattle are to be raised, how trucks are to transport cattle and processed meat, how slaughterhouses are to operate, how restaurants are to operate. Consider something called the Legal Services Corporation, which might sound like a Corporation but that's only because the government is adept at tricking folks. The Legal Services Corporation is a government entity created and funded by Congress in 1974 to provide poor people with free legal services, that is, legal services far beyond the right to a free public defender in criminal cases. Most Americans have never heard of it. Hillary Clinton, a champion in the struggle to give children with the right to sue their parents, was once in charge of the LSC. Ronald Reagan looked upon the LSC the way Liberals look upon Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage. If one believes that what America really needs is more litigation, more businesses suing businesses, more citizens suing businesses, more government agencies suing businesses, more lawyers suing doctors, more lawyers suing anyone with money, more kids suing their parents, more kids suing their teachers and their principals etc., then you will love the Legal Services Corp. It is all very well to help poor people who are oppressed by the corrupt American legal system, to help those oppressed by a system which requires one to hire an expensive lawyer merely to navigate through all the red tape of even rudimentary legal proceedings, such as the proceedings which hit single moms trying to collect child support payments from dead-beat dads. Nevertheless, if a nation and a legal system can not recognize law suit abuse, one can't be too optimistic about the future of that nation. I saw a TV news show from the 1990s - its name escapes my memory - which stated that the Legal Services Corp has cost American tax payers and American businesses over $2 trillion since 1974. Perhaps the bill is now up to $4 trillion, either way it's a rather jaw-dropping invoice from a government entity which most Americans have never heard of!

Via its laws and regulations the American government determines how hellish the USA will be for animals stuck in tiny cages on corporate farms and for animals used in research. Via its regulations the American government strictly controls the number of medical schools and dental schools the USA will have. The government strictly controls, via the accreditation and certification processes, the number of doctors, dentists, nurses, taxi drivers, beauticians and policemen the nation will have. Thus if the governments keeps the supply of doctors in the USA low, the doctors will be rich enough to pay the insurance companies, who will be rich enough to pay the lawyers who sue the doctors and their insurance companies. The government dictates minute and manifold laws on how airlines are to be run, how trucking companies are to operate, how banks and insurance companies are to operate, how asphalt roads are to be poured, how concrete roads are to be made, how hamburgers are to be served in restaurants, how cigarettes are to be marketed and manufactured. The government determines how doctors and lawyers and CPAs and chiropractors and vermin exterminators and cops and firemen and teachers are to conduct their daily affairs. The government tells you what pills you may swallow and what pills you may not swallow. The government tells you the amount of taxes you will pay and the number of years you will spend in prison if you don't pay your taxes. The government says that no matter how well-educated you might be, you must have a government-issued certificate to teach in the public schools. The government decrees how people in a thousand different professions are to be educated, certified, licensed, regulated, managed, married, taxed, transported, fed, housed, hospitalized, penalized and institutionalized. The government determines how the unborn are to be aborted and how the corpses of the elderly are to be embalmed, buried or burned. To think we have a system ruled by laissez faire Capitalism is a delusion of monumental proportions! It's true that our politicians are elected by voters, we are not a Dictatorship, but if Socialism is the control of Capital and Labor, the control of Commerce and Industry via regulation and taxation by the State, then the USA is most certainly a Socialistic nation. Technically, Socialism means the government owns everything, or at least owns the means of production. But that's a technicality. The government of the USA controls everything via regulation and the tax laws. We have Socialism in the USA. We have it regardless if a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House. It's a technicality to say that government must own businesses in order to have Socialism. It doesn't matter who owns the businesses. It is about who controls the businesses that matters. And as the government controls nearly everything in the USA, via the tax laws, via Federal, State, County and Municipal laws and regulations, the United States of America has Socialism.

People like to debate the merits of Capitalism vs. Socialism. Consider a list of films and how this list ties in with a debate on Capitalism vs. Socialism. One of the most striking facts about the USA is that we have many first-rate actors and comedians, but, generally speaking, our films are not so great. You, know, America just doesn't have thousands of films which are as good as William Friedkin's `The French Connection'. The first part of Friedkin's `Sorcerer' is great cinematic art, but, like `Wages of Fear', the story drags toward the end. `Clockwatchers' is an American jewel from 1997 which many people haven't heard of. The `Seven Ups' and `Wall Street' are rather artistic. I suppose they are more or less on a par, in terms of cinematic artistry, with `Schindler's List', `Midway', `Platoon', `Picnic', `The Bridges of To-ko Ri', `The Third Man', `The Lady from Shanghai' etc One could go on to mention 300 or 400 more American films which are very well-made, but this is a very small fraction of the total number of films that America has made. We'd like to see American culture become more elevated and refined. As you might imagine, it is much more pleasant to become elevated and refined by watching uplifting films or by socializing with refined people rather than by passing through the furnace of affliction. Recall the words of the LORD in Isaiah 48. 10,

`Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.'

Consider some intelligent foreign films in New Wave French cinema. We see that films from Eric Rohmer, such as Summer (a.k.a. The Green Ray), Claire's Knee, My Night with Maud, Love in the Afternoon, La Collectionneuse, Suzanne's Career etc. are examples of intelligent, sensitive, subtle films which exhibit a virtuoso aesthetic grace and lyricism. These films are the antithesis of the typical Hollywood fare. Foreign films such as Le Cercle Rouge, Plein Soleil, Army of Shadows, L'aventura, L'eclisse, The Lives of Others and Circle of Deceit seem especially distinguished. Le deuxième souffle is a work of art. A Soviet actress, Margarita Terekhova, showed immense photogenic range in Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror. She looks super beautiful in one scene where she's preening in front of a mirror, but in other scenes she looks a little rough. Solaris and Stalker would be two other gems from Tarkovsky, but to my mind Mirror is his supreme masterpiece. Mirror is filled with great music and amazing scenes, such as the scene where the camera suddenly switches from Leonardo's Ginevra di Benchi to Margarita, or when the little boy is reading Pushkin's words about the history of Russia.

Tarkovsky's Solaris has a scene in it with the most amazingly skillful camera work. The cosmonaut protagonist lies down to take a nap on a space station orbiting a far planet; the camera angles being used remind of a painting, Mantegna's The Lamentation. The camera pans closer and closer over the reclining cosmonaut. He then wakes up to find his wife in the room - she had died years earlier and was magically resurrected or at least recreated. It took a very great virtuoso directing the camera to get those shots. Hollywood of today doesn't make too many scenes to rival that one. Recall the quality of the scene in Dr. Strangelove, where they're in the B-52 and where When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again is playing on the sound track, and the tension is building higher and higher as they're getting closer and closer to the target while the Soviet missile is getting closer and closer to them. Recall how the beginning of The Odessa File succeeds brilliantly. We have symphonic music which merges into the voice of Perry Como singing Christmas Dream. Why doesn't Hollywood create more scenes which have genius written all over them? You have to get a director who, if he is not a genius, is at least smart enough to find geniuses to work with him. No geniuses on the movie making team, no genius movie.

Still on this theme of Capitalism or Socialism, get ready to put a check mark under one of the two columns which you have entitled: 1) Capitalism Makes Rotten Movies, and 2) Socialism Makes Rotten Movies. If Hollywood is run by billionaire Capitalists who can't make enough billions to satisfy their insatiable lust for money and all that money can buy, then Hollywood is indeed run by Capitalism. Hollywood has discovered that it makes the most money by making movies which appeal to 14-year-olds, because these people will pay lots of money to see the same stupid movies over and over and over again. Hollywood knows how to maximize profits but it has, generally speaking, forgotten how to make movies an intelligent adult would find worth seeing, though this is generally true for foreign films as well. Now if Hollywood is run by people who are being squeezed for cash, being squeezed because of high taxes and other expenses, and are forced to make stupid movies which appeal to the childish instincts of juvenile movie-goers, forced to make obnoxious but profitable films in order to pay the high taxes needed to support all the vast multitudes of Public Sector employees that we have, as well as to simply survive in a competitive business, so as to support themselves and their families in an expensive world, then we have Socialism. These vast multitudes of Public Sector employees, who are always reaching into the back pockets of the Private Sector tax payers, include Generals and Admirals, Sergeants and Chief Petty Officers, Policemen, Firemen, all the Unionized Public School Teachers, dog catchers, park rangers, prison guards, Congressmen, Senators, Assemblymen, federal judges, federal prosecutors, state judges, public defenders, prosecutors; all of the members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union; public college professors, librarians, all Federal Employees such as postal workers and border guards and DEA agents and INS agents and IRS agents and FBI agents and CIA agents and ATF agents and FEMA agents and TSA agents and NSA agents. And then there are all those people who are de facto Public Sector employees - such as defense contractor employees indirectly paid by the Pentagon - and of course the Pentagon gets the money to pay the defense contractors from the back pockets of the people in the Private Sector. These de facto Public Sector people work at firms such as Halliburton and Honeywell, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Alliant Tech Systems, Raytheon and Ball Aerospace, Ford and General Motors, 3M and IBM, General Electric and Cincinnati Electric etc., etc., and then there are all of those multitudes of de facto Public Sector employees who only have jobs because the Government makes impossibly arcane and inconceivably convoluted laws which require the Corporations to hire expensive Lawyers and CPAs to make sure the Corporations comply with these complicated laws. A Corporation must hire expensive, highly trained accountants rather than simple bookkeepers to ensure that the Corporation is taking advantage of all that it can legally take advantage of under the wretchedly convoluted tax laws, and to ensure that it stays in compliance with all the arcane accounting laws and procedures that the government dictates to create work for lawyers and accountants, to give pork in exchange for votes. The Corporation must keep expensive lawyers on retainers to defend the Corporation in case the Corporation should mistakenly break one of these arcane laws, or should the Corporation be sued in civil court should deaths or accidents happen during the shooting of films. The Corporation must hire experts in workers compensation claims to make sure the Corporation pays its fair share to make-up artists with sore backs, and must pay unemployment insurance to support unemployed actors and stage hands; and then there are the expenses which the Corporation must pay to private sector workers: there's some chump change which is paid in salaries to the stars and the directors, some nickels are paid by the Corporation to insurance companies; a few pennies are thrown at airlines, hotels and restaurants while shooting on location; the Corporation gives some pennies to advertising agencies to promote the Corporation's movies.

Everyone can understand that if a company pays $1 trillion to workers to did an enormous ditch, and then pays the same workers $1 trillion to put the dirt right back into that enormous ditch, then we have $2 trillion worth of economic activity, but the nation is no better or wealthier. When people are paying lots of money to obtain junk, then the GNP is going to reflect this, and therefore the GNP will exaggerate the wealth of a nation. Economists are not paid to make the determinations about how much money was, 1) spent on junk, 2) how much of it was spent on stuff that is not quite junk but it is still fairly worthless, and 3) how much of it was spent on stuff that was worthwhile. If a soda pop executive spends a million dollars on an advertising agency, and if this agency sells his carbonated sugar-water so well that his firm takes market share away from all the other soda pop makers, then one soda pop company will grow richer and the other ones will grow poorer, but, unless soda pop can somehow be made more refreshingly delicious, the USA won't be any richer. If advertising agencies create works of art - priceless art rivaling Michaelangelo and Rembrandt, Picasso and Feininger in their campaigns to sell soda pop - then, obviously, it is utterly crass and bourgeois of these economists to put a dollar figure on the GNP, when, in the soda pop sector alone infinite riches have been created in the form of art.

What is priceless art and what is trash? What is junk and what isn't junk? One has to know the answers to these sorts of questions to assess the true wealth of a nation. If our universities establish Men's Studies programs, where male professors are paid to spend their time bashing women, or if the universities establishes Women's Studies programs, where female professors are paid to bash our male-dominated society all day long, then the professors are enriched, and they have a convenient source of profit for themselves - thanks to the tax payers - but how is the USA made any better with these Women's Studies or Men's Studies Programs?

Robert F. Kennedy was very eloquent in slamming the measuring stick we call the Gross National Product. We read in Make Gentle the Life of this World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy,

`The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children; the quality of their education; or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate, or the intelligence or integrity of our public officials. It measures neither wit nor courage. Neither our vision, our wisdom, or our learning. Neither our compassion nor devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.'

The most conspicuous professions for producing real wealth, that is producing stuff that isn't junk, are: doctors, nurses, farmers, etc., etc. There is certainly an art to teaching kids, who don't want to learn, how to add fractions with unequal denominators, to convert percentages into decimals and decimals into fractions with lightning speed and infallible precision, to compose thoughtful or sarcastic paragraphs. But, certainly, the skill required to be a doctor is far greater than the skill required to teach kids how to read and write. There is equal sharing of the wealth in the True Church, but in the highly competitive economic jungle which is the USA, where the Private Sector is squeezed ever more tightly by the Public Sector, we can't pay teachers who have dime a dozen skills anywhere near the same wage which we pay the virtuoso cardiologist or the maestro surgeon. The teachers' unions don't see it this way. They not only want a living wage for teachers commensurate with the exalted dignity of the teaching profession - enough money to buy a 4 bedroom split-level in a decent neighborhood, or a charming 3 bedroom Cape Cod in a chic neighborhood, something with hardwood floors and wrought-iron garden furniture, with stainless steel appliances and granite countertops - none of that linoleum @$^#, but the teachers' unions also insist on getting...

In the 19th century it was schoolmarms - young or ancient maidens - who taught the children for paupers' wages. As the decades passed the Private Sector remained a little cheap in paying school teachers: everyone knew that the long-haired, middle-aged guy driving the rusted out VW bug with the squealing brakes had to be either a draft dodger on the lam or a school teacher or both. Society obviously shouldn't pay teachers so much that they can afford to buy, every few years, the top end BMWs and the best Lexuses - those must be reserved for the university professors and administrators. But in the stylish yet value-conscious Ford, Dodge and GM lines, a school teacher ought to at least be paid enough to afford a new Mustang, Charger or Monte Carlo every few years. Paying pauper's wages to the people who mold the characters and shape the intellects of the next generation of children, children who will soon enough be running America, would by like a father letting his son get married in a rented tux - an humiliation which no man should ever have to suffer - all because the old man was too cheap to help his kid with some cash. Teachers deserve what every other self-respecting worker in America gets - three months vacation every year, full medical and dental, a generously vested pension plan, a collective bargaining agreement under which teachers can never be ordered by school administrators to perform menial cleaning chores or other lowly janitorial duties. Teachers deserve a union which will fight to save the jobs of teachers struggling with mental health problems such as bi-polar and schizophrenia issues, or struggling with chronic disabilities such as nasty-teacher syndrome and lazy teacher disease.

In a Free Market the government does not impose standards on doctors - it lets anyone practice medicine. Having quacks invade the medical profession is offensive to most Americans, and so the government dictates who is permitted to practice medicine. The government restricts the supply of doctors, by imposing high academic and medical standards on all doctors, and by limiting the number of accredited medical schools, therefore the government inflates the price of medical care, albeit it ensures high medical standards. Therefore, since the government restricts the supply of doctors, the government should not punish poor people who can't pay their emergency room medical bills. If the government required high school grads to attend a vocational school for a few years before they were certified to straighten people's teeth with the standard teeth straightening paraphernalia: braces, heads gears, retainers etc., then we would have many more orthodontists, and it would be much cheaper to have teeth straightened. The orthodontists have a money incentive to petition the government to restrict the supply of orthodontists, by certifying them only after they have spent 4 years in college, and then another 3 or 4 years in dental school, and then another year learning orthodontia. Those who insist it doesn't take 20 years of formal education to learn how to straighten teeth are shouted down by the rancorous menaces of orthodontists' union! But it is quite obvious that America wastes a lot of brainpower. A lot more people should be in the medical profession, but, because the government refuses to accredit more medical schools, these people are now working as MBAs, CPAs, JDs, engineers etc. The accounting profession exists because the USA has insanely complicated tax and accounting laws, because the politicians can give pork to constituents via complex laws. All that a nation needs is book-keepers, people with high school educations. But the politicians insist on making idiotically complex laws which divert a lot of brainpower into a lot of unproductive work. If school kids spent 30 minutes per day in Grades 4 through 12 learning a little medical science, then we would have many millions more people who would be prepared to succeed in medical school. But the USA is going to devote billions of dollars to hiring more IRS agents to prosecute those who don't pay for Obama Care.

Recall Isaiah 59. 20-21,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

It stands to reason that the first thing one must learn in learning to speak with the authority of God is to learn to stop speaking like an idiot. Liberals generally argue that words favoring segregation and words favoring the rich over the poor are the most conspicuously idiotic words coming out of the mouths of Conservatives in recent decades. Conservatives argue that Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion across the USA in 1973, is the supreme example of evil and injustice in recent American jurisprudence. But, for rank Liberal idiocy, who could forget Escobedo v. Illinois, `Miranda' v. Arizona, and Brewer v. Williams? As we've seen, Robert Bork, in his Forward to Max Boot's Out of Order: Arrogance, Corruption and Incompetence on the Bench (Basic Books, 1998), and Ann Coulter, in Godless: The Church of Liberalism (2006), both deal with Brewer v. Williams (1977). Robert Williams confessed voluntarily to the police that he had committed a heinous crime. Williams actually led the police to the dead body of the little girl he had murdered - the 10-year-old Pamela Powers. Because the police failed to abide by certain procedures, and had not gotten a lawyer to Williams as soon as the Supreme Court justices would have preferred, and because the police had used some non-violent persuasion, with no lawyer for the accused being present, and had persuaded him to confess to his crime, the Supreme Court ruled that this confession, and the evidence gained after it \- the evidence of him actually leading the police to the place where he had put the little girl's body - were not admissible in court. The evidence against him could not be explained to a jury, and, so, the Supreme Court set the murderer of the little girl free. The Supreme Court insists, rules are rules, and proper procedures must be followed, otherwise the laws of the USA will degenerate into farcical laws.

No one wants torture to be used against criminal suspects, but what about those exceedingly rare cases? If the cops have a kidnapper on tape saying that he has the kidnapped child locked in a box where the child will soon suffocate, and, if the cops arrest the kidnapper when he comes to collect the ransom money, but, if the kidnapper refuses to say where the child is located, where she is slowly suffocating to death, is it right or wrong is it for the cops to twist his arm until he talks? This is more or less the scenario in Dirty Harry, and no end of Liberals said Dirty Harry was an evil movie, because it taught the doctrine that, sometimes, Amendment V. must be tossed aside by good cops.

One must get the nuances of sound legal procedures straight in ones mind. When we speak of `Miranda' and Escobedo we are focusing especially on those instances when confessions of guilt are excluded during the trial because, though no torture or threat of brutality was used to extract the confession, the police failed to tell the suspect he has the right to remain silent. Under Natural Law, suspects have the right to remain silent. But they don't have the right to be told that they have the right to remain silent. To the befuddled person this sounds like a very trivial distinction. It seems crazy to the uninitiated to make a huge issue out of the distinction between the right to remain silent - which is the right to not be beaten and forced to talk - and the right to be told upon arrest that one has the right to remain silent. It is not trivial! We have a Utah law professor, who, years ago, said that this `trivial' distinction has cost America more than 1,000,000 lost convictions for violent crimes. And when a violent criminal is set free in America he can often be expected to rape or murder or terrorize other people after the justice system has set him free. `Miranda' and Escobedo are evil decisions because they have inflicted enormous misery upon the USA. The Liberals believe `Miranda' and Escobedo are great bulwarks against police brutality. Those Supreme Court rulings do not prevent the police from planting evidence or beating up suspects. `Miranda' and Escobedo hurt both victims and the effort to rehabilitate perpetrators. But it is difficult to enlighten the deluded, as the deluded are entrenched in their `Miranda' madness. One of the reasons it is difficult to make some people see sense on this matter is because the lawyers and the judges who are fans of `Miranda' won't admit they are wrong, because, being wrong about `Miranda' is not like forgetting someones birthday, or neglecting to buy enough beer for a party. A judge and lawyer would have to admit that he had been a slave to brainless folly if he was to change his mind and admit that `Miranda' is wretched law, and, as you might imagine, judges and lawyers hate to admit that they have been slaves to brainless folly for decade after decade.

§ 29. Healthcare

If a nationalized healthcare system is adopted in the USA, life might be better for the poor, or it might not, but, as long as the USA has the same number of doctors, dentists and nurses the overall level of healthcare in the USA can not improve by much. Presently, any poor person can go to an emergency room at a public hospital in the USA and receive medical care. And when he declines to pay his medical bills the USA does not throw him into a debtors' prison. If the total number of care givers in the USA - the total number of doctors and dentists and nurses - remains the same, then under the current system, or under single payer system - under Nationialized Healthcare - the overall level of healthcare in the USA can not be significantly improved. The system as it exists in 2013 looks reasonably strong but that's mainly because we have been able to do a great deal of borrowing. Life is easy when you have $20 trillion of credit left on your credit cards. But once there is no more credit left on your credit cards, life gets tough. Recall that the government has promised citizens that it will pay out many trillions of dollars in the form of Social Security and Medicare in the future. But the USA doesn't have these many trillions of dollars. The only way to get the money is to, 1) print the money - and printing money is simply a tax via inflation which hurts the poor and the middle class, 2) continue borrowing the money and adding to the $15 trillion debt, and the USA adds $4 billion to her national debt every day.

The USA is not managing her brain power intelligently: she has too many idiotic laws and regulations which require too many accountants and financial experts and tax lawyers, too many people who, though intelligent, are not using their minds in ways which improve the USA. We already know how to build cars, bridges, planes, idiotic tax laws, idiotic accounting laws etc. But we simply don't have enough doctors, dentists and nurses.

Healthcare costs are, like everything else, ruled by supply and demand and plaintiffs' attorneys. The USA hasn't built up her supply of doctors, and, as the demand for doctors becomes more and more intense as the aging population requires more and more medical care, the price for medical care must rise dramatically.

Doctors like to be seen as an elite class who not only save lives and cure ailments but who also keep abreast of the advances being made in medicine in particular and science in general, such as by faithfully reading every new edition of Lancet, Chest, Gut, JAMA, The New England Journal of Medicine and Scientific American. This learning is admirable but one needn't be a Renaissance Man to diagnose and treat strep-throat. The number of people who can be trained to perform intricate surgical procedures is like the number of people who possess the self-discipline to keep up with the latest advances being made in science and medicine: small. But the number of people who can be trained to scribble illegible prescriptions for antibiotics and set broken bones is quite a large number. MDs, of course, want to be esteemed. Some people would have less respect for MDs if top students went right from high school directly into medical school. They would have less respect for MDs if MDs were not familiar with a good deal of science. But other people only demand that MDs understand medicine, and they would have more respect for MDs if MDs simply concentrated on being physicians and not scientists.

Medical care would be much less expensive if the government accredited more medical schools and permitted many more people to attend these medical schools. The government must of course insist on high standards before it gives anyone a license to practice medicine. But who cares if it takes 4 years or 10 years of medical school to train a conscientious student in order to raise his knowledge up to the standard? All that matters is that society receives many more qualified physicians. Doctors care, because, the more a society increases its supply of doctors the more the salaries of its doctors will fall. This is good for the USA as it means healthcare will be cheaper for the people, but the doctors say it is not good for doctors! Well, someone has to suffer! If the government arranges matters so that the doctors will suffer by making only $150,000 per year, then, other people will suffer less because the government will have made healthcare cheaper. The government might let the top high school students go directly to medical school; it might give loans to CPAs and lawyers and teachers etc. and let them go to medical or nursing or dental school. There is also such a thing as Continuing Medical Education. It might take 20 years of CME to turn a physician into physician who is also a scientist, but the important thing to know is that the USA urgently needs tort reform and more physicians to lower healthcare costs.

We're also concerned with the delusion of those who say that the American healthcare system is, presently, pre-Obama Care, based on Free Market principles. When the government strictly limits the number of medical schools which it accredits, and when the government strictly limits the number of people entering these medical schools, then the government is controlling healthcare - and that's Socialized Medicine. It is not Capitalist, Free Market Medicine.

As we saw earlier, the Legal Services Corp, a government entity which has cost the USA several or many trillions of dollars, is a program which is essentially work-fare for lawyers. But we have work-fare for accountants, for tax preparers, for teachers, professors, farmers, Pentagon bureaucrats, Dept of Education bureaucrats etc.

The American government has gotten into the business of controlling the engines of production, as they say, via taxation and government regulations. In the beginning, the land which was to become the United States of America was the home of a few million aborigines spread out over the endless miles of trackless forests, prairie lands and tidal basins, mountains and deserts. Many millions of huddled masses in Europe, the `wretched refuse,' needed an asylum to which they could flee from the cruel economic conditions in Europe. As Europe had told its impoverished whites to grab all they could grab in the New World, one could hardly expect anything Just and Equitable to result from such chaos. If one wants Justice and Equity, a just and equitable government must manage things, and, as you might imagine, 1) it is difficult to be perfectly fair to everyone, and 2) a Republic ought to be more just and more sane than an Oligarchy or a Monarchy, assuming of course the majority of the people in that Republic are reasonably just and sane.

§ 30. The Private Sector v. Public Sector

Lecky told us that the American invention of the first anesthetic has given more happiness to mankind than all of the moral philosophies from Socrates to Mill. People are forever saying America is the richest nation in the world. But how is wealth measured? The Roman Emperor Diocletian abdicated the purple and retired to his villa where he wanted to live a quiet life and tend to his cabbages. He no longer cared to be the leader of the richest and most powerful empire on earth. In the USA a person's wealth is measured by his ability to get away from the criminal class. Your life becomes so much more pleasant if you can scrape up the cash to buy a car, so that won't have to ride the bus in the inner city, where your ears will be assaulted by the lyrics of loud rap, and by young gangsters mouthing obscene rap. If you can scrape up the cash to buy a place in a nice suburb - where your wife and kids will be reasonably safe from rapists and muggers and the neighbor's pitbulls - then we can say with great certainty that you have raised your family's standard of living.

Some might say that the first question one asks in determining if a person is wealthy or not is: are you stuck in a job that you hate? Your job might pay you well, but if you hate it, then you can't be too wealthy! Mark Twain's memoir Life on the Mississippi gives us a series of interesting anecdotes about Twain's days during his apprenticeship as a riverboat pilot. He hated one of his obnoxious, overbearing instructors so thoroughly that Twain told us he would lie awake at night thinking of 17 different ways to murder the S.O.B.

`American Beauty' is a film which introduces us to two gay guys - one is an anesthesiologist and the other is a tax specialist - and they're both presented to us as men with noble careers. The anesthesiologist builds real wealth because he creates happiness by defeating surgical pain. The tax specialist is just a dollar shuffler. It would be rude to call him a parasite because he's earning his living honestly enough - but he's just a dollar shuffler. He is rich, not because he contributes anything which builds real wealth for a society, but, rather, he is rich because the USA has insanely complicated laws pertaining to taxes and accounting; he exploits the insane system and grows rich as a result.

The GNP includes the sum total of goods and services produced and provided by the nation in one fiscal year. The money spent to buy abortions in America is tallied in the GNP as is the money spent by American farmers in buying seed and machinery to grow food for the nation. The money an ambulance chaser makes by shaking down insurance companies is reflected in the GNP as surely as the earnings of a businessman who creates thousands of jobs. The money spent patching up the bullet holes in youthful gangsters in America's emergency rooms is included in the GNP as is the money spent to save the lives of ordinary folks with ordinary heart attacks. It's all value-judgment neutral! If someone pays you a trillion dollars to dig a ditch, and then pays you a trillion dollars the next day to fill the ditch right back up again with the dirt you dug out the day before - then the GNP has grown by 2 trillion dollars in just two days - that's a lot of wealth you created for American with all your hard work! If one wishes to know how much actual wealth a nation has, one needs to make an intelligent assessment of the general state of affairs in that nation. Is the nation being overrun with illiterates? Are large sections of America's inner cities hellholes? Does Hollywood more often than not produce cinematic pollution rather than cinematic art? In America the rich are thin and the poor are fat, so we can't be doing too badly! Millions of Americans have tens of thousands of dollars to throw away on their kids' college educations, even though these kids are usually more indoctrinated than educated at college. Americans insist on giving tens of thousands of dollars to universities, so these Americans must be loaded with cash! Judge Robert Bork wrote some rather devastating words about America, about the squalor and the decadence one sees advancing day by day on our shores. He told us in `National Review' (12.19.2005) that pornography is now America's largest industry. I suppose if the raw materials are cheap enough, and if the demand for the finished product is high enough, obscene profits will indeed be made via obscenity. The blood and gore in the slasher films might be a surer indication that America is sick in the head than the porno films, but, when pornography is America's largest it's easy to become a prophet of doom.

The Private Sector is that section of the economy which is not paid via other people's taxes, but rather it gets paid after it tears raw materials from the bowels of the earth and then transforms these raw materials into tangible wealth, which is then sold for profit, or via some other such private endeavor. The Private Sector takes crude oil, coal, iron ore, copper, chromium, antimony, plants, grain, cattle and human flesh and transforms these into: gasoline, electricity, cars, planes, pharmaceuticals, bread, steak, leather, movies etc., etc. The Public Sector is everyone who lives off the taxes paid by people in the Private Sector. The Public Sector reaches into the back pockets of the Private Sector and grabs their cash and valuables! The Public Sector uses guns and bullets and policemen and prosecutors and prisons and prison guards to control the Private Sector if they rebel and refuse to pay their taxes. If a general or admiral, policeman or gunner's mate, prison guard or public college professor, postal employee or public school teacher is working hard and honestly, then it is very rude and very unfair to call him or her a parasite. Whether one is paid via profits in the market place, or paid via taxes, the main thing is to produce wealth. And wealth is something which has intrinsic value. And it might be difficult to explain to people what `intrinsic value' means if they think that money, or bread and circuses, or sex, drugs and rock and roll are all that really matter in life.

We also have those who straddle the line between the Private Sector and the Public Sector. They are not always paid by the government, but the government makes laws which create jobs for these people: defense contractors, road construction workers, lawyers, accountants, tax preparers, legal secretaries, paralegals etc. A lawyer is hurting society if he makes his money via frivolous or unjust law suits. But if he advances the causes of legal sanity and justice in the USA as he makes his money, then he's increasing his own wealth as well as the wealth of the USA. Even if an accountant is doing his job conscientiously and honestly, he can't enrich the USA, because he's working in an idiotic system with idiotic tax and accounting laws. He has expertise in understanding some very complicated laws, but he's still just a dollar-shuffler who takes his cut while he shuffles the dollars. Therefore a change is required whereby the insanely convoluted tax and accounting laws become sane and simple. The main obstacle to doing this is our politicians have discovered that, to get re-elected, they need to deliver pork to their constituencies. `Pork' is not really a euphemism for `corruption' but its existence implies the Republic is not being run as wisely as possible. Our politicians have discovered that it is easier to deliver pork to voters through an idiotically convoluted tax code than through a sweet and simple tax code.

Another obstacle is that our professions set up barriers to keep people out of these professions, so that the salaries of the people in those professions remain high. An ex-CPA who applies himself can learn a lot of medicine in a year spent working in a hospital during the day while hitting the books in the evening. Not everything in medicine is brain surgery! But the System doesn't let too many smart and conscientious people become doctors. The system is designed to keep the supply of doctors low, so their salaries remain high. The USA keeps the supply of doctors low by restricting the number of people who are permitted to practice medicine. We want highly trained people to perform intricate surgeries. But to practice routine medicine you don't need years of formal training. Someone who is conscientious, who has good attention to detail, who cares about his patients - perhaps an ex-RN or an ex-CPA or an ex-lawyer - can be trained in a few years to practice routine medicine, and he or she can be trained over the years to perform very intricate procedures.

We have people who fill the treasury. These people are the Private Sector: Hollywood producers, rock stars, industrialists, actors, directors, writers, musicians, real estate agents, Vogue Cover Girls, Playboy Centerfolds, Network anchors, reporters, newspapermen, electronic journalists, Sports Radio hosts, disc jockeys, mechanics, factory workers, gas station attendants etc.

The people who drain the treasury live and work in the Public Sector. These people include professors at public universities, public school teachers, politicians, soldiers, sailors, commissioned officers, judges, prosecutors, public defenders, cops, prison guards. These people are all paid by the tax payers: they are paid by the public and therefore they live and work in the Public Sector. These people use guns and bullets and cops and prosecutors and prisons and tax laws to force the private sector to hand over their cash to the public sector. A Playboy Centerfold, to some extent, uses cops and guns to force Hugh Hefner to pay her salary, but he might do it without any threat from the cops and the employment and wage laws. It would be rude of us to assume that he only pays the Centerfolds because the law compels him to. But the lovely centerfold girl must absolutely pay her taxes, or else she will be sent to prison, such as the one in Reform School Girls (Sybil Dinning etc.). Farmers would fall into in both categories, both the public sector and the private sector, as they receive public subsidies but they must also pay for many things in their agricultural operations out of their own pockets. Rich non-farmers also receive billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies in the USA, such is the nature of our eccentric system, but this is a tangential issue. Doctors and the lawyers are both private and public sector employees. They are public sector employees in the sense that the law limits the number of people who may practice law and medicine - thereby creating in effect government-protected unions. In some states one can still practice law if one studies on ones own and then passes the bar exam. But most states require one go to law school, and the government puts strict limitations on the number of accredited law schools which exist in the USA. And no one can practice medicine unless he has graduated from a government accredited medical school. But the lawyers and the doctor are also private sector employees, in the sense that they don't always use cops and guns and prosecutors and prisons to make the public pay money (taxes) to them via Socialized Medicine, e. g. Medicare. A defense contractor is a public sector sector employee. He is paid by a private firm, but his firm is paid by the government, and the government gets money by taking it from the Private Sector, or by borrowing it from future generations of Americans, or by borrowing it from foreigners, or by printing money etc.

The March 2009 issue of Imprimis has an interesting article from John C. Goodman entitled A Prescription for American Health Care. Dr. Goodman is the President of the National Center for Policy Analysis. He received his doctorate in economics from Columbia, has written nine books, and has taught at Columbia, Stanford, Dartmouth etc., etc. He states that Bernie Madoff could have gotten his Ponzi Scheme ideas by studying our politicians' federal entitlement policies. The problem is this: the baby boomers will soon be retiring by the millions. In the not too distant future many millions of people are going to stop working, stop paying taxes, and will instead begin collecting their entitlements. It's true that these retirees have paid money into the system, but, nevertheless, our politicians haven't designed the system correctly! The fact of the matter is that the younger people who are still working and paying taxes will have to pay more and more in taxes to cover the Medicare and Social Security expenses of their elders, or else the elders will see drastic cuts in their entitlements.

In 2012, Social Security and Medicare will consume one out of every ten general income tax dollars. In 2020 the federal government will need one out of every four general income tax dollars to fund Medicare and Social Security. By 2030, one out of every two income tax dollars will go to Medicare and Social Security. The dollar that is not spent on entitlements will have to be stretched rather creatively! From that dollar a few quarters will have to pay the interest on our gigantic national debt; a few pennies will have to go to the Pentagon; a few pennies will have to go the Department of Education, a few pennies to Homeland Security, to the Justice Dept, to the Agriculture Dept, to the State Dept, to the Commerce Dept, to the Transportation Dept, to the Energy Dept. etc. A few pennies from that one dollar will have to go to the CIA, the FBI, NATO, NASA, NSA and IRS. Now of course as soon as it becomes politically expedient for our politicians to make the old folks retire at a later age - such as when they drop dead - then that's what's in store for the old folks. But don't expect the politicians to take action before it becomes politically expedient to take that action.

Mr. Goodman informs us that Social Security is underfunded by $100 trillion dollars - that is, the federal government has promised to pay out, in the future, 100 trillion more dollars than it expects to receive in taxes or premiums. This is something which Mr. Goodman equates to a Bernie Madoff investment plan - a Ponzi scheme - with Uncle Sam playing the role of either Madoff or Ponzi. PBS's Frontline has, incidentally, a program one can watch online on Madoff which gives one a good introduction to his con game and to the general subject of government folly. A Wall Street analyst wrote the most detailed report on Madoff, explaining in intricate detail how Madoff had to be running a Ponzi Scheme. He sent his report to the SEC. The SEC ignored it. Everyone now agrees that a person would have to be a fool to think a man could honestly give an 18% return on investment for year after year. The SEC knew about Madoff, and yet it refused to seriously investigate Madoff. Believing that a man can deliver an honest 18% return on investment, year after year after year, is akin to believing in magic. The government seemed to have believed a consistent 18% return is possible. Is there any similarity between those SEC agents who couldn't understand that Madoff had to be a con man, and those people who can't understand that Social Security and Medicare are going broke? Recalling some embarrassing gossip at the SEC, no doubt it is difficult or impossible to drag oneself away from all the naked and beautiful girls on the internet.

There is of course a huge distinction to be made when an individual American goes broke and when the USA goes broke. If you give your life saving to Bernie Madoff, and if he proceeds to squander all of your money, then you're really up a creek. But if the USA goes bust, she still has millions and millions of acres of fertile agricultural lands, and crops can still be sown and reaped. Even if the USA is dead broke, she still has some guns to keep the Canadians at bay should they try to grab anything from the USA when she's down. And we will still have skyscrapers and freeways and coal mines and oil fields and farmers and farms and the wherewithal to produce food even if the USA is dead broke and practically sleeping in the gutter. If worse comes to worst the USA can always declare martial law and use the military to get the food to the stores. When a nation goes bust, it still has its natural resources and its infrastructure and its agricultural lands in which to grow food. It still has the means to carry on as long as the people have the will to carry on. In Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth we read about dirt-poor farmers on the Dakota prairie. They almost made it! But the wife went insane after plagues of locusts ate all of the crops for the second or third straight year. If the USA goes broke it is no big deal, in fact we went broke a long time ago, our creditors simply haven't wised up to that fact!

If an individual gives all of his money to Bernie Madoff, and if Bernie simply could not get him anything close to an 18% return, and, furthermore, if he can't find any sort of employment that he can tolerate - then he might have to beg or steal to survive. It's tough nowadays for many to find work that they don't hate. A fraternity brother of mine once told me that on his job as a bill collector, some of the people he was trying to collect money from would describe to him, going into minute detail, the sorts of sexual perversions that they would subject him to if he ever showed his face round their doors. He needed a job, and when times are tough, so they say, you might have to take a job that you don't like. What we all want are nice, soft, comfy, government jobs with delightful and fascinating co-workers, with full benefits and no chance of layoffs, with slim chances of termination, and with retirement at 90% pay starting at age of 55. But so often what we want and what we get seem to be very different things.

One is forever hearing right-wingers saying that our healthcare system is based on the free enterprise system and it must remain that way. Are they insane? The US government controls the way medicine is practiced in the USA more than the Soviet government controlled healthcare in the USSR. The US government controls the number of doctors by controlling the number of medical schools; it controls how the doctors will be sued if they make errors; it controls what compensatory and punitive damages will be leveled against doctors if the make mistakes; it controls the whole Medicare and Medicaid system; it dictates the amount of taxes the doctors must pay; it dictates laws telling doctors how they are to comport themselves with their patients; the US government might yank the doctor's license if the doctor becomes romantically involved with a patient, or if, fatigued from working long hours, his sense of decorum lapses for a few seconds while examining a lovely lady. The government can drive good pediatricians right out of business and into bankruptcy via a civil code which permits people to sue pediatricians for enormous damages after a pediatrician either makes an honest mistake or no mistake at all. We have here the trial lawyers' union battling the doctors' union. The doctors and the insurance companies will pass the costs on to the public, but if the government and the trial lawyers squeeze the doctors so tightly that the doctors and the insurance companies squeeze the public so tightly, then, ultimately, even rich doctors can go bust and then pregnant women won't be able to find doctors to deliver their babies.

Public sector employees make their money because the government threatens private sector employees with prison if they don't pay their taxes, money which the government then gives to the public sector people. But this doesn't mean everyone in the private sector is an angel. The public sector has some contempt for the private sector because so much in the private sector looks juvenile and piddling to public sector people, such as professors. One might say that the Chevy Camaro, the Ford Mustang and the Dodge Challenger are works of art, and if you can't see the enormous stylistic differences between them, then that's because you don't understand art. But when we talk about the beer and soft-drink industry, it's inane to say that Coke is better than Pepsi, or vice versa. The CEOs at Budweiser, Coors, Miller, Coke and Pepsi make their money by promising to increase the market share of their products, and they increase market share by hiring better ad agencies which make better commercials than their competitors, certainly not by making better products than their competitors. This is because it's impossible to improve on their products. The only way these products could be improved and made more pleasing to the public is if they contained forbidden drugs, but, obviously, adding drugs to soft drinks will cause soft drink makers to get busted and sent to prison. To say that Reeboks are better than Converse, or to say that either are inferior to Nike, sounds idiotic to people trained in logic and philosophy. Our entire advertising industry seems to profit from the fact that there are billions of people in the world who can be easily manipulated by slick advertising and easily enticed to hand over their cash. The university professor sees the business world as a world inhabited by juveniles, but, nevertheless, the university professor has to use all the paraphernalia of the State - cops and guns and bullets, tax laws and prisons and prosecutors - to make the juveniles in the business world hand over their taxes to the public university professors and to all the other public sector employees. And if you are using cops and bullets and prisons and prosecutors in order to make people give their money to you, then you have to be very careful to make sure you are not in conflict with Justice, Equity and Divine Law.

Priests, ministers and rabbis are private sector employees in the USA. The government gives then some tax breaks, but the government gives lots of people tax breaks. Priests, ministers and rabbis earn their money via voluntary contributions from their flocks. We don't have any established Churches in the USA. No money is raised from taxes and given to any clergymen. Clergymen don't use cops and bullets, prisons and prosecutors to make people hand over their money to the government, which will then hand the money over to the clergymen so that they can make comfortable livings. A priest, minister or a rabbi is adding wealth to the USA, if, via inspiring sermons, or by just offering a gentle smile and a comforting shoulder to cry on, he helps people get through their struggles from week to week, helping them to cope with heartache and all turmoil which hit modern families: deaths, diseases, car accidents, drug abuse, the struggles to earn a living, the struggles surrounding divorce, alcohol, juvenile delinquency, unemployment, domestic violence etc., etc. And if he preaches a creed which leads to salvation and not to perdition, then so much the better.

Lawyers live in the Shadow-land which encompasses both the private and the public sectors; they are the beneficiaries of government protection: the government gives employment to thousands of lawyers: to lawyers who bring frivolous lawsuits and to lawyers who must defend their companies against frivolous lawsuits. If the government did not permit frivolous law suits to proceed, thousands of lawyers would have to look for another line of work, because they could not make any money as lawyers. The government has essentially designed a workfare program for judges, lawyers, paralegals, investigators, legal secretaries, clerks etc. The corporations must spend billions of dollars on these people so that the corporations can defend themselves against frivolous law suits. This workfare system is ultimately paid, as is everything else is ultimately paid, by the Private Sector, because the corporations and their insurance companies pay their legal expenses by passing these expenses on to the private sector in the form of higher retail prices. One can say that people get the government they deserve, but kids suffer under the wretched laws made by the befuddled adults.

When millions of people are not producing wealth, they need to be trained or re-trained. Many public schools are essentially worthless in training people to produce wealth, though, generally speaking, this is not the teachers' fault. How do you teach science and literature and history to kids who hate scholarship? Most American kids are only inspired by a few things: personal relationships and parties, video games and TV, sports and music. And of course we're looking into the idea which says: if the public schools were more contentions, more like arenas where gladiators fight to the death, so to speak, where religious arguments and religious doctrines are taught and discussed and fought over, then kids might become inspired to become more intellectually astute.

The Democrats have the public school teachers and the university professors and the university administrators and all of the university employees in their back pockets, because the Democrats say: we'll help you moneywise as long as you vote Democratic. California has terrible unemployment problems but it is a boom time for some Public Sector employees there: prison guards and bus drivers are making over $100,000 per year. The Democrats can win elections only by aligning themselves with Public Sector employees. The Republicans have traditionally had the military-industrial complex in their back pockets, telling people who profit from defense contracts that they will continue to profit as long as Republicans are elected, but, generally speaking, the Republican Party is the party of small business. Politicians simply send money in the form of jobs to people to secure their votes, though of course they insist they have the best interests of the nation at heart. Political Party X, in order to take care of its core supporters in the future might have to tell these core supporters: we will take care of you, and we will give you a job, and we will give you all the essentials you and your family need to have a happy life, but in return you have to work hard and you have to vote for Political Party X. Party X, to fulfill its promise to its supporters, might have to take more and more control of the means of production in all of the key industries: mining, steel production, auto making, construction, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, transportation etc., etc. Of course the government controls basically controls everything right now via regulation and tax laws, but if this system drives the nation into financial and economic ruin, then a new economic system will have to be tried.

Whether a single payer healthcare system is used or whether a system run by insurance companies is used, neither system will work very well if the USA doesn't drastically increases her number of doctors and nurses. We actually have many thousands of qualified people who are now excluded from medical and nursing schools, even though they could be trained to be perfectly good doctors and nurses. If a nation has a huge population, and if that nation has a relatively small number of doctors and nurses, there can not fail to be painful rationing of healthcare services, regardless if the government makes the tough rationing decisions or if the government delegates these tough decisions to the insurance companies. Under the British system the British government won't pay more than $45,000 to buy medical care to give a patient one additional year of life. If a nation does not have infinite riches, then that nation will have to decide who will live and who will die when it decides how it spends its finite amount of money. There's too much brainpower going into accounting and engineering and law when a lot of this needs be diverted into the medical profession. The USA will never get a good and affordable health care system unless it drastically increases her supply of doctors.

The Roman Empire had a huge Public Sector. Donald R. Dudley states in his The Civilization of Rome (Mentor, 1962, p. 241),

`The excessive demands of the State were, without doubt, the chief cause of the final downfall of the West.'

After the Western half of the Roman Empire fell in the 5th century, under the onslaught of the Germanic barbarians, everything in the West came under the control of localized governments. These were led by chieftains - by counts and dukes who would produce the aristocracies which would rule France, Germany and Italy in the coming centuries. Michelet and Lactantius, the former being a distinguished 19th century French historian, the latter one of the last of the Church Fathers to live under the persecuting pagans before the Roman Empire became Christian in the 4th century, describe for us the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. We find the following in Jules Michelet's Histoire de France (translation from the French by Walter K. Kelley),

`Nothing can be more terrific than the picture Lactantius has left us of this murderous strife between the greedy fisc and the powerless population, who could suffer and die, but not pay: "So great were become the multitude of those who received, compared with the number of those who were to pay, such the enormity of the imposts, that the strength of the husbandmen failed them, the fields were deserted, the cultivated lands were changed into forests...every human being was registered; nothing was heard but whips and cries of torture. The faithful slave was tortured to force him to declare against his master, the wife against her husband, the son against his father; and for want of other testimony men were tortured to force them to depose against themselves; and when they gave way, overcome by pain, the inquisitors wrote down what they had not said...men were dying off, and still the tax was exacted from the dead."...The accession of Constantine and of Christianity was an event of joy and hope...The mere sight of the triumphal cross was a comfort to every heart. That sign of universal equality inspired vague and boundless hopes; all men believed that they had reached the end of their miseries. Christianity, however, could do nothing to relieve the physical sufferings of society. The Christian emperors provided no more remedy for these than their predecessors...The barbarians are coming then; the old social system is doomed; the long work of conquest, bondage, and depopulation, is near its term...The great name of Empire, that idea of equality under a monarch, so opposite to the aristocratic principle of Germany, has been deposited in the land by Rome. The barbarian kings will turn it to their own advantage. Cultivated by the church, and assented to by popular usage, it will make its way through Charlemagne and through St. Louis, will lead us step by step to the annihilation of aristocracy, to equality, to the equity of modern times...The imperial universality is destroyed, but Catholic universality appears. The primacy of Rome and of St. Peter begins dimly and obscurely to dawn...The order of St. Benedict gives the ancient world, worn out by slavery, the first example of toil accomplished by the hands of freemen. For the first time the citizen, humbled by the ruin of the city, bends his looks upon that earth which he has despised. He bethinks him of the toil ordained in the beginning of the world by the doom pronounced on Adam. This great innovation of free and voluntary labour is to be the basis of modern existence.'

Our system of tax collection employs guns, prisons and policemen to transfer wealth from the private sector to the public sector. Money is taken from Hollywood producers and given to Army and Navy officers and enlisted personnel. The government takes bread out of the mouths of the children of factory workers, so to speak, and is gives this money to the children of public school teachers. If you refuse to pay your taxes, and if the State gets wind of your little rebellion, the State will use lethal force if necessary to see that you are punished. The movies help us visualize the pressures which people in the public and private sectors experience in our pressure-cooker world. Glengarry Glen Ross gives us the agonizing lives of salesmen. They're being squeezed by a system which basically gives them two options: either close sales or drop dead. Recall when Jonathan Price was trying to get out of the condo deal he signed with the real estate agent Al Pacino. Sales manager Kevin Spacey lets it slip that they still had the check and could return it to Price, and then Pacino went postal when he saw he had lost the nice commission. If property taxes and income taxes were not so oppressive, if the Teachers Unions and the Public Schools and the Pentagon and Medicare and Social Security and the Departments of Education, Transportation, Homeland Security etc., etc., were not grabbing so aggressively at people's cash, it would not be so maddeningly difficult to sell houses and condos to these people.

Our tax collectors don't collect taxes by going door-to-door with orders to either take citizens into custody or get checks from these citizens to pay the taxes they owe the government. We don't write a series of checks to tax collectors every year - a check for the federal income tax, a check to cover the state income tax, a check to pay for the local schools, a check to pay for the police department, a check for the fire department, a check to pay for those on welfare, a check for the hospital tax, a check to cover roads and bridges, a check to help pay for a judgment against the city in a civil law suit - the Bob Packwoodesque fire-chief couldn't restrain himself from fondling some irresistible lady firefighters - and now the tax payers must pay large sums to these ladies after they won a big settlement with the city. If people paid their taxes this way they would be aggravated about the inconvenience, but they would also be more energetic in voicing their ire about the taxes, and they would be more energetic in explaining to their elected representatives that they were no longer going to tolerate: lousy schools, violent criminals running loose, the soaring national debt etc.

It stands to reason that one of the results of squeezing the Private Sector too tightly is that the Private Sector will sacrifice quality and will aim for the easy buck. `If it bleeds it leads' is the motto of every local TV news show driven to get the highest ratings to maximize revenue from advertisers. If you are a Hollywood film producer crushed under taxes and a juvenile public which will pay to see blood and nubile bodies but won't pay to see art, then you will be more inclined to make a movie about lesbian vampires, or perhaps a timely sequel to Teenage Catgirls in Heat, rather than make a poignant art house film which will no doubt lose money.

There are a few ways to deal with a debt: 1) pay it off according the terms originally agreed to, 2) threaten to declare bankruptcy and then renegotiate a lower interest rate and an easier repayment schedule, 3) declare bankruptcy and forget about the repayment part of the loan altogether, 4) make the debt more bearable by spreading its burden over more backs, i.e., open the borders. Rapidly expanding the population to expand the number of tax payers would spread the burden of the national debt over more backs. Letting the population of the USA grow to one or two billion people is a nightmare scenario to environmentalists, but, with some intelligent city planning, the USA would easily be able to accommodate a population of 2 billion.

To have a vibrant housing industry a nation needs to either build shabby houses which will need to be razed and replaced every other decade, or else it needs to be continually expanding its population, continually ensuring that there will be a demand for millions of excellent new houses built every year for the multiplying masses. To have a healthy construction industry the USA will need to build more office buildings, more high-rise condos, more sky-scrappers, more shopping centers, more freeways, more bridges, more streets and sewers etc., etc. If the population doesn't grow there will be no need to build more of these things. If there is no need to build more of these things construction workers will have to be retrained to do something other than construction work. Not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, teacher, professor, actor, musician, mercenary etc. Where will the crane operator making $50 per hour go when he loses his job? The Service Industry offers many $9 per hour jobs. This is enough to permit a single person to live in luxury by the standards of living in luxury in rural New Mexico, and it's enough to raise a family on, provided the family lives in a hovel and subsists on a diet of water and cat food.

To have a domestic auto industry which employs well-paid union labor, and which is able to survive when foreign auto makers employ cheaper foreign labor, we'll need many more millions of Americans who will be wealthy enough to buy, every few years, new Fords, Chevys and Dodges. If the USA throws open her borders and rapidly expands her population, the nightmare scenario is that the nation will become a huge concrete ghetto. If the USA keeps her borders and her population under strict controls, the nightmare scenario is that the grabbing hands of the Public Sector will strangle the Private Sector.

One vision for a America has strip malls and fast food joints, freeways and three-bedroom split-levels, concrete public housing projects and gas stations stretching from sea to shining sea. Another vision would resemble a Thomas Kincaid scene, with cozy cottages by limpid streams in the foreground, and with towering pines and the forest primeval in the background. The only way to avoid the former and to secure the latter is to have a powerful government place powerful restrictions on the people. Doing this will mean stepping on the downtrodden masses clamoring for work, for a chance to breath free, for a chance at prosperity, happiness and the American Dream.

§ 31. Minneapolis - St. Paul.

The history of wealth creation in my hometown \- Minneapolis - St.Paul - is interesting and instructive. Mark Twain remarked on the explosive growth of these cities in `Life on the Mississippi'. In 1900 there was a metropolis on the same land, which, in 1800, there was basically nothing. In the 17th century, Pierre Esprit Radisson and Sieur des Groseilliers, two of the Sun King's subjects, where the first white men to visit the land that would become Minnesota. Radisson saw Lake Superior as the `delightfullest lake in the world'. He speculated that the land surrounding the lake would become a `laborinth of pleasure' for masses of European immigrants. Great wealth in Minnesota was essentially created via the followed this formula: timber harvesting and iron ore mining created the Capital which led to the floor milling industry which led to the financial and high tech and medical industries of the 21st century. The raw material which we call the human intellect was relatively unimportant in the timber business; it became more important in farming and in building railroads, in mining iron ore and in flour milling; and of course brains are everything in the high tech industries. William E. Lass admirably describes how brains and raw materials create wealth in his `Minnesota: A History' (W.W. Norton, 1998). To give a brief paraphrase of the book: winter wheat yielded higher profits than spring wheat because it was softer and it produced white flour, which is what customers demand. But Minnesota could not grow winter wheat: it was a spring wheat land, and spring wheat has a tough grain with a brittle bran coat. All four parts of the kernel - the bran coat, the gluten cells, the starchy interior and the embryo were crushed between the grist stones. The resulting mash was dark because of the bran flakes, and the oily embryos caused the flour to swiftly turn rancid. With winter wheat, the bran coats cracked whole, and could be sifted out; with spring wheat the gluten layer broke into particles which separated from the flour; one can't lose the gluten as it is the most nutritious part of the wheat kernel, and it enables the flour to rise during baking. Spring wheat is richer in gluten than winter wheat, so it ought to be more profitable, but millers had to discover a way to grind the spring wheat gluten and the starch together, and yet not lose it when they sifted out the bran. A French engineer by the name La Croix was hired to solve the problem. He developed a device with moving sieves, covered by an air blast, which separated the bran from rest of the kernel. This process was only a first step in modern flour milling; the next step discarded milling stones altogether in favor of steel rollers. After either borrowing or stealing technology developed by Hungarian millers - Hungary being another land full of spring wheat - Minneapolis soon became America's leading flour producing area. Mr. Lass's book goes on to give more examples of how capital and brains produce wealth. William C. Norris, an electrical engineer and a naval intelligence officer in World War II, founded Control Data Corp and Engineering Research Associates, the later firm became part of Remington Rand, which became part of Sperry Rand. The story of corporate activity in Minneapolis - St. Paul deals with giants such as 3M, Honeywell, Sperry Rand, Medtronic, Delta Airlines, General Mills, Pillsbury etc., which is all rather amazing, because, again, 200 years ago there was nothing but a few Indian villages on the land which is now the metropolis of Minneapolis - St. Paul! In Travels with Charlie, Steinbeck says he always wanted to see the Twin Cities. He said he never saw them, even though he spent 4 hours driving across them in 1960; he was surrounded by huge cement trucks, and no end of other cars and trucks on the freeways. No doubt one can find similar stories of innovation, of enormous economic growth in wealth and infrastructure and technology in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix etc., etc. Not too many generations ago, there were only prairies or forests or deserts to be seen on the land where these great cities now sit. Consider how noble and aristocratic our industries have become in recent decades. In the beginning, there was the accursed, ignoble, savage, bloody fur-trade. How disgusting! To trap a little animal, to kill it, to tear its hide and fur off its carcass; to sew a number of these pelts together; to give some trinkets or iron implements or whiskey to the Indians in exchange for these furs, and then to sell these furs to fashion-conscious Europeans, was the focal point of the White Man's Profiteering Vision for his first few hundred years in the New World. The dream was to find a short-cut to Cathay and the Spice Islands, but the short-cut never materialized, and, while it was being sought, tearing the hides off of animals was found to be the most profitable way a Christian could spend his time in North America. Today we have become so much more sophisticated and so much less sanguinary in the way we make money, witness the Pharmaceutical Industry, the Chemical Industry, the Computer Industry, the Petroleum Industry, the Bio-Tech Industry etc., etc. Everyone knows how the sublime and the hideous, the beautiful and the embarrassing, clash in close proximity in the USA. Drive south out of Minneapolis on 169, past the old Indian communes with their tribal names of Savage and Shakopee. Beyond Jordan the whole area seems depressed, at least when judged by the aristocratic standards set by Minneapolis' more aristocratic suburbs. In the northern part of the state, say on the drive up Mt. Joesphine, just below the Canadian line, one beholds no end of sublime scenery: Isle Royale lit up in the golden light of the sunset: the great blue expanse of Lake Superior gives a maritime feel to these North Woods. But in the southern part of the state, which is either urban, suburban, or else the farmlands predominate, one has less by way of magnificent scenery to compensate the poor for being poor. Minneapolis wars against the Middle Class by forbidding outboard motors on her lakes, and, so far, no court has struck this ordinance down, saying one has the right to blow people's ear drums out by revving a huge engine, as this isa free speech right protected by Amendments I. and XIV. The rich in Minneapolis want their pristine lakes and parks to stay pristine. It's as if the rich in Minneapolis make money via some sort of effortless magic, whereas the denizens of: New Prague, New Ulm, New London, New Trier and a hundred other old, dilapidated towns must scratch and claw for every dollar. The State, struggling terribly under the Bush Tax Cuts, resembles Dante's Inferno. The malebolges are the poverty-stricken places. The tormented souls are the people who fight to survive in those places. Not everyone is making obscene profits from ethanol subsidies or Indian gaming. Not everyone finds new processes akin to transforming spring wheat into white flour into yellow gold. Not everyone knows how to fashion new conduits for electrons which the masses will pay billions of dollars to obtain. Driving south beyond Belle Plaine for a few miles, and then turning west, one soon finds the bridge at Blakeley over the Minnesota River. There's some dilapidated grandeur to the little hamlet. The Minnesota River Valley is haunted by ghosts and the memory of murdered men, women and children. It had its Sicilian Vespers and Massacre of St. Bartholomew in the summer of 1862. 350 whites were slaughtered by the Sioux. The Indians were enraged at being cheated out of their land, and cheated out of some money. When the government crushed the Indians, it generally did so by crushing innocent Indian women and children, as most of the murderers had fled the State. Women and children were crowded into captivity. They died by the hundreds from the diseases which are bred in close captivity.

Leaving Blakeley, to pass on to the other side of the river Styx, where one can drive to the top of a high eminence, leave ones car, walk through a glade of trees, and, here between Blakeley and Belle Plaine, gaze down upon a sublime bend in the river. The enchanting vista will remind one of the Rhine and the Moselle. Wonderful though the prospect is, the overpowering stench of pig manure might be the most memorable sensation one receives on ones excursion into the Minnesota countryside that day. When one samples a slice of Americana pie one has to be prepared for anything. After he finished high school, Eric Severeid - who was in that Circle of Immortals at CBS News along with Walter Cronkite, Marvin Kalb, Roger Mudd, Richard Threlkeld etc. - paddled a canoe with a friend up the Minnesota River and down the Red River of the North until they reached Hudson Bay, and wrote about it in `Canoeing with the Cree'. Apropos of the Minnesota River 250 years ago, Lass quotes the words of Jonathan Carver - an Englishman who explored the region before the American Revolution,

`[It] flows through a most delightful country, abounding with all the necessaries of life...wild rice grows in great abundance; and every part is filled with trees bending under their loads of fruits, such as plums, grapes, and apples; the meadows are covered with hops, and many sorts of vegetables; whilst the ground is stored with useful roots, with angelica, spikenard and ground-nuts...At a little distance from the sides of the river are eminences, from which you have views which cannot be exceeded even by the most beautiful of those I have already described; amidst these are delightful groves, and such amazing quantities of maples, that they would produce sugar for any number of inhabitants.'

Wealth has multiplied with extraordinary speed, and yet people might not be too much happier now than they were 200 years ago. Anesthetics and antibiotics and modern medicine can certainly bring immense joy into ones life. In the Civil War one got a bullet to bite on and some whisky to deaden the pain when the surgeon sawed through ones leg bone. As for planes and computers, excellent flour and reliable pacemakers, cars and cell phones and films and stereos, these are less fruitful in bringing true happiness. But the descendants of the European masses, as Radisson foresaw, have indeed poured in, to wrestle the land away from the native inhabitants.

We can certainly find `laborinths of pleasure' in the USA. But things haven't worked out wonderfully for everyone. On his March to the Sea William Tecumseh Sherman promised 40 acres and a mule to every slave that he and his army had liberated. That was one of those promises which was never quite kept. Perhaps every American has a fundamental right to 40 acres and, if not a mule, then at least a Ford or a Chevy. No doubt we must re-engineer the whole scheme of Academia, where the idiocy of publish or perish is the rule. How sensible is it give a few scholars tenure, at the expense of other many other scholars, merely because the former are more adept at publishing insignificant little articles in insignificant little magazines than are the latter?

To those who need carnal images and licentious metaphors to remember what's going on in the USA, we have, 1) Conservatives are in bed with the Big Military-Industrial Complex, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big FOX News, Big Talk Radio, Big Pharma, Big Bankers etc., 2) Liberals strip and offer their naked bodies to the lusty embraces of the Unions and the Universities, 3) Hollywood - one of our Superstars in the Private Sector - is strangely repressed and puritanical in matters of philosophy. She sees herself as a dirty whore whenever she cheats on Liberalism and has a fling with Conservatism. Hollywood can be extraordinarily uptight and judgmental at times, shockingly priggish! Certainly there is no confusion in seeing that the Feminists, the Trial Lawyers, the Teachers Unions, and the Professors and Administrators of the Big Diploma Factories all lust after the voluptuous curves of Political Correctness.

The reasons that male lawyers gave when they argued that it is best to keep females out of the legal profession were, 1) there are vicious and nasty things that you have to see and hear in prosecuting and defending vicious criminals, and women should be spared the trauma of seeing and hearing this viciousness, 2) even in civil law, a good lawyer has to be a tough fighter who will take no prisoners when he is defending his clients, and women should be spared the indignity of having to watch their characters' degenerate into the condition of a snarling, contentious, court-room brawler which one must become often enough in order to competently defend clients. But, perhaps, an unstated reason that males wanted to keep 50% of the population out of the legal profession has to do with money and making money - if you can eliminate 50% of your competition, then, this might enable you to succeed in your legal practice, whereas, bankruptcy might be your fate if the USA doubles the number of lawyers you will have to compete against in your struggle to acquire clients.

The government, seeking to give work to tax lawyers, and accountants, and a tax preparers etc., seeking also to give pork to special interest groups, and to do the giving in clandestine ways, by hiding the pork inside convoluted tax laws, thereby winning votes for the politicians dispensing the clandestine pork, essentially, drugs and incapacitates the people with a convoluted tax code. The government tries to crush the will of the people to rebel against harsh taxation by slamming their brains with a lot of complicated verbiage - `You can deduct only part of your medical and dental expenses that exceed 7.5% of the amount on Form 1040, line 38...You cannot deduct insurance premiums paid with pretax dollars because the premiums are not included in box 1 of your Form(s) W-2. If you are a retired public safety officer, you can not deduct any premiums you paid to the extent they were paid for with a tax-free distribution from your retirement plan...'

The government essentially slips the date rape drug to the tax payers. It knocks them out with a lot of complicated instructions concerning percentages, deductions, values not to exceed 4.7 % of box 17 of line 38C from Form 1037X, 41 cents per mile if the twister struck Kansas after 7 pm on a Tuesday, or take the gas and oil, and then the government proceeds to take money from their dazed victims who are in no condition to put up any resistance.

The universe indeed throws a good deal of complexity at us. To be a neurosurgeon, a petroleum engineer, a film maker etc., one has to deal with enormous complexities in order to accomplish the tasks one is trained to accomplish. The question is: how complex must our tax laws, and our accounting laws, and our financial laws, and our healthcare laws be in order to uphold wisdom and justice? In the Enron scandal, we had the situation where a corporation was able hide enormous debt held by its subsidiaries, because, our accounting laws are very complex, and Enron executives were able to convince Enron shareholders that Enron was rich, when in fact Enron was drowning in debt. The guilty executives of Enron were culpable for destroying the life savings of citizens, but the government of the USA was also responsible, because it was the government which made the idiotically convoluted accounting laws which enabled the wily businessmen to hide mountains of debt from shareholders.

§ 32. Symbolism in Literature and the Modern Cinema.

In Classical Socialism, the government owns and controls the means of production: the government owns all of the industries, and the government decrees what job the individual will perform and what he will be paid. Our version of Socialism is a system where the government invites businesses and individuals to work and make money with the promise that it will not take all of their money away in taxes. It is a version of Socialism because the government drowns the system in red tape and regulations and taxes, and this makes the USA veer far closer to Socialism than to Capitalism, in the sense that the government is taking money from millions of people in the private sector and giving this money to millions of workers in the public sector - and there is an aura of Socialism about that sort of transfer of wealth, as the transfer is made with the threat of force: either hand over your money in taxes or you will go to prison. The relationship between those who pay money into to the treasury - private sector workers - and those who drain money from the treasury - public sector workers - is supposed to work like a marriage, where each of the two halves of the beautiful union pulls their weight as they live in wedded bliss. But, sometimes, relationships don't work out the way we want them to! Our dysfunctional American Public Sector / Private Sector Class Struggle resembles the sibling relationship in `Whatever Happened to Baby Jane'? Here, Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) relies on the money of her invalid sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford). Blanche symbolizes the Private Sector because she puts the money into treasury in this relationship. Jane symbolizes the Public Sector because she drains the treasury. She's the sponger. She's a parasite who is always taking but never giving. Jane serves up a dead rat to Blanche for dinner. Then Jane murders their cleaning lady. Then Jane either murders, or almost murders Blanche on a California beach, by not giving her water to drink. Then Jane dances in front of the cops, while, a few feet away, Blanche has either passed away from dehydration or is close to death. At the beginning of the movie we see the young Jane, the Baby Jane, screaming: I WANT ICE CREAM, and so the movie ends with the superannuated Jane holding two ice cream cones, dancing near her dead sister, dancing on the beach before some cops and some girls in bikinis. So you see what happens when the Public Sector gets greedy and dominates the Private Sector! If you've never seen the movie I've really ruined it for you!

Tennessee Williams' `A Street Car Named Desire' captures the essence of America in its dramatic symbolism. The cinematic version starring Marlon Brando and Karl Malden is first-rate. Blanche Dubois represents Liberalism. Stanley Kowalski symbolizes Conservatism. Stanley produces wealth via the labor he sells in the Free Market. Blanche sponges off of Stanley and his lovely bride Stella, who symbolizes all the familiar virtues of Americans: unpretentiousness, generosity, unflagging good cheer. In America we have many crass and uneducated louts who sell their labor in the Free Market. Nevertheless they don't rely on the kindness of strangers. We also have in America many poetic souls and artists and intellectuals who have all the finer attributes which Blanche had, but they, like her, rely on the kindness of strangers, that is, they work for the government and they rely on the kindness of the tax payers. Of course we are dealing with stereotypes and myths to some degree. There are ruthless or heroic Liberal industrialists who tear raw materials out of the bowels of the earth and who then mold these minerals into titanic material wealth. And there are Conservatives who drive Navy boats round the oceans all day long on the tax payers' dime. But, in the stereotype, the Conservative is the tough guy or the woman of ice and steel who thrives in the economic jungle, whereas the Liberal is the poetic and sensitive soul, too delicate a flower to long survive in this cruel, cut-throat economic jungle. Without stereotypes and generalities it is impossible to employ symbols in film and literature.

In any event, America has some uneducated brutes who toil like Stanley Kowalski in the Private Sector. And America has some poetic souls who rely on guns and cops and tax laws and prisons and all of the lethal paraphernalia of a Modern State which is unleashed to compel tax payers to hand over their cash to the Public Sector. Of course if a Public Sector employee is doing a good job at a necessary job, then there is no problem; but, if she's a slacker, if she's sponging off the system, then we have a problem. Stanley Kowalski knew his rights under the Napoleonic Code. If his sister-in-law, Blanche, swindled his wife, Stella, out of the Dubois estate, then his sister-in-law swindled him. Blanche had been a school teacher `on the slow parade to the graveyard' before she was fired for seducing one of her seventeen-year-old charges - a typical Liberal slip-up! Blanche is the incarnation of the Me-Generation. She is a faded beauty who sees herself as the epitome of feminine perfection, a youngish sort of grande dame. After she was fired from her job teaching school she had to rent her body to the lusty embraces of strange men in cheap hotels to make money to survive. Soon enough she begins to live in a dream world. She conjures friends and gentlemen admirers out of her torn psyche. She hears voices in her head. Blanche is cracked - rather as Liberalism is cracked. Stanley Kowalski - the Conservative Principle - discovered the truth about Blanche Dubois - the Liberal Principle, and he told these Truths to his pal, played by Karl Malden. This pal is the embodiment of the innocent, good-natured, honest, hard-working, clean-cut but narrow-minded and moralistic American. He learns wisdom from the Conservative Principle. He's either going to have to accept the Liberal Madwoman as she is, and never stop loving her, even while suffering all the consequences which must result whenever you marry a madwoman, or else he will have to run from her. And he indeed he dumps her. And that really tears Blanche up on the inside, cause she loved the guy.

The cross Blanche must bear is having been cursed with the artistic temperament without being blessed with much artistic talent. No one will give her a penny for her poetry. She'll never make a serviceable housefrau or career woman because those options are not open to her with her artistic temperament. She descends into poverty and is essentially homeless. In Blanche's eyes, Stanley is a dumb Pollack: a brute, a Neanderthal. Liberals certainly recall such epithets when they conjure up the image of Fox News and Conservatives - Brutes and Neanderthals every last one of them! To Stanley, Blanche and Stella are a pair of `queens.' Stanley quotes Huey Long to substantiate his argument that every man is a king. Stanley rapes Blanche to show her she's a phony queen, a pretentious prostitute who thinks she's better than people like Stanley. And of course Liberals think Conservatives rape the Land, rape the Poor, the Liberals, the Minorities, the Homeless, the Children, The Past, the Present, The Future etc., etc. In Radical Feminist Mythology - all men, even Liberal Men, are destroyers. A literary symbol pertinent to this theme is provided by the pen of Tolstoi. In Anna Karenina Vronsky entered a horse race where the horses must leap tall obstacles. Before the race the mare Vronsky was riding was trembling uncontrollably - fearing she would suffer pain in the race which was about to start. And indeed she died in a fall during that race. At the end of Anna Karenina, Anna, having lost Vronsky's love, commits suicide by throwing herself under a moving locomotive. Therefore, because of his careless handling of the mare, and because of his cruel abandonment of Anna, Vronsky symbolizes all careless or heartless male seducers and destroyers of females. Novelists have to be very careful if their symbolism seems artificial and contrived, in that one does not want to destroy the pathos of the scene where the horse dies by having the reader thinking: the mare is merely a symbol: Tolstoy is destroying her just as he will destroy Anna at the end of the novel. In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Jim Prideaux wrings the neck of the Soviet agent at the end of the novel, and, earlier in the novel, Jim is teaching a French class at an English school, and the classroom has a hearth and a chimney, and he inadvertently smokes an owl out of its nest in the chimney. He wrings the neck of the owl, foreshadowing what he will do to the neck of Soviet agent. But wringing the necks of birds is out of Jim Prideaux's character - he is at heart gentle man - except when he deals with traitors - and therefore the symbolism is a little contrived and it detracts from the novel.

Right at the beginning of the 20th century we see the appearance of two great masterpieces of spy fiction: `The Riddle of the Sands' from Erskine Childers and `The Secret Agent' from Joseph Conrad. Childers was a British war hero who earned medals for valor in South Africa and in World War I. And yet he was later executed by the British as a traitor, as he was active in the fight for Irish independence. Conrad, a Polish nobleman in exile, who was fluent in French before he was fluent in English, was a sea captain and a disciple of the meticulous art of Gustave Flaubert. Conrad was a star in the rhetorical school where the fashion was to create elaborate and sublime sentences by harnessing the unique powers of the English language, powers which Shakespeare had put on display for all to see centuries ago. The art of rhetoric can flourish in English but rhetoric can also pass quickly out of fashion. Shakespeare wrote a lot of great lines, but often he piles it on far too thick. Few literary styles are more repellant than a Gongorism which is not expertly managed. Melville's Moby Dick would be the pre-eminent 19th century example of exalted English rhetoric. Joseph Conrad, Hart Crane, Malcolm Lowry and Jack Kerouac were the main practitioners of exalted English in the 20th century. Joyce was trying to be funny when he wrote in elevated language. But Conrad, Crane, Lowry and Kerouac were being serious; and whenever one is writing with fancy, sesquipedalian words and elaborate sentences while also trying to be serious - that is trying to create literary art, trying to evoke emotions of grandeur and pathos in the reader - then one is walking a tightrope without a net, as it is so easy to fall into nonsense when one is tossing fancy words around while also trying to be serious. The less stylistic, more down-to-earth school of writing, at least in the genre of espionage novels, culminates in the works of John Le Carré, where, for instance, in his The Looking Glass War, the technique is to pile detail upon detail until a powerful portrait emerges: the attention span of the mass-market audience is never broken because the themes of espionage, fear, betrayal and violent death will hold the reader's attention - whereas in Balzac's work, for instance, where mundane folk are presented in less sensational situations, an author has to dig deeply into his bag of tricks to capture and hold the reader's attention. The main weapon in Le Carré's arsenal of tricks is that he is able to convey the impression that he knows everything there is to know about how the British government conducts her espionage and counter-espionage operations. In any event, Childers, Conrad, Buchan, William F. Buckley Jr., Frederick Forsythe, Ian Fleming and John Le Carré are the brightest stars which shine in the spy novel sky. In the popular culture James Bond is the pre-eminent character from spy fiction, though many might prefer Le Carré's George Smiley. In Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy Smiley exposes a British traitor, a double-agent working for the Soviets. In Smiley's People we see Le Carré forging the links in a chain which will be used to drag a Soviet spymaster down. The real life British traitor Kim Philby, a British secret agent who was actually working for the Soviets, betrayed many western agents to the Soviets, who then tortured and executed them. Philby once stood outside the Soviet embassy in Paris with Malcolm Muggeridge. The latter was a British secret agent, one who was not secretly working for the Soviets. He later became a journalist. Philby, the double agent working for the Soviets, was referring to the Soviets, and asking Muggeridge, `How can we penetrate them? How can we penetrate them?' If he sounded a little phony, perhaps too melodramatic, Muggeridge might have smelled a rat. The espionage world reminds one of a favorite phrase used by James Jesus Angleton (a former head of the CIA). He used a metaphor from one of T. S. Eliot's poems, `the wilderness of mirrors,' to describe that terrible sense of dread secret agents get when they know assassins and traitors are lurking nearby, but they don't know who their friends are and who their enemies are.

Ian Fleming is the master of the sensational espionage novel: bad guys with shark tanks, beautiful blondes on Caribbean beaches etc. John Buchan had a genius for weaving glorious descriptions of nature into romances and thrillers. John Le Carré was the virtuoso master of the naturalistic espionage novel. Recall in The Looking-Glass War where there is tension between the veteran agent and the rookie. When they are preparing to inject a spy into East Germany, to get intelligence on a missile installation, we see a perfectly executed portrait of a scene with Cold War agents, minefields and guard towers and searchlights, the cold night, the lowering fog, the wind whistling through the barbed-wired which divides East Germany from West Germany. The rookie notices that the spy has to wash the lotion out of his hair, because he will attract unwanted and perhaps lethal attention to himself behind the Iron Curtain, as no one in impoverished East Germany has any scented Western lotion in his hair - and the veteran agent congratulates the rookie for catching this detail. Le Carré is the master of compiling these sorts of details. And if you can assemble enough of these sorts of details you can create a very powerful novel. It seems to be a prerequisite to have actual experience in espionage to write a great espionage novel, with Conrad being an exception to the rule, though Conrad had some experience in gun running. Childers was involved with helping Ireland escape the British yoke, and was executed for it Buchan was a Director of Intelligence during the Great War. William F. Buckley Jr worked for the CIA. Ian Fleming worked for British Naval Intelligence. John Le Carré, a.k.a. David Cornwell, worked in the British Foreign Office. William F. Buckley Jr took after Ian Fleming, in that he invented a charismatic leading man, Blackford Oakes - Ian Fleming created James Bond - and like Fleming Buckley put sensational plots and colorful details into his novels, such as by putting explosives inside a cigar for Fidel Castro to light up and enjoy, briefly.

In Castro's Cuba, the secret police will bestir themselves from their sleepy siestas, and they will spring into action against you if you speak of deposing Castro in a coup, and speak of installing a Republic. In Castro's Cuba, the State does not get itself tied up in all sorts of legal knots when it draws the line between speech and expression it will tolerate and speech and expression it will not tolerate. Hitchcock's `Topaz' is slighted by some critics, but I think it's very good. It's immensely stylish - rather as Sirk's Imitation of Life is immensely stylish - and it's got some memorable scenes involving Cuban Communists.

Many millions of Christians are able to understand that one must not be anti-Christian if one wants to attain heaven and avoid hell. Many millions of Christians can understand that the Bible says there is a True Church, and there is a Divine Law written on the hearts of God's people. Therefore Christians might wish to identify laws which are anti-Christian. Paul Johnson tells us in `A History of the American People' (p. 964) that from 1987 to 1994, over 72,000 people were arrested for protesting in front of abortion clinics. Some were incarcerated for over two years for doing nothing more than chanting and singing. In 1994 Congress passed a law which made peaceful picketing of an abortion clinic a federal crime punishable by 10 years in prison.

One might think that the art of ruling a nation is all about the art of identifying everything which is evil and idiotic and unnecessarily complicated, and then eliminating everything evil, idiotic and unnecessarily complicated. This might be the case in a benevolent dictatorship, but the art of running a Republic is all about compromise; you formulate your positions on the issues so that you can assemble enough coalitions of special-interest groups to get yourself elected. A politician in a Republic wants to fight evil and idiocy, but, ultimately, in a Republic, the politicians must do what is necessary to get elected, and this involves compromising with evil and idiocy. Castro said he found it easier to start a revolution than to make it work. Perhaps this is because he isn't a benevolent dictator: he isn't so great at recognizing evil, idiocy and unnecessary complication; and he isn't so great at eliminating evil, idiocy and unnecessary complication. Castro's sister, who fled to Miami years ago, said her brother transformed Cuba in a huge prison surrounded by water. In a Republic, it would help matters if the voters were able to recognize everything that was evil and idiotic. If the voters can't do this then it stands to reason they will never be able to elect the right politicians to create a sane and beautiful Republic.

§ 33. Crushing Pressure upon the Psyche: The Desperate Struggle to Stay Sane

Still looking at the most glaring flaws in the USA, might we have a problem with the Constitution in that, perhaps, it places too much crushing responsibility on the shoulders of the President. To argue by way of analogy, in `Betrayal: The Story of Aldridge Ames, An America Spy' (Random House, 1995), we learn that various supervisors of Ames had little fear of the consequences that would fall on their heads should they fail to be good supervisors, and therefore, a drunkard who was an amazingly careless Soviet spy worked inside the CIA for many years. Many western agents were executed in the Lubyanka, especially in 1985 and 1986, due to Ames' treachery and his superiors' incompetency. One might say that, just as blunders multiply when one feels no pressure to do a good job, blunders also result when one is under too much pressure. Perhaps the pressures upon modern Presidents of the USA, especially since the invention of the H-bomb and nerve gas and biological weapons of mass destruction, have become too crushing for any one person to endure. Perhaps it would be more rational for Congress to take more of the Executive's powers and responsibilities. Recall that Franklin wanted a Committee to handle the Executive duties. The word Soviet, incidentally, means Committee. One might conduct a thorough analysis of the biographies of JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Clinton, the Bushes etc., to elaborate more persuasively on this theme of recent presidents cracking up under too much pressure.

Paul Johnson put LBJ and JFK on his psychiatrist's couch in `A History of the American People' (HarperCollins, 1997):

`LBJ was also a man of unpleasant, sometimes threatening, personal habits. He was huge and, despite his height, his head seemed too big for his body. It was equipped with enormous ears, which stood out like those of an angry African elephant...LBJ, the large, unrestrained, earthy animal, had a voracious sexual appetite, no more discriminating than Kennedy's, but less interesting. He had a twenty-one-year affair (1948-69) with a Dallas woman called Madeleine Brown, which produced a son, Steven, and countless more transitory encounters, including (so he boasted) intercourse with a secretary at his desk in the Oval Office. He was an inveterate bottom-pincher in swimming pools...Eisenhower had made this theory public in April 1954: "You have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is a certainty that it will go over very quickly"....in November 1961 Kennedy did send in the first 7,000 US troops to Vietnam, the critical step down the slippery incline into the swamp. That was the first really big US error. The second was to get rid of Diem...Kennedy, exasperated by his failure to pull a resounding success out of Vietnam, blamed the agent rather than the policy. In Autumn of 1963 he secretly authorized American support for an anti-Diem officers' coup. It duly took place on November 1, Diem being murdered. The CIA provided $42,000 in bribes for the officers who set up the military junta. `The worst mistake we ever made' was Lyndon Johnson's later verdict. Three weeks later Kennedy was murdered himself, Johnson was president, and began making mistakes himself.'

If one examined the biographies of recent American presidents one might find that the office of the Presidency has simply become too arduous for any human being to endure. Being continuously scrutinized and vilified by the press and by political enemies, constantly having the weight of the world on ones shoulders, forever contemplating H-bombs and foreign agents and corrupt judicial rulings, constantly keeping a death watch on the economy, constantly fighting for solutions to the slackening moral fibre of the nation's youth, while combating the exploding greed of the nation's aged ones, the time-ravaged Americans, who demand more and more money, who demand that their Medicare be paid to them by taking money out of the back pockets of future generations. A president might find himself staggering under a thousand other sources of anxiety, and this anxiety might create, in a President's delicate psyche, pressures of such crushing magnitude that it would be foolish to expect any human being to hold up under such immense and crushing pressures. Perhaps America should amend the Constitution and incorporate the Executive branch into Congress. Perhaps it is wise to distribute the pressure so that one person needn't bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. Perhaps it is a waste of time spinning theories on how we might best re-arrange the Constitutional furniture. Still, it is a simple matter to find blunders from recent presidents: JFK and Diem, JFK and the Bay of Pigs, LBJ and the Vietnam War. The standard critique of the USA in Vietnam is: if you're going to go to war, then fight to win. And if you're not going to fight to win, then don't go to war. The idea of 50-year-olds conscripting 18-year-olds seems all wrong. If the 50-year-olds in the USA want someone to fight the Communists in Vietnam, then let the 50-year-olds do the fighting. George W. Bush's `you're either with us or you're again us' bravado after 9.11 was a botch, of course - as it's rude to tell your friends: you're either with us or you're against us, either you will remain our friends or we'll gun you down like dogs - but 9.11 was traumatic and the Allies of the USA might makes allowances if a President says some crazy cowboy words after a traumatic event.

The world is like a beautiful but fickle woman in her attitude toward the USA. She hated us because of George W. Bush and the Bush Doctrine: Pre-emptive Strikes, Waterboarding, Unilateralism, Secret CIA Prisons, Zionism, the American-Israeli Alliance, Nation Building, Preaching the Gospel of Freedom and Democracy to people who believe Freedom means freedom to be decadent and anti-Islamic, to people who think Democracy means either mob-rule or rule by selfish and powerful special-interest groups. But Barack Obama is very popular in places like London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Tokyo, Jo-burg, Toronto, Aspen, Palm Beach, Amsterdam, Nairobi, Helsinki, Oslo etc. The people who hand out Nobel Peace Prizes gave one to Barack Obama because they were over-joyed he was not George W. Bush. Just look how hard we Americans have worked to improve image abroad! Why, only a few short years ago we were filthy pariahs in the eyes of the world, but, through hard work and old-fashioned persistence, we have raised ourselves up, and we are no longer the vile international outcastes that we were from 2003 to 2008!

With the fall of the USSR in the early 1990s, Pat Buchanan said it would have been saner for the USA to not press Russia by extending NATO to the western border of Russia, reasoning that by doing so the West would only revive nationalistic and militaristic forces inside Russia. They've been revived. They are anthropomorphized in the bare-chested vigor of Vladimir Putin, the ex-KGB agent, who, as John Le Carré might say, is a Karla trained thug, a Moscow Centre hood who handles a knife with lethal efficiency, though he might be susceptible to honey-traps. He evidently intends to force Eskimos who live near the North Pole, and who subsist on seal meat, to pay taxes to the Kremlin. The world might remember that the USA set a fine example back in 1969 by not making the Moon the 51st State in the USA, unlike Columbus who claimed all of the New World for Spain when he planted the flag of Spain in the Bahamas. Everything is about PR in politics. Look how Hurricane Katrina really sunk George W. Bush in the USA. If he had only gotten some decent advice from a sharp PR guy early on he really could have saved himself from a lot of bad press. We might have proof of a crack-up when his old man broke a promise after using the `read my lips' line while making the promise. Loyal Republicans insist the Bushes never cracked-up completely under pressure in the Executive office, but the Democrats can accept this judgment only with the proviso, that, since they are Republicans, they were already cracked when they assumed office. It's true that even Conservatives would sometimes like to ship George W. Bush off to an asylum where he could get plenty of rest sitting by a tranquil lake, river or seaside. `National Review' (4.21.2008, pp. 7-8) informs us that Chief Justice Roberts had to save the day after the Bush administration made a botch of things. An illegal alien named José Ernesto Medellín, was found guilty of rape and murder. He had been read his ``Miranda' rights' upon his arrest but he was not told he had the right to contact the Mexican consulate to notify them of his arrest. The authorities didn't deny him this right, they simply didn't tell him he had this right. Mexico, which opposes the death penalty, sued the USA in the International Court of Justice. The International Court of Justice ruled in favor of Mexico in its Avena decision, which threatened to overturn the convictions of Medellín and at least 50 other Mexican murderers on death row. The Bush administration ordered state courts to abide by this decision of the International Court of Justice. Chief Justice John Roberts stepped in to countermand the Bush Insanity, saying our laws are enacted and enforced by agents of the USA, not by foreign agents. I shouldn't imply I would be perfectly sane and rational under such pressure. But if the pressure is just too much for anyone to handle, maybe the USA should think about relieving some of the pressure on the president. The people of the USA really need to re-think the whole Constitutional scheme. There are some advantages to giving the 50 States more power - to make them more independent of the Feds and the unelected judges. The Feds and the judiciary gained power because, 1) the people and their representatives in the States were sometimes doing a lousy job running these states, and, 2) the judges and the Feds perceived that the people and their representatives in the States were sometimes doing a lousy job running these states, when the perception was inaccurate. If Alabama or other States subject prisoners to the most barbaric treatment, you can't blame judges when they assume power and to tell the States how to run their prison operations. But if Florida decides it wants to prohibit newspapers from printing the names of rape victims, the Feds should butt out and leave Florida alone. So many of the evils in the USA are due to Christians refusing to act like good Christians. The evils of slavery, abortion, racism, `Miranda' etc., are all primarily due to people under the sign of the cross acting more like Judas than like Christ, and of course Christ was talking about souls not trees when He stated in Matthew 3. 10,

`Every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.'

Again Malachi 3. 5 presents God as very hostile to those who oppress aliens - and while Malachi 3. 5 is part of the Old Testament it is nevertheless part of the New Law - rather as the 10 commandments are part of the New Law. You can't blame the USA for trying to keep illegal aliens who are also murderers and rapists out of the USA, but when the USA excludes aliens who anyone can see are innocent women and children, then, the USA is not giving proper respect to Malachi 3. 5.

Getting back to the immense pressure on the psyches of American presidents, the incessant womanizing of various Presidents implies instability, as well as opportunities for blackmailers to create problems to imperil the Republic. Nixon's endless stream of profanity, his involvement in a two-bit break-in, his handing over of the recording tapes by which he would hang himself, are evidence of a mind cracking up under too much pressure. We can certainly imagine how even a small amount of DNA on a girl's blue dress might press with crushing pressure upon a President's fragile psyche, rendering him distracted and dangerous when simply driving a car in traffic, as well as distracted and dangerous in handling the keys to the most frightful weapons of planetary thermonuclear annihilation! JFK had a girlfriend who was also a gangster's moll. JFK slept with a lot of women other than his wife. Perhaps it is logical to conclude that JFK would have driven himself crazy if he had made a superhuman effort to resist certain irresistible feminine temptations. This obviously calls for speculation. If a submarine is not crushed at 1000 feet beneath the surface of the sea, perhaps we should hesitate to conclude that it will hold up quite nicely at 2000 feet beneath the surface.

Throughout the history of the world, the general formula for winning a war is to hit the enemy with everything you got. In World War I the Christian powers used mustard gas - a very painful thing to inhale - on Christian soldiers. Harry Truman hit Imperial Japan with just about everything in the US arsenal save for chemical and biological weapons. In the ensuing wars the USA has waged, the USA has tried to become more Christian and more humanitarian in her tactics. The USA has not used her most frightful weapons in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, with the result that the USA gets bogged down, and US casualties proliferate. The USA can't fight to win - she can't use her most ferocious weapons and tactics - as that would be anti-Christian and it would earn her the contempt of God and billions of foreigners. When Iran took our citizens hostage, Jimmy Carter tried a rescue attempt, and it failed. But what could he do? If he nuked Iran, then he would have earned the contempt of the humanitarians in the world, and nuking women and children would make him an outlaw under the New Law, and who wants a one-way ticket to hell? The USA can either be more barbaric and more ferocious and less Christian - which is the wrong direction to go if one wants to reach heaven and avoid hell - or she will have to stop waging so many wars, wars which she fights half-heartedly, using the gentlemanly tactics which causes her to get bogged down, where a lot of her soldiers get shot up, and the Republic tears herself apart in nasty arguments about Surges and about Cutting and Running.

Televisions cameras and reporters are certainly bad for the war business. If there had been cameras at Antietam, Shiloh, Manassas, Gettysburg etc., Abraham Lincoln's reputation would not be so pristine today. To conscript poor 18-year-olds - the rich kids could buy their way out of serving - to throw them into a war where 40,000 are killed in one battle, 30,000 in another, 35,000 in another etc., and have TV cameras capturing all the blood and gore for the audiences watching at home \- showing pictures of individual soldiers from their days when they were babies, montages of then as toddlers, photographs of them with their loving mamas and proud papas, then showing the film of the young soldiers dying in the throes of agony, with the camera catching their last convulsions on the battlefields before they drift off into eternity, makes for the sort of publicity that doesn't help Presidents win either re-election campaigns or rapturous praise from historians.

Christian ministers, in previous centuries, were forever reminding people about the evils of decadence - adultery, fornication, drunkenness etc - but they were weak in fighting against injustice, cruel jurisprudence, slavery, war, evil kings, malevolent priests, cruel nobles etc. What TV has been doing is making the masses more aware of the injustices in the 20th and 21st centuries: racism, segregation, abuses in the criminal system, the horrors of war, anti-Semitism etc. Of course the typical situation comedy on TV is founded on jokes full of sexual innuendo, but the masses are much more astute, in 2013, on many matters involving elementary justice than were the masses in 1913. People always gripe that the American public knows all about celebrity gossip, but they can't name one of the nine Supreme Court justices, and can't name the branch of government which Article I. of the Constitution addresses, and can't find Afghanistan or Mexico on a map. The public schools try to educate the masses but you know how well that's been working.

Apropos of good government, the statesman is an artist: his brush is his eloquence and his canvas is the hearts of his countrymen. Like all true artists he is willing to suffer privation to accomplish his ends. Painters, sculptors and poets have been known to neglect their wives and even their mistresses, and to let their children beg for bread in order to expend all their energies on their art. The artist is confronted with a block of marble, a blank ceiling, the trembling or hoping hearts of his countrymen. And if he has talent he might transform these raw materials into a David, or a Sistine Chapel, or into hearts, which, though they were formerly trembling and uncertain, are now bursting with confidence and contentment. Though he plays a businessman not a statesman, William Holden makes a great speech, apropos of Capital and Labor, in Executive Suite. Frederic March makes a great speech in John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May, where he says, `Someday men will leave the dark tunnels of tyranny and will stand in the bright light of freedom.' The Social Engineer, when he stares at America, stares into the abyss of a vast bureaucratic machine with wheels and rotors spinning within wheels and rotors spinning within wheels and rotors within...The American government, which attempts to keep this machine running - via taxation and regulation, via universities, medical schools, law schools, elementary schools, high schools, via the long arm of the law, via policemen, bullets and prisons - shines its searchlights into so many facets of our multi-faceted lives. In a truly Capitalist society, for instance, anyone could open a saloon or practice law or medicine without needing a license, rather as anyone can publish a book without needing a certificate from a government censor. In the USSR under Lenin, Stalin and Khrushev, if one insisted on proselytizing such creeds as Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism etc., the State would send one to the gulag. In America one will be suffer harsh consequences if one insists on operating a casino without a license, selling liquor without a license, operating a taxi service without a license, operating a Beauty Parlor without a license, pulling teeth without a license, setting bones without a license, prescribing antibiotics without a license etc., etc.

Accountability is something loved by efficiency experts, yet in many professions it is difficult to know who is doing a good and efficient job and who isn't. `Publish or perish' is the standard rule for survival in academia. Thus if you publish insignificant little articles in insignificant little academic journals which no one with any sense cares to reads, you are said to be a more accomplished scholar, and more worthy of tenure, than someone who chooses to not publish insignificant little articles in insignificant little journals. There are probably a few people in the military who shine during peacetime but who are not so great at fighting when war breaks out. The movies are filled with conflicts which arise when overbearing police chiefs push too hard on good cops struggling to capture elusive criminals. Gene Hackman played Popeye Doyle in `The French Connection' and `The French Connection II', and Popeye Doyle gives policemen a pretty good idea of how relentlessly devoted to their duty tax payers expect them to be. In the film noir classics the cops didn't mind saving the tax payers some money by gunning down the bad guys - shot while trying to escape - so fewer expensive trials and fewer expensive jails were needed. A perfectly competent FBI agent might spend years diligently hunting down leads before he arrests any spies, and while he's hunting foreign spies he probably doesn't need a boss yelling at him day after day, telling him how worthless he is at finding spies, telling him his is simply a parasite who never ceases to suck the blood of the tax payers.

§ 34. What Art is Anti-Christian Art?

Liberals in the USA see the Religious Right as an unholy alliance of Fascists united against Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgender Individuals, Scientists, Evolutionists, Pro-Choicers, Experimenters with Embryonic Stem Cells etc. A film such as `Basic Instinct' would have horrified Jewish, Catholic and Protestant clergymen 100 years ago, assuming they could have seen it. They would have entertained no doubts that any nation that liked that movie was a hell-bound Babylon. And these clergymen obviously would have seen various modern rock music concerts as simply satanic orgies. The more strident Liberals say: keep your damned religion and your damned morals to your damned selves you damned Right-Wing Religious Fascists!

Doesn't it seem the golden age for films is in the past? Today seems to be the golden age for stand-up comics. Aside from a little humor in Dickens, was anyone funny in the distant past? Aristophanes is not funny. Rabelais is not funny. Shakespeare's `comedies' are romances not comedies. In the old days, in the 18th century and earlier, under the laws of _lese majesty_ , if you made fun of Kings or Prelates you would be executed, and the method of execution would be aggravated as a warning to others. The theory runs that no one was funny before the 20th century - not in the way that Steve Martin, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Kathy Griffin, Joan Rivers, Richard Pryor, Frank Calliendo etc., etc. are funny - because, in the old days, the people who were being mocked and ridiculed would torture to death the people who made fun of them, and this threw a wet blanket on people's desire to create good comedy. In the old days, people were really uptight; they were pompous self-important snobs; they were really into their `honor' and into not letting anyone get away with insulting their honor; if you cut them a little with a funny but sarcastic remark they would respond by gouging your eyes out. Is there anything that's truly funny in any book written before the 19th century? I haven't read every book written before 1800, but maybe someone can show me, in a book written before 1800, where there is something as funny as the work of the best comedians working today. Even Thomas Jefferson, at the end of `The Declaration of Independence', talked about `our sacred Honor'. That's something you would expect from pompous nobles. Don't you suspect you'll be talking to an insufferable bore, someone incapable of appreciating good comedy, when you converse with someone who talks about his `sacred honor'? We needn't look too long at the question: what sort of comedy is a violation of the Divine Law? We know one is not to take God's name in vain or to use profanity. Obviously people will have their opinions about whether or not all `blue' material is illegal under the New Law. There's always the crushing logic which says: it's idiotic for a Christian to ever use obscenities, because you can't be damned if you clean it up, but you might be damned if you use obscenities.

The True Church has to draw the line between moral art and immoral art. The Marlon Brando version of Mutiny on the Bounty is an artistic masterpiece and it also deals with the New Law, because it deals with the question: when is violence and rebellion justified? La Deuxième Souffle and The Onion Field are movies which deal with cop killers. The former is an artistic masterpiece from Jean-Pierre Melville. The latter is substandard even for Hollywood. It's inferior to any number of police dramas on network TV, and very feeble compared to the cinematic artistry of In Cold Blood or the first half of Freidkin's Sorcerer. Films such as La Deuxième Souffle, Touchez pas au grisbi, and Classe tous risques are masterpieces, but, perhaps, Christianity has issues with them, as they glorify gangsters. La Deuxième Souffle is the most problematical of the three. The movie is not anti-Christian in the way that any number of slasher / horror movies and porno films are anti-Christian, but Lino Ventura plays a gangster who murders a cop, and when a film glorifies someone who murders someone, you begin to think there's something that's not kosher with the film. A line has to be drawn somewhere between movies which the True Church can accept and movies which the True Church can't accept. The gospel, the Divine Law, is obviously hostile to art such as we find on the cover of The Scorpions' album `Virgin Killer' - which is child porn mixed with a theme of sadism. One is not going too far out on a limb by saying the Divine Law is hostile to the scenes of graphic sex and violence in `Basic Instinct'. Is the gospel hostile to `La Deuxième Souffle' and `The Godfather'? Doesn't the violence in `The Godfather' seem too graphic to not invite condemnation? `Life of Brian' is a patently anti-Christian film, but a film like `La Deuxième Souffle' might be close to the line. It glorifies a gangster but it's so artistic. Jacques Tati, in `Playtime', `Mon Uncle' and `Trafic, gave us G-rated movies which are well-made, though a little slow. But Tati can't teach us very much about where one draws the line between the movies the True Church can accept and the movies the True Church can't accept, unless the True Church only accepts G-rated films with absolutely no sinning, no bad language etc.

I suppose the more that a movie qualifies as great art the more the censor is inclined to let slide some violence and foul language.

Gov. Schwarzenegger's best movie might have been Pumping Iron but he became a superstar with The Terminator (1984). Before Arnold there was William Smith, the pre-eminent muscle-bound tough guy in Hollywood in the 1970s. Like Arnold he was a bodybuilder, and he is interesting in the way that actors such as Jesse The Body Ventura, Alain Delon and Jimmy Stewart are interesting. The Body was a ferocious warrior, a terrifying killing machine, a hunter of man - forgive me if there is any hyperbole in this to heighten the dramatic effect - who fought as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam, and then he went on to make movies (Predator, Running Man etc.) and of course became Governor of Minnesota. Alain Delon, as stated earlier, was the Brad Pitt of the French Nouvelle Vague cinema in the 1960s and 70s, and was also a paratrooper for France when La Belle was struggling to hold on to her colony in Indochina. Jimmy Stewart flew bombers in World War II. Getting back to William Smith - the pre-eminent muscle-bound tough guy in Hollywood in the 1970s - he was an intelligence officer in the Korean Conflict where he performed missions which required him to carry cyanine capsules, so he could commit suicide should he be captured and tortured by the Commies. William Smith speaks four languages including Serbo-Croatian. He attended the Sorbonne and was getting his doctorate at UCLA before Hollywood lured him away from a career in academia. He did a lot of work in TV and made some biker movies, cult classics, as they say. He and Joe Namath rumbled in `C. C. Rider', fighting over Ann Margret. Smith and Margaret Markov looked good together in `Run Angel Run', and everyone remembers Margaret Markov and Pam Grier in `Black Mama, White Mama'. William Smith was Falconetti on `Rich Man, Poor Man'. He was very adept at playing a psycho, a biker, a gangster etc., as he was all muscle and had a menacing, crazy-eyed stare, talents which might have been useful to him when he was fighting Commies on the Korean peninsula.

A Soviet actress, Margarita Terekhova, showed immense photogenic range in Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror. She looks super beautiful in one scene where she's preening in front of a mirror, but in other scenes she looks a little rough. Solaris and Stalker are two other gems from Tarkovsky, but to my mind Mirror is his supreme masterpiece. Mirror is like music, in that just as people can listen to various rock and pop songs thousands of times and never get tired of listening, one can watch Mirror over and over and over and never get tired of it. It's filled with great music and amazing scenes, such as the scene where the camera suddenly switches from Leonardo's `Ginevra di Benchi' to Margarita, such as when the little boy is reading Pushkin's words about the history of Russia. Tarkovsky's Solaris has a scene in it with the most amazingly skillful camera work. The cosmonaut protagonist lies down to take a nap on a space station orbiting a far planet; the camera angles being used remind of a painting, Mantegna's `The Lamentation'. The camera pans closer and closer over the reclining cosmonaut. He then wakes up to find his wife in the room - she had died years earlier and was magically resurrected or at least recreated! It took a very great virtuoso directing the camera to get those shots. Hollywood of today doesn't make too many scenes to rival that one. Recall the quality of the scene in Dr. Strangelove, where they're in the B-52 and When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again is playing on the sound track, and the tension is building as they're closing in on the target while the Soviet missile is closing in on them. Recall how the beginning of The Odessa File succeeds brilliantly. We have symphonic music which merges into the voice of Perry Como - who seems like the epitome of decency - singing Christmas Dream. Why doesn't Hollywood create more scenes which have genius written all over them? You have to get a director who, if he is not a genius, is at least smart enough to find geniuses to work with him. No geniuses on the movie making team, no genius movie.

Novels and movies have of course become more violent and decadent in recent decades, but decadent movies can be artistic, and directors might have to hold the mirror up to decadent reality once in a while, not to say that the saints in the True Church have to accept Basic Instinct. But the saints in the True Church have to draw the line between moral art and immoral art, and this becomes very contentious. Stanley Kubrick made some artistic films: Paths of Glory, Doctor Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket etc. A reviewer at Netflix said that his A Clockwork Orange is an evil movie. I've never seen it but I found her arguments against it to be persuasive, though of course it's a bad idea to pass a definitive judgment on a film without seeing it. No doubt the saints aren't clamoring to see more sex and violence and sacrilege, more blood and gore and blasphemy in films. Many demand to have their heart-strings plucked in powerful and poignant ways, as in Brian's Song, Born Free and Breakfast at Tiffanies, Old Yeller and Nostromo, Imitation of Life and It's a Wonderful Life. Robert Duval starred in a movie about a boy who accidentally shot and killed his brother - the name of the movie escapes me - but it was very powerful, quite a tear-jerker. Gerard Depardieu plays a hoodlum in one film - Going Places - in one scene we see a young mother nursing a baby on a bus and being bullied by two punks. Pious folk would be running for the exit doors of the theatre after they saw what happens next. They would have no difficulty classifying this film on the wrong side of the line which divides the films which the True Church can accept from the films which the True Church can not accept. Depardieu also starred, along with Yves Montagne, in Jean de Floret, which, with its conclusion, Manon of the Spring, are very great masterpieces. In the final scene of Jean de Floret our heartstrings are powerfully pulled when we see the little girl weeping after she discovers the water spring flowing on her family's property. Some evil neighbors had concealed this spring, and their actions led to years of heartache and financial distress for her family, and ultimately to the death of her father, played by Depardieu.

Alain Delon was the Robert Redford or Rob Lowe of the French New Wave cinema in the 60s and 70s. Wikipedia has some interesting gossip saying one of Alain Delon's body guards was found with a bullet in his head in a dumpster outside of Delon's house in Paris in 1968, and that one of his friends, a Corsican gangster no less, was charged as an accessory to the murder. Wikipedia is most helpful in keeping one up to date with all the gossip one might have missed. This gossip about the murdered body guard is old news in France. Someone who doesn't know about it is like the person who doesn't know Rock Hudson was gay, or doesn't know Joan Crawford had some problems with her kids, or doesn't know that Angelina Jolie has some tattoos. The female counterparts to Delon in France would be Deneuve, Bardot, Béart, and Audrane. Deneuve was in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, one of the all-time classics. Bardot was in the charming and adorable Manina, la fille sans voile a.k.a., The Girl in the Bikini; Béart was in Manon of the Spring and Stephane Audrane starred in a few classics, Les Bonnes Femmes, Les Biches, Babette's Feast etc. Alain Delon starred in many great films: L'eclisse, Le Samurai, Le Cercle rouge, Deux hommes in la ville, Monsieur Klein, Un Flic, Plein Soleil, Le Gitan etc.

In Jean Pierre Melville's The Samurai, Nathalie Delon grabs ones attention, as she was dressed in a flimsy little negligee when she was being interrogated by the Parisian gendarmes. They were trying to get her to spill her guts, and make her rat on her hitman boyfriend, played by Alain Delon. In any event, he has been in some very memorable scenes involving cops and bad guys, perhaps the most memorable one was where he played the cop in Melville's Un Flic, where he was confronting a bank robber played by Michael Conrad - again Conrad later played the Desk Sergeant on Hill Street Blues. Army of Shadows might be Melville's greatest film. It's hard to know, as he made a lot of good ones. The scene where the French Resistance fighters are in London and they tear-up in the theatre when the theme song to Gone with the Wind is playing is classic.

Hollywood is a private sector megastar: Hollywood brings foreign capital into the USA. So much of what America produces and sells to foreign nations is pollution: anti-Christian movies, porn, rap music etc. We export planes and pharmaceuticals but the foreigners are catching up. We have many millions of public sector people in the USA who earn their livings by imposing taxes on private sector people: there's everyone in the military, and everyone in the military-industrial complex. Where will the employees of Boeing and Lockheed Martin and Northrop and United Technologies etc., etc., be if the government stops sending public dollars their way? There are all the public school teachers and all the cops and public college professors and administrators who need people in the Private Sector to keep slaving away, paying their taxes, so the Public Sector people can get paid. The amount of useless fat in the Departments of Defense, Education, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Justice, State, Transportation etc., and in the State governments, boggles the mind, but to cut this fat means throwing people out of their jobs, even if they are useless jobs, which would throw families into turmoil and despair, because the terminated employees would have to fight like the salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross to survive in the Private Sector jungle. In Glengarry Glen Ross, profanity and desperation drip like sweat off some real estate salesmen fighting and clawing like savage beasts trying to survive in the Private Sector jungle. If taxes were lower, people would have more money to spend, and therefore they could buy more houses and condos, and thus lower taxes help the desperate real estate salesmen. But if taxes are lowered, Public Sector employees will have to be laid off, and thus they will be made desperate, and they might have to fight like savage beasts to find and keep jobs in the Private Sector. I knew a guy who got laid off from a cushy job, and he had to take a job at a temp agency: it sent him out to a slaughterhouse where his job was to wash the blood off the walls and ceilings in the room where they slaughtered the cows. So you can see why our highly paid paper shufflers in the Dept. of Education would want to make sure they do a good job shuffling those papers - who wants to get laid off from a cushy job and then have to take a temp job cleaning the blood off the walls in slaughterhouses? We can see why our public sector people want Hollywood and the porn industry and the rap music industry to keep on selling pollution to foreigners - keep on making obscene profits by selling anti-Christian goods - so that these obscene profits can be taxed and the taxes can be given to people in the public sector.

We have been making our way, in a sleepy and languorous manner, toward a Retrospective on the Life and Works of an Enemy of Communism. Unlike Arnold Swarzennegger, William Smith and Jessie The Body Ventura, this man was not a muscle-bound movie star. He was a Senator from Wisconsin, a Republican, a Roman Catholic, a Marine, a Lawyer, a Judge, and, many say, the most ferocious witch-hunter in the history of the United States of America.

§ 35. Joe McCarthy

Thousands of American teachers, professors and journalists insist that Americans must know a few things about Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism. But the typical listless, uninspired, unmotivated, unfocused American scholar in a typical uninspiring American public school might ask: what's the point of it all? The young scholar might even ask other impertinent questions which Question Authority, such as: how many people did Joe McCarthy murder? What's the body-count? How many Liberal corpses were dumped by the Republican Fascists into America's industry-polluted rivers? How many Liberals were tortured and killed by all of the murdering rampaging Republican thugs who took their marching orders from Joe McCarthy? What's that? There was no political bloodshed in America during the McCarthy era? Well, it wasn't much of controversy, was it? And it's a waste of a sensible person's time to study the McCarthy Era, isn't it?

In the face of these powerful arguments, why should one study the McCarthy Era?

As we know from previous chapters True Christians have a Divine Law written on their hearts. If one is a fan of evil or unjust or idiotic laws then it is fair to say one does not have a Divine Law written one ones heart. If one had a Divine Law written on ones heart would not slander anyone. Since Academia seems to hate Joe McCarthy, we have to determine if Academia is breaking the Divine Law, such as by hating or slandering Joe McCarthy.

In the `Oxford History of the American People', 1965, the late Samuel Eliot Morison - a distinguished Professor of History at Harvard and an Admiral in the US Navy - said Joe McCarthy was `one of the most colossal liars' in American history. He said McCarthy was a man of `diabolical cunning.' He said McCarthy was `saturnine, cruel and greedy.' Morison likened McCarthy to Titus Oates. Titus Oates was a 17th century Englishman born into an Anabaptist family who became an Anglican vicar. He then converted to Catholicism, and later still adopted the Baptist persuasion. He was also a professional perjurer and his lies led to the execution of 35 `more or less innocent persons,' to use the Britannica's phrase, in a plot which purported that the Jesuits were seeking to assassinate Charles II. Oates received 2,000 lashes in punishment for his crimes. That he survived such a thrashing is a testament to a very sturdy constitution, for most men would have expired after far fewer.

If one announces that Joe McCarthy was a colossal liar and a Titus Oates, one will have to be able supply hard evidence to support this. One might have to supply the names of the people whom McCarthy murdered or caused to be murdered, or, if McCarthy's actions didn't result in anyone being murdered, one will have to provide evidence saying he purposely ruined the lives of people he knew to be innocent.

Many have striven to express in a nutshell the essence of Joe McCarthy. But we have conflicting reports. William F. Buckley Jr. once called McCarthyism `a movement around which men of good will and stern morality can close ranks.' Arthur Schlesinger's very concise assessment of Joe McCarthy was: he was a cynical demagogue. This is far more favorable than Admiral Morison's assessment of him as a Titus Oates; a Man of Diabolical Cunning; A Greedy and Cruel Man; A Colossal Liar.

In `Senator Joe McCarthy', p. 253, 1959, University of California Press, Richard Rovere tells us that Joe McCarthy, though not possessed by demons, was himself a demon. In case the reader is uncertain, it's better to be possessed by demons than to be a demon. If one is possessed by demons these can always be driven out by holy men who fast and pray. But when you are a demon yourself, then, like Satan, Apollyon and Beelzebub, you're stuck with yourself, so to speak.

The Chaplain of the Senate, Rev. Frederick Brown Harris, speaking at McCarthy's Senate funeral, saw McCarthy as akin to Ezekiel, and certainly not a demon. Recalling the Book of Ezekiel, we read in Rovere's `Senator Joe McCarthy', p. 249-50, Rev. Harris' rather rhetoric-laden eulogy,

`Now that his lips are silent in these days of destiny, when the precious things we hold nearest our hearts are beset by subtle dangers such as have never before been faced, may the ancient admonition of God's holy word be heard and heeded with a new alertness by those who guard the nation's ramparts: "If the watchmen upon the walls see the enemy advancing and give not the warning, then the blood of the people shall be required of the watchmen's hands"...And so this fallen warrior, though dead, speaketh, calling a nation of freemen to be delivered from the complacency of a false security and from regarding those who loudly sound the trumpets of vigilance and alarm as mere disturbers of the peace.'

Samuel Eliot Morison likened the Salem Witch trials to the McCarthy Era,

`In 1952, if you criticized Joe, you were a communist sympathizer; in 1692, if you criticized the witch court or tried to help an accused kinsman, you were in league with the devil.' Morison continues,

`Klaus Fuchs in England was convicted of feeding atomic secrets to Russia, and Russian defector Igor Gouzencho revealed the existence of a gigantic communist spy ring in Canada....During "twenty years of treason," as Senator McCarthy put it, the Democrats, led by Roosevelt and Truman, had "conspired" to deliver America to the Reds. F.D.R. got into World War II mainly to help Russia, gave away everything to Stalin at Yalta; Harry presented China to the Reds and recalled General MacArthur because he was about to beat them; Alger Hisses were concealed in every government office, college, and corporation, ready to take over when Stalin pushed the button. This utterly preposterous theory almost tore the country apart then...These efforts to "root out" subversives from government, colleges, and even business, ruined the careers and reputations of thousands of patriotic Americans...The conspiracy theory would never have been so widely received but for the histrionics and diabolical cunning of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin...McCarthy...was saturnine, cruel, greedy, and did nothing for the people of his native state. He was also one of the most colossal liars in our history...in 1946...in search for a popular cause, he first took up that of the German "martyrs" in the war criminal trials...McCarthy was three-quarters Irish blood, one-quarter German. The German-American farmers and small business men of Wisconsin, who bitterly resented being drawn into two wars against their mother country and refused to believe ill of Hitler, regarded McCarthy as their champion against the Anglo-Saxons...on the advice of a prominent Catholic prelate he turned to the Red Menace...McCarthy now moved on to bigger game - Dean Acheson and General Marshall, the alleged executioners of Chiang's government...He even charged General Marshall with treason...Nobody who did not live through that period will ever believe what a sound and fury made up. McCarthy had a country-wide following. He was the idol of the Boston Irish, despite his vile attacks on men whom they elected. Cardinal Spellman extended his blessing; rising young politicians such as John F. Kennedy hedged. Actually, not one of the hundreds of "subversives" named by McCarthy in the state department was found guilty after full investigation or trial...in March 1954...the Senate then censured him by an emphatic vote. McCarthy himself collapsed, but the poisonous suspicion that he injected into the body politic will take many years to leach out....For success in dividing a country by sowing suspicion of treason in high places, there has been no one to equal Joe McCarthy since Marat in the French Revolution.'

Consider the sentiments of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. in his Foreword to Richard Rovere's biography, `Senator Joe McCarthy',

`Later generations reading about Joe McCarthy must wonder what in the world their ancestors had been smoking in the 1950s. Could that many Americans really have fallen for a cynical demagogue like Joe McCarthy? Could an eminent senator like Robert A. Taft, voted by the Senate in 1957 as one of the five greatest senators in American history, really have urged McCarthy on? Could a revered president like Dwight D. Eisenhower and an eminent secretary of state like John Foster Dulles really have handed McCarthy a de facto veto over State Department appointments? Could Bill Buckley really have called McCarthyism "a movement around which men of good will and stern morality can close ranks"? Yet all these things did take place...McCarthy, Rovere suggests, was our first national demagogue. His success was made possible by the nationalization of politics brought about by the New Deal, the Second World War, and the Cold War, and by the nationalization of communications brought about by radio and television. It was also made possible, of course, by Stalinism - by the Soviet dictator's murderous tyranny, by his purges and his gulags, by his network of agents and spies around the world, by the obedience of national Communist parties (China and Yugoslavia excepted, the CPUSA included) to his will, and by the reluctance of some good-hearted Americans to ever say a word against the Soviet Union and communism...'

We find in Professor Reeves' `The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy', p. i., that LBJ is quite eloquent in rendering homage to Joe McCarthy,

`Joe McCarthy - and he was "Joe" to everyone who knew him - was compounded of many elements. He had strength. He had great courage. He had daring. Joe McCarthy had a rare quality which enabled him to touch the hearts and the minds of millions of his fellow men.'

In Rovere's `Senator Joe McCarthy', we find Senator Bricker giving us his best George Patton-George C. Scott impression,

`Senator John Bricker...for many long years the plumed knight of Ohio conservatism, was not being the least un-American when he told McCarthy in the Senate cloakroom in 1950, "Joe, you're a dirty son of a bitch, but there are times when you've got to have a son of bitch around, and this is one of them."

Ann Coulter told us that Bobby Kennedy held the Republican Senator from Wisconsin in such high esteem that Bobby asked Joe to be godfather to his first child, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Ann Coulter says JFK once lashed out at someone who denigrated Joe McCarthy by implying there was little difference between McCarthy and Alger Hiss: JFK said McCarthy was a great American, whereas he said Hiss was a contemptible traitor.

Professor Reeves reminds us in `The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy', that Joe McCarthy gave a speech in Wheeling WV in 1950, saying there were 205 Communists in the State Department. Then, McCarthy gave a new story about 57 Card-Carrying Communists. Then the story became 81 Communists. McCarthy had been bluffing all along. He needed to find some Communists in the State Department, and he needed to find them fast or his political career would be over. McCarthy's investigators found Louis Budenz, an ex-Communist who John F. Kennedy had used as a witness, when JFK was a Congressman, to indict a labor leader for perjury. Budenz testified that Owen Lattimore was a Soviet spy. But Budenz had not told this to the FBI when Budenz had been telling the FBI about other Communist spies.

The controversy begins by Joe McCarthy implying that he has proof of Communist spies in the State Department. If a Senator did have proof that there were 205 Communist spies in the State Department, he probably wouldn't announce this in Wheeling WV, and thereby give the spies a chance to escape, he would take his evidence quietly to the FBI. But if he didn't have proof that there were 205 Communist spies in the State Department he might do some bluffing. Perhaps many State Department employees will suddenly flee the country after falling for McCarthy's bluff - which would certainly advance McCarthy's political career. The essence of the controversy involves the question: how does a reasonable person identify loyalty risks? You don't have to prove that a man is a Communist to prove he shouldn't be given a job working with state secrets. But you have to prove that he's a loyalty risk.

Apropos of loyalty tests and such, everyone knows the Smith Act of 1940 predated the McCarthy Era. Truman signed Executive Order 9835. In this order 4.7 million federal employees and applicants had their files reviewed by the FBI. What's the point of reviewing the files of 4.7 million people if the government is not going to dismiss anyone or put anyone under FBI surveillance? If you dismiss someone from a job for being a loyalty risk, how risky does a person have to be to get fired? The McCarthy Era is a big debate over these issues. How Red does a Pinko have to be to get canned?

Much of the passions generated by the McCarthy Era were due, first of all, to the fact that Congress often conducted its investigations in public. As we learned in the Clarence Thomas - Anita Hill controversy, reputations will be tarnished, and there will be rancor, bitterness and hatred when investigations are conducted in public.

The Orthodox verdict handed down from Academia is that Joe McCarthy was a pathological liar who trampled on human rights and caused fear, heartache and unemployment misery in many people. Various Intellectuals on both the Left and the Right have made strong arguments saying that, deep down, he was a good man, but, nevertheless, by a combination of factors - alcohol, pain from various bodily ailments from which he suffered, zeal to fight Communism, a temperament which with naturally combative - he was a less than perfect leader on the anti-Communist side. An argument that the Conservatives have against Liberals who say he was a witch-hunter, a vile fearmonger etc, would be that he had sincere fears about Communists, and he did the best he could. The Conservatives say: if someone accuses you of Treason, don't whine and cry, just defend yourself. Think of some witty or eloquent phrases you might use if you ever go on national TV. Grab your 15 minutes of fame. Think of the whole experience as a learning experience for yourself and for people intrigued by the controversy. No one would care about the Owen Lattimore today if not for the controversy between him and Joe McCarthy and Louis Budenz. These people are dead now, but what do their ghosts have to teach us?

Professor Reeves writes in The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy,

`The October 22 [1952] issue of `Time' featured Joe's face on its cover over the caption "Demagogue McCarthy"...While Henry Luce's magazine was willing to perpetuate the Red Scare and push for G.O.P. victories in 1952, it would be consistently unsympathetic toward McCarthy's excesses. "Experience proves...that what the anti-Communist fight needs is truth, carefully arrived at and presented with all scrupulous regard for decency and the rights of man of which the democratic world is capable. This is the western world's greatest asset in the struggle against communism, and those who condone McCarthy are throwing that asset away."'

Joe McCarthy was a piece of work. It's difficult to summarize him, to paint an accurate portrait of him in a few words. You can't help but play the role of psychiatrist, and wonder how the experiences of leaving school after the 8th grade to work at dreary jobs, and then to go back to the 9th grade at age 20, and to complete four years of high school work in 9 months affected him upstairs.

He was popular with the people because he was fearless, highly intelligent, witty and gregarious. He was down-to-earth; he was a man of the people. He lost his popularity with the people, not when he bullied intellectuals, but when he bullied ordinary non-scholars, such as when he bullied the poor army general, by saying he didn't have the brains of a five-year-old, and didn't deserve to wear the soldier of a general in the United States Army.

The Intellectuals hated McCarthy because it seemed to them that he had difficulty distinguishing between a Liberal and a godless agent of revolutionary violence. If he was so smart, why couldn't he make this distinction? One theory would be: he was showered with adoration from people, people who thought he was slamming people who needed to be slammed, so he was given a powerful inducement to keep on slamming people. Rovere has a funny anecdote about McCarthy concerning a time he was arguing in the Senate. McCarthy had switched from insisting that Owen Lattimore was the Supreme Soviet spy in the USA to a new tactic, speaking of Lattimore acting in another capacity, but one where he was still seeking the destruction of the USA by promoting his Commie ideas. The gallery broke out in laughter when McCarthy, quite matter-of-factly, said words to the effect: `Why every schoolchild in America knows that Owen Lattimore is the architect of our Far-Eastern policy.' There might have been 5 kids in the USA who had ever heard of the Owen Lattimore at the time.

But what Liberals always forget is that McCarthy didn't have to prove that a person was a bone fide Red to prove he was a loyalty risk. We're not dealing with an exact science when we deal with loyalty risks. It's best that these things aren't assessed in public! Just how red can a Pinko be before he has to be fired as a loyalty risk from his Public Sector job?

The strategists had determined that it was best to not wait to identify a person as a loyalty risk until after he had stolen the plans to the H-bomb and given these to the Kremlin. The strategy was, 1) try to never hire traitors, and 2) try to terminate those people who a reasonable person would say is reasonably likely to pose a threat to the USA. The process is flawed, there's no way to make it flawless. Good people will be mistakenly fired as loyalty risks. And it will be impossible to hire only non-traitors. Mistakes must happen. But you have to try to weed out the loyalty risks. Therefore, as mistakes must happen, some innocent people and some guilty people will be weeded out as loyalty risks - and both will protest with wails of protest. If people aren't protesting, the vetting process is too lenient. You can't make the vetting process so inviting, so welcoming, that spies will find it easy to enter the government, because they will then work tirelessly to hire more of their comrades, and before you know it lots and lots of spies will be working in the government. The Soviet archives have been opened. The Soviet cables from the Kremlin to her agents in the USA have been decrypted. McCarthy was right and the Liberals were wrong. There were hundreds of Communist agents in the USA government.

But to evaluate Joe McCarthy you have to ask: what percentage of the time, when Joe McCarthy identified a loyalty risk, would a reasonable person agree with him?

You have to go case by case and through all the details to assess Joe McCarthy. And whenever a critic says: `but Joe McCarthy didn't find any Communists in the State Department,' then we know the critic doesn't understand the issue. The issue is: how fair and adept was Joe McCarthy at identifying people who were loyalty risks - people who should not have been hired, or people who needed to be dismissed from their government jobs? A person who is a loyalty risk might be a wonderful American, but he just can't quite be trusted enough to be given a sensitive government job.

In investigating these matters one is also asking: who are the trustworthy journalists and professors in America? In assessing McCarthy one is assessing McCarthy's admirers and revilers. Who are the hacks who serve their own prejudices and ideological agendas? Who are the Pharisees who never seem to know the truth but who always seem to know where their bread is buttered? Of course a journalist or a professor might be a lover of a whore named Bias on the subject of Joe McCarthy, but he might also be a perfect gentleman with a sweet lady named Miss Impartiality on all other occasions. To avoid false and facile conclusions in this review one can not simply listen to a few admirers, or revilers, of Joe McCarthy, and, acting on their testimony alone, which one might have been obtained in either an honest saloon or a disreputable university, decide that it is wise to praise or curse Joe McCarthy. One must Question Authority. One must conduct some research to determine if McCarthy was a saint or a demon, a hero or a scoundrel. Was he an amazingly dangerous crackpot from America's Dairyland? Was he a vile liar? Was he a good man slandered by the ignorant and the deluded masses? Was he a complex character with multitudinous shadings of vice and virtue in his multi-faceted personality?

Senator McCarthy was in the Senate. He was not part of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The standards to be used in weighing evidence mandate that, before a jury sends a person to the gas chamber for espionage, the evidence against him must be very persuasive indeed. But the evidence required to fire a person from a sensitive government job needn't be so powerful. One credible witness saying he's dangerous is enough to fire him. The McCarthy Era revolves round the matter of determining which witnesses were credible and which weren't. The author of Witness, Whittacker Chambers, was seen as an honest man by millions and seen as a liar by millions of others. The only way you can prove to your enemies that you do not have a biased opinion about the credibility of Whittacker Chambers is to arrive at a judgment of him which will please your enemies and anger your friends.

Before we delve further into some details concerning the McCarthy Era, the early 1950s, we might look at some general material concerning the 1960s - when both Democrats and Republicans were, as in the 1950s, still strenuously anti-Communist. In `Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years' (edited by Edwin O Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, Bantam, 1988) we see on pp. 139-47 conversations that the journalist Anthony Lewis had with Robert F. Kennedy and Burke Marshall. RFK was JFK's Attorney General and Burke Marshal was Assistant Attorney General. Lewis broaches the subject of the December 1964 meeting between FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lewis tells us that J. Edgar Hoover accused Dr. King of being `the most notorious liar in the country.' RFK says he wasn't at that meeting, but he does say, that, in 1961, he had heard that MLK had been associating with Communists, and that he gave the FBI permission to put a wire tap on MLK's phone. We then read RFK's words, to the effect that, at this December 1964 meeting, Dr. King was rather taken aback by all the mountains of information that the FBI had on him. But, on p. 145, we see that this information also served to vindicate Dr. King, that is, the evidence indicated that he knew Communists, but, also, that he was trying to distance himself from these Communists. Burke Marshall says that Hoover prepared a top secret memorandum which attacked Dr. King, stating he had connections with Communists, and copies of this memorandum where sent to LBJ, to RFK, to Burke Marshall, to Navy Intelligence, to Army Intelligence, to Air Force Intelligence etc., etc. RFK said Hoover's report was unfair because it presented only one side of the story, and it neglected to explain the evidence, gathered from the wire-taps, in Dr. King's favor, as the FBI had taped conversations where Dr. King said he didn't want anything to do with the Communists.

One can't advance very far in coherently discussing Communists unless one defines the word Communist. Some people assume the word Communist means: A harmless flower-child who wants everyone to share the wealth by voluntary not compulsory means.

Other people assume that it means: A cold-blooded revolutionary killer - a godless agent of revolutionary violence - a creature, a minion, a killing-machine who obeys the murderous dictates of people like Lenin and Stalin, Mao and Castro.

As we saw J Edgar Hoover was certainly unfair to MLK - as evidenced by the evidence that he called him the most notorious liar in the USA! - and by the fact that he concealed the exonerating evidence in the wire taps of MLK - but, nevertheless, when we consider Hoover over his entire career, what are we to conclude? How do we sum up J. Edgar in a nutshell?

How curious it was that he was given, at age 24, such an exalted position in law enforcement, right at the top of what would become the FBI. A cynical Liberal might think he had to be blackmailing someone to climb so high at such a young age.

We had two Red Scares in the USA. The first followed after the Bolshevik Revolution and the second began when Stalin did some things after World War II, such as break his promise at Yalta to allow for elections in Eastern Europe, such as when the coup was launched in Czechoslovakia, the USSR blockaded Berlin, crushed the Poles, crushed the Estonians, crushed the Lithuanians, crushed the Latvians etc., etc. In the first Red Scare in the USA there was a plot by radicals to send mail bombs to government leaders. The plot was uncovered in April of 1919. But in June a bomb exploded outside the home of the Attorney General of the United States, killing the radical who was carrying the bomb. That summer, the 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover led raids which rounded up hundreds of Russian immigrants suspected of being subversives. About 250 of them were deported. Some historians see the FBI as guilty of committing atrocities. J. Edgar Hoover, a lawyer and criminologist, assumed leadership of the then lowly and unprofessional Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1924, and, over the ensuing decades, he transformed the FBI it into what many believe is the world's greatest police force.

In `Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years', we see, p. 225, that the African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry was very upset by the way whites were treating blacks in the USA. She is on the record saying that she and her friends were going to get some guns, and were going to start killing white people. She said that whitey is angry at the black man because the black man is more virile than the white man, and therefore whitey is trying to `castrate' the black man. RFK sent a telegram to her, which she used in advertisements to help revive one of her failing plays. Evidently RFK, who the reader will recall was a white man, couldn't have been too upset with her for saying that she was going to start killing white folks. In evaluating Lorraine Hansberry, in trying to encapsulate the essence of her character in a few words, we have to be fair and we can't judge her by only considering her most deranged moments. Perhaps she usually wasn't deranged, and perhaps she never killed any white folks. The defenders of Joe McCarthy do not believe his attackers are being fair, as they latch on to the incriminating evidence which says he descended into slander, that he was a liar, but they ignore his finer moments.

Perhaps some of the lingering hatred of Joe McCarthy in 21st century America is faction-driven: perhaps some of it is primitive and tribal as opposed to just and rational. If you are a brave or a squaw in the Conservative Tribe then you love Clarence Thomas and you hate Anita Hill. If you are a brave or a squaw in the Liberal Tribe then you hate Robert Bork and you love Ted Kennedy. Joe McCarthy was a Republican, and therefore, one might argue, he will be hated by many Liberals, because, like the swallows that return to Capistrano, Liberals feel a primitive or innate impulse to be hostile to all Republicans.

Consider the animosity between the two factions in our own time. Roger Kimball is a Right-Wing polemical lion who wrote a combative article in `National Review', 2.11.08, entitled `A Knave and His Index: Lewis Lapham Continues to Wound Our Culture', where he rakes Mr. Latham over the coals for dumbing-down the formerly illustrious `Harper's' agazine. Kimball also lambastes Latham for what Latham is doing in his journal, `Latham's Quarterly'. Mr. Kimball certainly makes this magazine sound hellishly scatterbrained. Its first issue inundates readers with information on how many people Rambo killed with his shirt on, and how many Rambo killed with his shirt off. Future issues will give us contributions from Gibbon, Lenin, Patton, Churchill, Joseph Goebbels, PFC Jessica Lynch and St. Augustine. How is one supposed to wait patiently for these issues to arrive in ones mailbox? The unifying theme of `Latham's Quarterly' seems to be hostility toward Republicans. Now that's a banner round which many millions of Americans can get enthusiastic. But these things must be properly managed. There's no sense in serving up a lot of oisseaux sans têtes when millions of Democrats crave raw red meat, and a balanced diet from the 4 basic food groups: Republican Plots to Steal Elections, Republican Plots to Launch Coups d'etat, Republican Plots to further Grind the Faces of the Poor into the Dirt, and Republican Plots to Unite Church and State. Mr. Latham showed such great promise in his `Tentacles of Rage'. We can only hope he will return to his true métier.

The Left said Ronald Reagan was a heartless idiot, a lousy actor, a clown who didn't care two cents about the poor. Things got a little brutal when Judges Bork and Thomas were given high tech lynchings by the US Senate. The Right said Bill Clinton was a hormone-crazed womanizing lust-zombie; a lying, cheating, power-mad triangulating slickster. The Left said George W. Bush was a stupid, #$!& piece of @$&$ for day after day, year after year.

Sometimes, one gets the nagging impression that everything in the USA is rotten. PETA people are forever insisting that poor defenseless animals are treated with very unkosher cruelty on America's factory farms. Corporations covet profits above humane treatment of animals. Not too long ago in the USA a beautiful girl died in a motorcycle accident, and three of our less distinguished countrymen dug up her recently buried corpse and had sex with it. Yes, some Americans would do that, but cheer up, most Americans would not have dug up her corpse and had sex with it. `National Review' reports (10.23.06) that the ACLU says that child porn, once it has been produced, is expression which is protected by the Constitution. And people dare to criticize the ACLU. In `National Review' (7.17.06) Mark Steyn refreshed our memories about the New York Times telling the world and the world's terrorists how it is that US investigators track the finances of terrorists, such as the perpetrators of the Bali bombing, thus giving then ample warning to make sure they keep changing their tactics to avoid detection. The insanity in America / Babylon never ends. Recall that the word `Babylon' means Confusion. The federal tax code of the United States of America is so wordy and convoluted and corrupt and laden with pork that it requires 80,000 pages to print its entirety. Doris Kearns Goodwin tells us in `The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An America Saga' that JFK didn't even write `Profiles in Courage'. He just put his name on it after other people wrote it. Then a friend of his old man lobbied the Pulitzer Prize people to award JFK the prize, and when they gave the prize to the guy who didn't write the book, the Pulitzer people said the book was: `a distinguished American biography...teaching patriotic and unselfish service to the people.' And our old friend Garry Wills, who said pro-life people are neither evil nor moronic, merely below average, said there is nothing wrong with a politician pretending he wrote a book that he didn't write. What a hellish nightmare is this America! Not that we should let foreigners on the International Court of Justice run the place, but it's painfully obvious that we Americans are no good at running it.

`National Review' (5.25.2009, p. 14) reports that Liberal journalist I. F. Stone has been proven to be a traitor to the USA, a spy for Stalin, and a lifelong liar. A spy such as Kim Philby (the Soviet mole in British counter-intelligence) was especially contemptible because he betrayed Western agents to the Soviets, and the Soviets tortured these agents to get as much information as they could out of them, and then they executed them. A journalist can be a propagandist but one can't really be a spy unless one has gotten access to State Secrets, such as the names of secret agents, the location of safe houses and dead drops, knowledge of codes and ciphers, troop movements and missile installations, secret operations, the plans for doomsday devices etc. `The Nation' (5.25.2009) has a long article on Isidore Feinstein (he changed it in 1937 to I. F. Stone) which comes to his defense. Ann Coulter tells us that Venona has proven he was a paid Soviet agent. We'll look at Venona a little later. Conservatives say I. F. Stone whitewashed evils perpetrated by Lenin and Stalin. Liberals say he was a great journalist. Assessing I. F. Stone becomes a little complicated for both Conservatives and Liberals, because, 1) one has to read a lot of what he wrote to judge him fairly, and he wrote a lot of words, and 2) if it can be proven that Stalin was pro-life, then I. F. Stone was an agent for the pro-life philosophy. I know this sounds frivolous, but if I. F. Stone was devoted to the Communism of Lenin and Stalin, and if Lenin and Stalin said abortion is a decadent Western practice which has no place in the proletarian Revolution, then I. F. Stone was a pro-life agent. The Communists always said that the West would collapse under her own decadence and materialistic excesses - abortion being an example of decadence, a symptom of a lack of self-discipline in people, and one can't build a Workers Paradise with people who lack self-discipline. But it was the demand for Western Freedoms: Western free speech, Western movies, Western pornography, Western music, Western decadence etc., which led to the fall of the Iron Curtain. This makes things a little complicated for Christians, as we want Atheistic Slave Empires to fall, but we don't want them replaced with decadent Babylons. And of course Revelation 18 tells Christians, or at least it implies to Christians, that the West will fall because the West is a decadent Babylon.

In a retrospective on the McCarthy Era one must ask: Who were the spies? And who whitewashed Stalin's crimes? As Conquest said, by 1950 there was plenty of proof available to Westerners proving the USSR was a huge concentration camp - the USSR was running a vast archipelago of slave labor / murder camps. Dashiel Hammet and Lillian Hellmann, for instance, were big fans of Joseph Stalin's when everyone in the West ought to have known he was a mass murderer.

To return to J. Edgar Hoover, MLK, JFK, RFK etc, did MLK, JFK and RFK squander their potential by their incessant womanizing? The theory runs that J. Edgar Hoover had photographic proof of their flagrant adulteries. In any event, J. Edgar Hoover might have blackmailed some bad boys, either implicitly or explicitly, and he could thereby hinder or attempt to hinder their civil rights agenda, which wasn't J. Edgar Hoover's agenda.

With an old man like Joe Kennedy Sr. how could one not be a little screwed up? Joe Sr., without consulting his wife, took his either normal or dyslexic eldest daughter, Rosemary, paid a doctor to give her a prefrontal lobotomy, which was botched, and then Rosemary was left profoundly mentally retarded for the rest of her life. Joe Sr. would buy prostitutes for his sons; he told them to use them often (Heymann, RFK, p. 41). And what about nurturing children, and letting them become what they were born to become, rather them forcing them to conform to the paternal tyrant's dictates? When did parents forcing kids to conform to a mold made out of high ambition ever do the kids any good? We must conclude that Joe Sr. exhibited very poor parenting skills. Perhaps his parents were also poor nurturers. They were after all white people born in the 19th century. So, we can assume they desperately needed massive doses of sensitivity training, many hours of re-education on Diversity issues, and a complete overhaul and a thorough indoctrination on topics in gender and relations. If Eunice Kennedy had declared she was a lesbian and that she wanted to marry her black girl friend, you know perfectly well her parents would have had issues with that. Teaching kids to be worldly and ambitious might have some predictable consequences. To give an idea of the gossipy glass houses the Kennedy's lived in, we might consult a few gossipy books on the subject. Ben Bradlee, Editor of the Washington Post, and his wife were good friends with JFK and Jackie. In Journals: 1952-2000 by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., p. 420, we read that Ben Bradlee wrote a book about JFK in which he constantly reported instances of JFK using profane language, but Schlesinger, a life-long Kennedy family devotee, says JFK did not use profanity, and he more or less accuses Bradlee of being a liar and a slanderer, though the two men were friends all the same. In C David Heymann's `RFK', p. 520, we read that one of RFK's colorful sons tells a girl he's sleeping with, `you're not as good in bed as Ben Bradlee's daughter.' It's as if there's a biographer lurking under the bed of every Kennedy. Heymann makes an accusation against JFK which I won't repeat. Who knows if it's true or if it's a slander? Who knows where honest reporting ends and lies begins? Was Camelot an all-too brief yet poignantly beautiful era in the history of the USA? Was it Babylon on the Potomac? Was it an Heroic Age full of brave heroes and bewitching dames? Was it just another American myth invented by journalists? Non-Americans often complain that American history is deadly dull. It can be. Relive those thrilling moments when we first listened with enraptured wonder at the sublime poetry from the pen of Mr. Justice Harry Blackmun - `we are convinced that the fundamental limitation that the constitutional scheme imposes on the Commerce Clause to protect the "States as States" is one of process rather than one of result. Any substantive restraint on the exercise of the Commerce Clause powers must find its justification in the procedural nature of this basic limitation, and it must be tailored to compensate for possible failings in the national political process rather than to dictate a "sacred province of state autonomy." Notice how much more fashionably incoherent Blackmun is compared to the crude intelligibility favored by Neanderthal, plain-spoken Jurists: Congress can ignore the Commerce Clause of Article I. and ignore Amendment 10 and Congress can regulate intrastate commerce because Congress can make the States and the Cities give folks stuff when it is fitting and proper for Congress to make the States and the Cities give folks stuff.

US history can often be dreadfully, hideously dull. But when JFK and RFK pushed the nuclear showdown with the Soviets in Cuba, JFK and RFK, assuming you can believe what you read, were, all at the same time, kicking their wives out of their beds, pulling a gangster's moll and Marilyn Monroe into their beds, while ordering the Soviets to back down, to get their missiles loaded with thermonuclear warheads out of Cuba, and telling the Soviets they better not bust through our Naval blockade unless they wanted World War III. Let's see foreign leaders beat that for sex and violence in a recent historical drama! Turkey really got the short end of the stick in the deal, if memory serves. The deal was the Soviets would pull their nukes out of Cuba and the USA wouldn't protest when they put close to our NATO ally Turkey.

No doubt the humiliating experience of the Bay of Pigs fiasco - hardly an Oscar winning performance in the category of Most Courageous Performance by a Superpower When Confronting a Little Tin-Horn Caribbean Dictator - strengthened JFK's resolve to stand up to the Soviets the next time he had a chance to do so. JFK botched the Bay of Pigs deal in April. He got bullied by Khrushchev in Vienna six weeks later. Then he got bullied again when he let Khrushchev build the Berlin Wall in August. In December JFK got tired of being pushed around and he sent 400 Green Berets to Vietnam. Since the USSR was like a balloon, in that it was looking to expand, it would continue to expand until it met a force which prevented it from expanding. The problem with the Vietnam War was not that the USA stood up to the Soviets. The USA had to stand up sometime or else we would now be speaking Russian, and the USA would be filled with statues of Lenin and Stalin, and our public schools would be forbidden to teach the Bible, and our economy would be based on Socialistic Principles where the government would be composed of millions of regulations and mountains of red-tape put around the necks of businesses and individuals, where there would be crushing taxation on the Private Sector, and our universities would teach Left-Wing ideologies, and would demonize those who disagree with the Left-Wing ideologies etc., etc. But Wars have to be managed equitably, and there's a problem with Justice and Equity when 50-year-olds conscript 18-year-olds and force them to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. The basic rule is: if you want to fight someone, then fight him yourself, but don't conscript 18-year-old kids to do your fighting while you sit at home all safe and comfortable.

In `A History of the American People' Paul Johnson said that about one hundred college professors were fired for refusing to answer questions or for admitting they were Communists after Sen. McCarthy began the hue and cry. In the USA, teachers in public schools can tell students that Evolution is true, and that the universe was created by purely materialistic forces, but teachers who insist, even in non-required classes, even in classes which students need not take and pass in order to graduate, that Jesus created the universe, will be fired. Let's see a foreign Christian nation beat the USA here for the Oscar in the genre of Greatest Insanity from a Nation where the Majority of the People are said to be Christian.

One doesn't have to be a Nazi killer to merit dismissal from ones professor's chair in an American university. Merely whitewashing or denying the holocaust is reason enough for the tax payers to stop paying the denier's luxurious salary. Therefore, if a college professor denied or whitewashed the fact that the Communists in the USSR were running a long archipelago of slave-labor camps in which millions of people were being worked and starved to death, when there was clear evidence showing this to be the case, and, if it is simply narrow-minded, ideological bigotry which prevents the professor from examining the evidence honestly, then this professor ought to be fired. A lot of what qualifies a professor to be a professor is that he is able to honestly look at evidence, even though it might be evidence which is contrary to his most cherished beliefs and biases. Einstein refused to proclaim his Theory of General Relativity to be true unless it first passed conclusive tests. This is what is known as the scientific method. It's natural to have cherished beliefs and biases, but one becomes a pitiful hack if the evidence proves ones cherished beliefs and biases are delusional.

Perhaps the typical professor in the USA has no great knowledge of the facts surrounding Joe McCarthy. The typical professor might only be hostile to Joe McCarthy because Academia has always been hostile to Joe McCarthy, and if everyone is goose-stepping then of course it would feel awkward to not be goose-stepping as well.

Just for the sake of seeing if one can evaluate a man honestly and accurately, just for the sake of trying to see if one knows how to conduct a little research and scholarly investigation, one might attempt to find a relatively brief summation - yet a supremely accurate summation - of Senator McCarthy. If one can't properly assess one person, after making a big investigation of his biography, then one needs some help in learning how to assess people!

Professor Thomas C. Reeves gave us both a sympathetic and a critical portrait of Joe McCarthy in his 700+ page biography entitled `The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy', Stein and Day. Professor Reeves doesn't write like a Right-Winger when he writes of Congressman Rank,

`In 1945 and 1946 HUAC was dominated by Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi...Rankin was a hater: he despised Communists, socialists, liberals, New Dealers, civil libertarians, intellectuals, blacks, aliens, and Jews with fervor. On the floor of the House he once called commentator Walter Winchell "a little slime-mongering kike." "In Rankin's mind," wrote Walter Goodman, "to call a Jew a Communist was a tautology."

Is the above an accurate summation of Congressman Rankin? Whether it is or not, Professor Reeves does not appear to be an author filled with Far Right-Wing biases, though some might insist that anyone who shows sympathy towards Joe McCarthy must be a dog filled with Right-Wing biases.

To illustrate how it is difficult to accurately judge people if you only catch brief glimpses of their biographies, we might glance at Charles Lindberg, FDR and Dorothy Kenyon.

In Minneapolis-St. Paul we have an airport with two terminals. The Lindbergh terminal is the main one and the Humphrey terminal is the minor one. When we go to the main terminal at MSP do we go to a terminal named after a Nazi? Was Lindbergh a Nazi? What do the witnesses say? And how trustworthy are these witnesses? We read FDR's words to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau in Joseph E. Persico's `Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage' (Random House, 2002, p. 39),
FDR: `If I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this. I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi.'

FDR says Lindberg is a Nazi, but how trustworthy is FDR? And, note also, if FDR had given his assessment of Lindberg in public, rather than in private, and if Lindberg was not a Nazi, then FDR would have befouled the reputation of an American hero.

Whether Charles Lindbergh was a Nazi or not, the people of Minneapolis-St. Paul might never wish to consider any assessment of Lindberg which strays from their firm belief that he was a Hero / Pilot / Isolationist from Little Falls, MN. They might not care to consider any evidence which says he was a Nazi, indeed, we've named a terminal at our airport after him, and how embarrassing would it be to discover that we've named it after a Nazi! It's best to not look too deeply in Lindberg's past. Let sleeping dogs lie. But, others insist, the re-evaluation of Lindberg must proceed with all deliberate speed, as the light of truth must not be extinguished by the narrow-mind and quaintly provincial incurious truth-evading people. How trustworthy was FDR? What do his accusers say of him? Persico in his Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage uncovers some dirt on him, p. 61. We learn that, months before Pearl Harbor, FDR wanted to give some bombers to China so that they could be used to fire-bomb Tokyo in retaliation for Japanese atrocities against Chinese civilians. And of course Tokyo was fire-bombed later by the USA, which means the USA burned thousands of women and children. FDR subscribed to the philosophy that it is good to burn thousands of women and children as long as it is done in a retaliatory attack, as payback for what cruel Japanese men were doing in China. In any event, Lindberg's defense attorney can now claim that FDR was a war criminal - for certainly a man who seeks to set thousands of women and children on fire with fire-bombs is a war criminal - and therefore he has no credibility when he says Lindberg was a Nazi.

When does war become outlawed under the New Law? Roosevelt and Truman fire bombed and nuked cities full of women and children. Perhaps partisanship for the Democratic Party would cloud ones vision and confuse ones discernment between right and wrong, but isn't it obvious they were war criminals?

In nuclear first strikes or in retaliatory strikes, don't you think it is an abomination, according to the Gospel, according to the New Law, to incinerate and irradiate women and children in huge fireballs, in nuclear attacks? I mean, you know, women will be crushed under the concrete of falling buildings, and children will be impaled on shards of shattered glass etc. So, why would a good Christian want his country to employ the MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction - strategy?

Just to be clear in ones minds in knowing the difference between justifiable force and unjustifiable force, no one argues that the police can't use lethal force if necessary to arrest murderers, rapists, child molesters and other such criminals. As an invading army is rather like a collection of criminals, a militia which uses lethal force to repel invading armies sounds sensible, whereas, don't you think it's crazy to say that God and Christianity have no issues with people who burn thousands of women and children in nuclear fireballs?

Samuel Eliot Morison tells us in `The Oxford History of the American People' that William E. Woodward, in his novel `Bunk', invented the word: Debunking. Woodward, Menchen, Charles A. Beard and other people who debunk delusions practice the art of debunking, not that the art didn't exist before Woodward invented another name for an ancient practice in 1923. In his biography of George Washington, Woodward said Washington was never heard to mention the name Jesus Christ. In David Barton's `Original Intent' (p. 79, Coral Ridge edition) we read that George Washington wanted the youth of America to learn the religion of Jesus Christ. Yes, but did Washington did agree with John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, I Timothy 3. 16? Did Washington accept 2 Thess 1. 8? You can't determine if a Christian is orthodox or heretical unless you give him a test, and then you have to know the right answers to that test! On the theme of judging people such as Roosevelt and Lindberg, how does one judge George Washington? Woodward informs us that after Washington's sneak attack against the French, the French considered Washington to be a murderer. George Washington even signed a confession in which he admitted to assassinating the French officer, M. de Jumonville. Washington had reposed too much trust in his translator, Van Braam. Washington trusted the man to accurately translate the word l'assassinat, which was sitting in plain view on the paper of the confession which Washington signed. This word is not a faux ami. It means in English exactly what it appears to mean in English. Van Braam translated it for Washington as, `caused the death of.' In war, soldiers cause the death of other soldiers all the time; but when one assassinates someone, one commits murder. The British would of course later see Washington as a traitor. Everyone knows that Washington was a courageous fighter and that he was also a slave-driver. He might have been kindly to his slaves compared to some other slave-drivers, but, nevertheless, a slave owner must ultimately resort to the whip if he is to inspire people to work for no wages, and inspire them to not run away from their low paying jobs on the plantation. Americans, generally speaking, prefer to remember George Washington as the Father of our Country, as a courageous warrior, and we are not inclined to remember him as a slave-driver, a murderer, and a traitor. Well, what exactly was he? Woodward epitomized Washington in this manner, p. 187:

`His strongest quality was fortitude. The fighter who stays in the ring as long as he can stand on his feet, the man who keeps his business alive while his clothes are threadbare and his stomach empty, the captain who clings to his ship while there is a plank left afloat - that is Washington.'

It's understandable how a man who was innocent of murder could sign a document saying he was guilty of l'assassinat if his translator assures him it doesn't mean what it looks like it means. French has no end of words that don't mean what English speakers think they mean: bras doesn't mean what you think it means, nor does main, pain, our, or, fin, gorge, comment etc. But l'assassinat means what it looks like in means.

It's rather difficult to make convincing arguments which say: Jesus wants Colonial Christian Soldier A to shoot and kill British Christian Soldier B. And if God doesn't approve of this sort of killing, He is probably not going to approve of the American Revolution. It wasn't very Christian of the British to quarter soldiers in the homes of the Colonials. If a British soldier tried to rape someones mother, wife or sister, a Colonial would have reason to kill the perpetrator. But the simple act of quartering soldiers does not give a Colonial Christian the right to kill, under the New Law, a British Christian soldier. Governments impose stern or unfair laws on people all of the time. A US citizen does not have the right under the New Law to kill cops when the cops come to arrest him for tax evasion. The New Testament is not a document which advocates a great deal of killing and bloody violence! The Colonials had legitimate complaints, but the British were not so monstrous that the Colonials had the right, under Divine Law, to kill the British, to shoot them, to bayonet them, to strangle them till they were dead, in order to settle these complaints. One would have to be a very perverse reader of the New Testament to think that the New Testament gave Colonial Christian A the right to kill British Christian B. And if one insists the British were monstrous in regards to slavery, the British still ended slavery decades sooner than the USA.

If the Revolution began because rich white colonials felt pressed by unfair British taxation, then a colonial soldier still did not have the right to kill British soldiers in a coup d'etat. The founding fathers kept the slaves in their chains after our Revolution. They let poor men fight in the Revolutionary War but we didn't let them vote after they spilled their blood and risked their necks in that war. They didn't let Women, Slaves or Indians vote. They only let white men with property to vote. It is obvious that if the founding fathers let every person over 18 vote, then everyone in the USA would soon be poor, because the poor voters would elect politicians who would take the money of the rich and they would distribute it to the poor, and this would soon leave everyone poor. The 18th century did not have the technology - such as the internal combustion engine - to achieve the enormous productivity which creates a huge Middle Class. So, though it sounds terribly reactionary, you really can't blame the founding fathers for only letting people with property vote. It's true that the Christian scriptures indicate there is equal sharing of the wealth among those who work in the True Church, but in creating a Republic which won't immediately collapse into anarchy you have to avoid unrealistic Utopian schemes which will precipitate anarchy. Christianity tells us that to obey the New Law is to be on the road to heaven; to rebel against the New Law is to be on the road to perdition. If one is on the road to perdition, one shouldn't be launching rebellions against George III. and his regime - one needs to set ones house in order: one needs to obey the New Law, and one does not need to launch a rebellion against the regime of George III. The concept of God judging civilizations is a little problematical, as a civilization is simply a collection of individuals. God judges the souls human beings, such as the souls of George III., Washington, Jefferson, Franklin etc. in the afterlife. And in our epitome of the Christian religion we recall that 2 Thess 1. 8 is a powerful scripture saying one must know God and obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ to avoid perdition. Many of the founding fathers were Masons. The Masons are a secret society. And of course Christianity is always hostile to secret societies. Christianity is not about hiding things from people. It is not about keeping knowledge secret. It's not about helping the people in some secret society to get jobs and business and political favors. Christianity proclaims its knowledge - it's doctrines - openly. Christianity explains the evidence for Christianity openly. There are isues involving True Christianity v. False Versions of Christianity, but True Christianity promotes honesty and sincereity. Secret societies are juvenile clubs which promote secrecy and insincerity; they are childish cliques which seek to advance the worldly success of their members. Secret societies are always hostile to Diversity, but Christianity is a big fan of Diversity, though you have to be careful how you define the word `Diversity'. Christianity tells people to stop being stupid juveniles who join stupid, juvenile secret societies. Christianity tells people to grow up and stop being rebellious children. Christianity is always hostile to secret societies, therefore, secret societies are always anti-Christian. Thomas Jefferson despised the idea of the Trinity. He respected Jesus as a fine teacher, but he certainly didn't see Jesus as God. Nevertheless even many Christians today see Thomas Jefferson as a far better man than those pious frauds, those clergymen of former centuries who envisioned God to be a Tyrannical Deity who supported the African slave trade, who wanted backsliders whipped, who wanted dissenters sent to the gallows, who wanted the rack and the stake, death or imprisonment given to those who disagreed with the clergymen of former centuries on religious matters.

Getting back to judging Joe McCarthy, we see that he looked into the trustworthiness of Dorothy Kenyon. Dorothy Kenyon claimed she was never a Communist. Senator Hickenlooper, R-IA, one of Joe McCarthy's side-kicks, had investigated her thoroughly and had determined she was not a security risk to the USA. She was a lawyer, formerly a judge. Her only connection to the State Department was that she was a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women from 1947 to 1949. While serving in this capacity she had been criticized by Moscow for her combative attitude which she directed at the Soviet representatives, evidently she doubted that women and children were luxuriating in abundant freedoms supplied by the Soviet Workers Paradise. To further establish her anti-Communist bone fides, she presented documents to the Tydings Committee attesting that she had resisted efforts by Communists to take over the American Labor Party. She was active in many organizations, and no doubt some or many or all of these were not filled with godless agents of revolutionary violence. She was active in the ADA, the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women etc., etc. She described herself thus wise: `I am, and always have been, an independent, liberal Rooseveltian Democrat.' No one at the time would have said that proves she was a loyalty risk, because, she openly, defiantly, claimed to be a Rooseveltian after it had been proven that FDR was a war criminal. No one argued that it would be insane for the USA to send her to represent the USA at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, because she supported a President who burned women and children alive in bomb attacks on Japanese and German cities.

In any event, the above illustrates the process one uses when one assesses the trustworthiness of people: investigators try to dig up dirt on people to see if they are too dirty to be trusted in a sensitive government job.

There a two schools of thought. One says you can not conduct fair investigations in public, therefore, don't conduct investigations in public! The other school of thought says that in emotionally-charged controversies it is impossible to keep investigators from leaking information to the press, especially if investigators think Congress is perpetrating a cover-up. And when the passions of the people are inflamed, you have to keep everything out in the open, even at the cost of having innocent people slandered, vilified, traumatized etc., etc.

And we have to investigate the investigators. Blanche Wiesen Cook, a history professor at the City University of New York, states in her preface to Lattimore's `Ordeal by Slander' (2003) that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover was an "army of miscreants and liars." If this accusation is true, then, her charge doesn't help Owen Lattimore, because J. Edgar Hoover said, p. xxix, that there were no grounds for charging him either as a Communist or a spy. If one can trust Professor Cook's assessment of Hoover's FBI, then this indicates McCarthy was right to investigate matters, since the FBI couldn't be trusted to investigate domestic espionage.

Robert Griffith's `The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate', 1970, tells us Senator William Benton denounced McCarthy as a "hit-and-run propagandist of the Kremlin model." William Benton was the publisher of the Encyclopedia Britannica, so we can assume he wasn't an ignoramus. McCarthy vowed to drive the "prancing mimics of the Moscow party line" out of the State Department." He said Senators Lucas and Chavez were dupes of the Kremlin and were spewing the Kremlin's smears. He accused Senators Tydings and McMahon of conducting "Operation Whitewash." He slammed Acheson and Jessup as dilettantes who cringed in the face of Communism. He said George C. Marshall was "completely unfit" for high office.

Ann Coulter's nutshell assessment of Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism, given in Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, Random House 2003, holds that the standard American conception of Joe McCarthy, as taught in our universities - liar and headline-loving demagogue - is the greatest Orwellian lie of our times. She insists that Joe McCarthy was heroic in fighting the Communist infestation of America, in battling the madrassahs of the Ivy League. She writes that denouncing McCarthy is the Left's loyalty oath, and that a professor who speaks well of McCarthy would commit career-suicide in American academia. Coulter writes, p. 84, of General Marshall,

`There was rarely as incompetent a figure as Marshall.'

Coulter both praises Marshall and writes of his incompetence or alleged incompetency. I don't think we can say that McCarthy specifically accused Marshall of treason. He might have just implied that Marshall was an incompetent dupe amid this vast conspiracy. Politicians accuse other politicians of rank incompetency all the time. No one has to bow down to any generals or politicians. When one accuses someone of being a traitor - when one accuses someone of intentionally hurting his country and intentionally helping the enemies of his country - then one really must have solid proof behind this very serious accusation. But I don't recall that McCarthy ever came right out and said the Marshall was a traitor.

Coulter also writes about something called Venona. This was a secret Army program which decrypted Soviet cables which Moscow sent to their spies in the USA. These cables were declassified in 1995, and made public via the kindly assistance of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Though made public over 15 years ago, most Americans have never heard about Venona. They prove the Rosenbergs were spies. They also prove the following Americans were Soviet spies: Assistant to the Secretary of State, Alger Hiss; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Harry Dexter White; Assistant to FDR, Lauchlin Currie; Chief of Staff to the Head of the OSS, Duncan Lee; Special Advisor to FDR, Harry Hopkins.

Coulter writes, page 70,

`The rote smirking at McCarthy by conservatives is linked to their own psychological compulsion to snobbery. McCarthy was a popularizer, a brawler. Republican elitists abhor demagogic appeals to working-class Democrats. Fighting like a Democrat is a breach of etiquette worse than using the wrong fork...Well, without McCarthy, Republicans might be congratulating themselves on their excellent behavior from the gulag right now.'

Coulter is interesting in `Treason' because she alternates between making good sense and making not so great sense. Republicans have McCarthy to thank for keeping us out of the gulags? Are we elitists? Are we wrong to abhor less than honest appeals to working-class Democrats? Fighting like a Democrat - what does that mean? Is it a good thing? Republicans have a psychological compulsion to be snobs? That was supposed to be kept secret!

I've located an example of what Ann Coulter might have meant by Fighting like a Democrat. The example is found in her book `Slander'. Ted Kennedy wrote some immortal words to stir the souls of Liberals who despise Conservatives such as Judge Bork,

`Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution [can they be taught the reasons for the American-Israeli alliance and why 9.11.2001 happened?], writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy [What Teddy is saying here is that the people of the USA are so stupid and so corrupt that we elect worthless Senators and corrupt Congressmen and greedy Presidents who trample on the heart of our democracy, therefore, we must rely on the unelected judiciary to save us from our idiotic selves]. Ann Coulter is very bright but she writes a little too quickly. She's also very courageous in exposing Liberal insanity, in not backing down in the face of Liberal hate and rage. I suppose you get used to that sort of thing after awhile. But she does make errors from time to time, saying, for instance, the USA must invade Islamic nations and convert the Muslims to Christianity by force etc.

Rovere is funny at times with his elegant or pompous prose. Rovere,

`In 1951, General Marshall was, as McCarthy correctly said, regarded by many of his countrymen as the "greatest living American."...He was, above all, a man of vast and palpable dignity. The dignity was in his bearing and in his entire mien, in his aloofness from controversy, in the silence with which he had borne disappointment, and defeat and sorrow, with which he was well acquainted. He was the very image of the strong, noble, gentle Southern man of arms who could be no more dishonored by enemies and critics, if he had any, than the great progenitor of the tradition, Marshall's fellow Virginian Robert E. Lee. Like the Lee of Grant's remembrance, General Marshall had an "impassable face," and to look upon it was to repose trust in the man's purpose and integrity. In point of fact, no breath of scandal had ever touched him. No suggestion of malfeasance had ever been raised against him....he was surely the least assailable American of his time. Or so at least it seemed on June 14, 1951, when Alcibiades, the mutilator of the images of gods and heroes, entered the Senate, loaded with "documents."...He coolly decided not only to deny the great man his greatness, not merely to emasculate the symbol, but - of all things \- to befoul the living man as a traitor, even an assassin...The Marshall speech was a massive Multiple Untruth...Except for two or three interpolations by McCarthy, it was scarcely even damaging. Yet it is no exaggeration to say that it destroyed George Catlett Marshall...He stayed on some months after McCarthy's strange oration, but in the winter he resigned...McCarthy had said there was blood on Marshall's hands, which was a lie...and no President (not even one who would have told McCarthy to go soak his head)...could ever advance national unity by bringing George Catlett Marshall out of his melancholy retirement in Leesburg. Such was the power of McCarthy's denunciation...that almost no shock was produced when he later said, defending his Senate speech, that Marshall "would sell his grandmother for any advantage."

Rovere is trying to say there is no chance, none whatsoever, that Marshall was a traitor. But by linking him to Robert E. Lee, who many insist was a traitor to the USA – I mean, he wasn't sneaky about his allegiances, he didn't serve in the Union Army in order to try to sabotage the Union Army, but, still, he was an American and then he served the Confederacy in a war against the USA, so that makes him a traitor to the USA. His actions furthered the cause of slavery and lots of Union soldiers were killed from actions such as his. He might have had lots of positives to his character, but, still, when an American takes up arms against the USA he becomes a traitor to the USA. By linking Marshal to Lee with these mellifluous cadences, Rovere, on the one hand, is trying to enshrine Marshall in a halo of sweetness and light, but when you imply Marshall was a lot like Robert E. Lee, how does this advance your argument that Marshal could not be a traitor? Why link Marshal to Robert E. Lee when you are trying to push the opinion that there is no chance that Marshal was a traitor to the USA? And why would these accusations from McCarthy `destroy' Marshall if they were a pack of lies? I can see why he wanted to retire to get away from all the mud slinging. Perhaps Rovere didn't use the right word. I don't understand how Marshall could be `destroyed' by lies. He only had to say they are lies and refuse to be destroyed.

We come to a huge problem with the McCarthy Era. Everyone makes comments about it but few study it in any detail. How many people have meticulously gone through even two or three cases involving people Joe McCarthy identified as loyalty risks? Usually you have to spend two hours explaining to people that Joe McCarthy did not have to prove that someone was a Communist agent to prove that this person had to be weeded out of his sensitive government job. The key to this mystery surrounding Joe McCarthy involves assessing loyalty risks. Perhaps Joe McCarthy was terrible at finding Soviet spies, but he might have been ok at finding loyalty risks. A loyalty risk is someone who a reasonable person would say is someone who might be a wonderful person, but, at the same time, is someone you just can't quite trust enough to put in a sensitive government job. If McCarthy was ok at identifying loyalty risks then he doesn't deserve to be vilified, since he was ok. How many people have carefully examined even a few of the people McCarthy identified as loyalty risks? How many people have read McCarthy's speech against Marshall? How many people who have read it can analyze it intelligently? One has to read the 60,000 word speech to be a fair judge of it, but no doubt many will judge it without reading it. In this speech, McCarthy said of Cummunism in the USA,

`Must be a product of a great conspiracy, a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black, that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.'

Coulter writes, p. 84

`McCarthy never called Marshall a "traitor," a "Communist," or a "coward."

O.K.

Coulter writes, p. 37,

`McCarthy was accused of labeling "anyone with liberal views" a Communist. As we now know, that wouldn't have been a half-bad system.'

The above won't work. Nevertheless, Liberals always seem to make the mistake of emphasizing the useless fact that McCarthy did not catch bone fide Commies. That's irrelevant. The relevant question is: was McCarthy adept at identifying people who a reasonable person would consider a loyalty risk? What was his loyalty risk batting average? When he said that a person was a loyalty risk, what percentage of the time did his assessment agree with the assessment of a `reasonable person'? Well, this is getting into minutiae that the average person or the average university professor might not be highly qualified to give lectures on. If one is not qualified to lecture on how good or bad McCarthy was at identifying loyalty risks - one doesn't know very much about the whole controversy! One is not qualified to judge Joe McCarthy. Annie C. Moss is a classic example of Joe McCarthy hitting a home run and Edward R. Murrow striking out. And since Venona has proven there were hundreds of spies in the government, we know that it was the Liberals - the defenders of the lax security standards of the FDR and Truman Era - who did not understand what a reasonable person would call a loyalty risk. If McCarthy said someone was a Communist, when, actually, he couldn't prove that the person was a Communist, but, if he could prove that person was a bone fide loyalty risk, then that is good enough to remove the person from his government job - but it will give Liberals the impression that McCarthy is confounding Liberals with Communists. Coulter writes, p. 55,

`The truth about McCarthy will sound insane, because it has been a major goal of the left to make it sound insane...

If he had said in Wheeling, WV, in February 1950, that he was going to concentrate on examining files and removing loyalty risks from the government, instead of saying he had a list of 205, or 57 Communists in the State Department, when he actually had a old list of loyalty risks, not a list of proven Communist spies, if he had gotten off to a more honest and coherent start, things would have gone a lot better for him. But he felt he had to grab for headlines. An old list of some loyalty risks does not make headlines like 205 godless agents of Soviet revolutionary terror lurking in the State Department makes headlines. He made some big mistakes, but, overall, was he any good at identifying loyalty risks? It depends who you ask. Professor Reeves indicates that the main problems that Joe McCarthy had with his Senate colleagues was that they didn't mind the substance of his dealings so much but they hated his style. He confounded Senators who didn't like his standards in assessing loyalty risks with Reds and Pinkos, and he became very combative. The Senate should have made it very clear to the public that one does not have to prove a person is a Soviet agent to prove he must be dismissed from his sensitive government job. The question is: how reddish-pink does a reasonable person say a Pinko has to be in order to get canned from his sensitive government job?

The government needed a sane vetting process. And, like our tax laws, were there any people in the government in the McCarthy Era who were making this process infinitely more complicated than it had to be? Most of the spies from the McCarthy Era were white Protestant male Ivy Leaguers. Since Society says that Nazis and Communists are free to express their views - it is not illegal to be either a Nazi or a Communist - then Society has to let these people have jobs, otherwise they will steal to get money. As long as the Nazi or the Communist is in a job which does not involve working with state secrets or with plans for building H-bombs, there are benefits to giving outcastes like Nazis and Communists government jobs. When society gives an outcaste a decent job, the outcaste finds life more livable, and over time he will amend his opinions and make them more civilized. McCarthy didn't care if a Communist was working as a clerk in a government job which didn't handle classified information. He was mad at the Reds and the Pinkos at the top who were crafting and implementing reddish-pink foreign policy. We had far too many rich white male Protestant Ivy Leaguers in government policy planning jobs. Look what happened under their watch - The Great War and The Great Depression. The Great War led to the Holocaust and the Second Great War. The McCarthy Era predated the Civil Rights Era and the Woman's Movement Era. In the McCarthy Era the US government needed more of a cross-section of the USA in the sensitive jobs - fewer White Male Protestant Ivy Leaguers and more Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Women, Jews and land grant university graduates. Joe McCarthy, though he didn't realize it, was an aggressive early champion for Diversity! He articulated this by his actions not by his words! As long as the government was only considering white male Protestant Ivy Leaguers for the top jobs, treason would be a problem. Treason becomes fashionable among those who feel guilty about their privileges, and espionage is always attractive to people who are bored with life and who need high doses of adrenaline to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

The essential question is dealing with Joe McCarthy is not: Did he locate spies in the government? The key question is: Was he fair to people? And in order to determine this we have to know how a reasonable person determines when another person is a loyalty risk to such a degree that he must be fired from his government job, or not hired for a government job in the first place. My understanding is that other people, not Joe McCarthy, were intent on firing Communists and Fellow Travelers from non-policy making jobs. Joe McCarthy focused his attentions on people in the top positions who he thought were closet fans of Stalin and Mao.

Because of Venona and because the Soviet and American archives are open to public scrutiny, we now know there were many Communist spies in the government. The most dangerous of these spies were white male Ivy Leaguers. In the 1950s, the government was not interested in hiring Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, non-Ivy Leaguers for the top policy-making jobs in government. Evidently there were some narrow-minded white males in the government in the 1950s. Joe McCarthy's fight was with the Personnel Department and their hiring policies. The Senate's main gripe about McCarthy was he was so intemperate in his language. If he had been more diplomatic, and had patiently explained why he believed various people were loyalty risks, the Democrats wouldn't have been so enthusiastic in hammering him.

On the one hand, you want to like him because he was generous and very popular when he was young, he was extroverted, very bold, very intelligent, he was a man of the people etc., etc. But on the other hand, he has to be judged by how he treated people. Where did zeal for fighting Communism end and where did personal ambition begin? Partisan politics got mixed up with sincere disagreements about who was and who wasn't a serious loyalty risk. The fact that Venona proves the government was saturated with Communists proves that some partisan American politicians were not upholding reasonable security standards. Liberals begin debates by saying there were no Communist spies. When corrected on this they say McCarthy was no good at finding spies. He didn't have to find any spies to do a good job. He had to be fair with people and he had to inspire others in the government to be fair in finding loyalty risks. In Joe McCarthy's mind the terms: Communist, Loyalty Risk, Traitor, and Damnable Incompetent often seemed to be synonymous. If he was confused that doesn't mean others should neglect the loyalty risks. I'm guided mostly by Reeves when considering how fair he was. If McCarthy had been more diplomatic even if he had pursued the same people as loyalty risks, he would have been much less hated by Liberals. The combative style energized his core supporters. Some of his choleric behavior was due to his suffering from some painful bodily ailments, and from alcoholism - and all this pain couldn't have sweetened his naturally combative temperament very much.

McCarthy could sound extremely sincere. Millions were enchanted by his rhetoric which was delivered in a monotone, with his intelligence, his fearlessness. He sounded like a prophet, at least if you let yourself be beguiled, not that I was around back then. Some people, the people who resisted beguilement, simply looked at the evidence he presented, and the evidence he presented said, what? Was he a witch-hunter? Was he a sorcerer? Perhaps he wove enchantments and beguiled the masses. His craving for adoration from the public, and his ability to weave enchantments by means of his courage and his immense rhetorical talents, worked hand-in-hand: the craving for adoration required the courage and the talent, the courage and the talent bestowed the adoration.

Coulter writes that FDR had been told early on by multiple high-level people that Alger Hiss was a spy. She writes that Harry Dexter White, assistant secretary of the Treasury under FDR, and positively identified as a Soviet spy by Venona, got at least eleven other Soviet agents high-level positions at the Treasury Department. Rovere has an interesting passage where he mentions that McCarthy was joking around with two reporters one day, saying he was going to issue a subpoena to Harry Truman and then grill him about Harry Dexter White. Coulter says White and fellow Soviet spies Frank Coe and Solomon Adler were able to kill a critical loan to Nationalist China while, at the same time, they tried to get a huge loan to the USSR. Despite repeated warning from the FBI that White was a Soviet agent - I don't recall Coulter saying when J. Edgar Hoover was first told that the Soviet code has been broken - she does tell us that FDR and Truman were never informed about Venona - but Truman was told, via the information given by the Soviet defector to Canada, Igor Gouzencho, that Harry Dexter White was a Spy. Coulter tells us that when Eisenhower came into office he or one of his aids went on national TV and announced that Truman had given White, the spy, a responsible position at the IMF with full knowledge that White had been identified as a Soviet agent. Truman said he expected the FBI to continue surveillance on White. Coulter takes Truman to task for this. But perhaps Truman handled it the right way, because, 1) a Soviet spy doesn't do you any good when he's sitting in prison, 2) a Soviet spy can't do much harm in most of these government positions anyway, as one bureaucrat is basically the same as any other bureaucrat, 3) if one doesn't accept 2, spies still try to do brilliant work so that they will earn promotions, and 4) if you string a spy along, you can feed him false information which will mislead Moscow, and the spy who is keep under watch might lead you to a cell of Soviet agents plotting to perpetrate acts of sabotage or murder, crimes you would not have learned about if you prosecuted the spy and put him in prison.

Coulter reminds us that if FDR had died earlier, Henry Wallace, the big Soviet dupe, would have been President, and having a big Soviet dupe for a President would have made things interesting. But Wallace was simply misguided, he wasn't traitorous. He just needed someone to patiently explain to him why Stalin was a bad guy. She tells us that American Roman Catholic leaders were militantly anti-Communist since the 1930s. Francis Cardinal Spellman said in 1946 that the Communists had dug deep into America and were tirelessly attempting to destroy the freedoms for which Americans fought and died. Bishop Fulton Sheen condemned the Fellow-Travelers. Coulter says the 600,000 member Knights of Columbus called for an all-out attack upon the infiltration that Communism was making in America.

The reader will recall that there was a huge Economic Depression in the USA in the 1930s. The capacity for industrial production far outran the demand for industrial production, thus leading to massive unemployment in the USA. Dire times are excellent times for recruiting Communists and potential Communists from the ranks of those disillusioned with Capitalism. But when prosperity returned to the USA after World War II, and with the growing knowledge that Stalin was a genocidal tyrant, many Communists thought it an excellent time to bolt from the Communist Party and take up with a religion which offered more hope for a happy afterlife than Communism was offering.

Joe McCarthy was a Roman Catholic, and naturally he would listen when Catholic prelates assured him that Communists posed a real threat to the USA. Ann Coulter says that, from 1950 to 1954, most Catholics and Protestants in America supported McCarthy. Most Jews were certainly against him. The non-Communists among the blue collar workers loved him. The college professors and the girls at Smith and Vassar hated him.

After McCarthy gave his speech in Wheeling, WV in February of 1950, saying there were 205 Communist agents in the State Department he had to scramble to save his career, because he knew he would be finished, a one-term Senator, if he couldn't explain himself as to why he said what he said in Wheeling. His investigators found Louis Budenz. In `The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate', 1970, Professor Griffith gives us some details on Louis F. Budenz. He joined the Communist Party in 1935 and was managing editor of `The Daily Worker' from 1941 to 1945. He left the Party in 1945, and, under the tutelage of Bishop Fulton Sheen, returned to the Roman Catholic Church and was later employed at Notre Dame and Fordham. Budenz said that, though Owen Lattimore supported Finland in her defense against the Soviets invaders, and had rebelled against Stalin in other ways, he was indeed a member of a Communist cell.

Again, Venona has proven that the government, especially under FDR, was infested with Soviet spies. This justifies McCarthy's faith in the Catholic prelates and the anti-Communists who told him the Communist threat was very serious. Again, Coulter tells us that if FDR had died one year earlier, Stalin might have taken control of the United States Presidency, Treasury Department, and State Department, because, Vice President and Soviet dupe Henry Wallace would have become President, and it is quite possible that he would have made Soviet spy Harry Dexter White Treasury Secretary, and made Soviet spy Alger Hiss Secretary of State.

Coulter tells us, pp. 36-7, that the Venona Project was begun in 1943 by Colonel Carter Clark. He didn't share either FDR's trust in Joe Stalin or FDR's trust in FDR, and when he set up a special Army unit to break the Soviet Code he didn't trust FDR and Truman enough to tell them what he was doing. And they never learned that his team had broken the Soviet code. The intercepted and decoded Soviet cables proved that FDR's administration was littered with Soviet agents. Coulter says that it was the most patriotic act of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's career to push to get Venona declassified in 1995.

Again, Venona has not shown Owen Lattimore to be a Communist agent - though it showed that I. F. Stone and Alger Hiss, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Dexter White and Lauchlin Currie, and all sorts of other Liberal icons were Soviet agents in the pay of Moscow. Coulter says that Owen Lattimore was surrounded by Communist agents, and was promoted by Communist agents, and that he wrote articles which any Communist agent would have been proud to have written.

Professor Griffith introduces us to Freda Utley, who testified that Lattimore was not a Soviet spy, but he was `a "Judas-Cow" who led other innocents to slaughter.' In Lattimore's `Ordeal by Slander' he says that she said that he was more important than a spy, as spies are expendable, and that Moscow saw Lattimore as someone who was not expendable. She had been a member of the British Communist Party, had gone to the U.S.S.R. with her husband, but, after he was killed in one of Stalin's purges, she fled to the USA. On our shores she threw herself into the right-wing politics of the America First Committee. Professor Reeves says that Lattimore's `Ordeal by Slander' was `as cynical a piece of writing as almost anything published at the time by ultraconservatives', but he doesn't tell us where it strays from the truth. Reeves' assessment of McCarthy is two-fold: he sympathized with the man - he said McCarthy was basically a good man but he was born with a craving for reckless adventure. He loved performing in front of adoring crowds. But McCarthy exaggerated terribly and he told blatant lies and half-truths. The Tydings Committee's report on how Joe McCarthy comported himself in the Senate in the months after Wheeling, where he said there were 205 Communists in the State Department, epitomized his conduct: `A fraud and a hoax perpetrated on the Senate of the United States and the American People. They represent perhaps the most nefarious campaign of half-truths and untruth in the history of this Republic.'

Joe McCarthy told some people "the Irish get even" and Joe McCarthy got his revenge on Senator Tydings, in Nov 1950. A wealthy Maryland Republican named Louise Gore introduced him to a Baltimore attorney, John Marshall Butler. Mr. Butler had never run for political office before. McCarthy coached him up, showed him a few things in his bag of magical campaign tricks, got his wealthy friends to give money to Butler's campaign. He trained Butler to slam Tydings. Tydings was a segregationist and Butler whooped him by sweeping the black precincts in Baltimore. Reeves tells us six other Senators probably owed their election victories to the popularity of McCarthy - such was the love of the public for McCarthyism at the time. Many in the public would need a few more years before they figured Joe McCarthy out. Reeves writes,

`Jubilation had swept through the McCarthy office on election day...Ed Nellor hosted a "victory celebration" late that evening at his handsome home...McCarthy and his aides were joined by a large number of Republican congressmen, including Richard Nixon and Karl Mundt. People whooped and cheered, and almost everyone got drunk. At one point in the festivities, the septic tank backed up into the house, and Nellor laughed heartily as he saw Joe and the others wading through the overflow in their bare feet. The symbolism somehow escaped him.'

Ann Coulter, in her `Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism', tells us Owen Lattimore whitewashed Stalin's genocide and upheld the validity of Stalin's show trials. She also described how Lattimore had access to the mail of FDR's administrative assistant, Lauchlin Currie, who was proven to be a Soviet spy by Venona. Lattimore was charged with perjury and convicted - the conviction was dismissed on a technicality - when he denied he had access to Currie's mail. Coulter said M. Stanton Evans knows more about the McCarthy Era than anyone else in the world. She says the historian Ronald Radosh is blacklisted from every university in the USA because he wrote a book proving that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were spies. The following is a paraphrase of Ron Radosh's `The Enemy Within' found in National Review, (12.17.2007), which is a review of M. Stanton Evans's book `Blacklisted By History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight against America's Enemies':

Stan Evans has written a useful book for those who know little about America in the 1950s. It continues the trend over the last ten years, starting in 1996 with the liberal journalist Nicholas von Hoffman, and continuing with Arthur Herman and Ann Coulter, to defend Joe McCarthy. It is certainly true that many of the supposed victims of witch-hunts were indeed Soviet agents, and there were scores of these Soviet agents in the White House, State Department and OSS, such as: Alger Hiss, Duncan Lee, Maurice Halperin, Carl Marzani, Lauchlin Currie and Harry Dexter White. As early as 1945, Elizabeth Bentley, the ex-Communist spy, identified many Soviet spies when she went to the FBI. Many Soviet agents escaped prosecution because the Venona files were not completely decoded, and, furthermore, those files that were decoded were not used, so as to not inform the Soviets that the Americans had broken their code. McCarthy did identify some Communists but he often failed to distinguish between real Communists, Fellow-Travelers and anti-Communist Liberals. Radosh says that Evans certainly shows that Owen Lattimore was a Fellow-Traveler of the Communist Party, that is, he was not a member of the Communist Party but he was a sympathizer with its aims and methods. Lattimore portrayed the Chinese Communists as genuine democrats. Radosh tells us that Evans demolishes Lattimore's apologists by dissecting all that Lattimore wrote. Evans says that Lattimore was always prepared to justify a Red atrocity, and was always an `indefatigable shill for Moscow'.

Again, Radosh agrees that Lattimore was an apologist for all things Communist. But he takes Evans to task for not taking McCarthy to task, because McCarthy went beyond calling Lattimore a Communist apologist. McCarthy said Lattimore was Russia's top espionage agent, and that he was the boss of Alger Hiss. Now one might say there is no huge difference between a Fellow Traveler and a Communist spy, rather as there is no huge difference between a Nazi lover and a Nazi spy. Still, it is very bad PR for the anti-Communist cause, when a Senator accuses a man in public of being a Soviet agent when his evidence is very slight. Was McCarthy's evidence against Lattimore very slight? We recall that the key witness against Owen Lattimore was Louis Budenz. Budenz said Lattimore was a Communist agent. How credible was Budenz? Not very. He failed to tell the FBI that Lattimore was a Communist spy when he was telling the FBI about other people whom he knew to be Communist spies. Radosh writes,

`Before the Tydings Committee, moreover, Budenz falsely claimed that Lattimore was asked by the Communist party to fix the Amererasia case, and later wrote that the man asked to do that was Alger Hiss. All these charges were complete and total nonsense. Charges like these, echoed and amplified by McCarthy, were precisely what destroyed his credibility among anti-Communist Americans.'

Writing in 2003, Ann Coulter tells us, p. 87,

`Somewhat surprisingly, Lattimore's name has not yet turned up in the Venona cables as a Soviet agent. This glaring oversight can only be attributed to the limited number of cables that have been decoded.'

It's 2013, and his name hasn't turned up yet. At the rate we're going, the Great Tribulation, and the Triumph of the saints over the Antichrist, and the reign of Christ during the Millennium, will all come and go before we hear any news about Owen Lattimore from Venona.

`National Review', 5.22.06, has an interesting article on Jonathan Brent, who, in something which might be called a twist of fate, is Visiting Alger Hiss Professor of History and Literature at Bard College, recall Hiss was convicted of being a Soviet spy. The curious thing is that Jonathan Brent is also editorial director of Yale University Press, and Yale University Press, in the genre of scholarship which concerns itself with bringing Soviet archives to light, is the pre-eminent publishing house in the world. Yale has given us the `Annals of Communism' series, 18 volumes of which are currently in print. There is also `The Secret World of American Communism'. And we see Yale published `Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America', by John Earl Hayes and Harvey Klehr, a book which Ann Coulter used in defending Joe McCarthy.

Coulter's argument is that McCarthy's courage and zeal in hunting Communists in the government acted like the Salk vaccination, it shut down the spread, not of polio, but of Communist infiltration in the government, because, he instilled fear into spies, and he instilled fear into potential spies. Rovere explains a case of this actually happening. A Communist got scared because of McCarthy and he quit the government. The Communists in the government no doubt were scared when McCarthy said he had a list of 205 Communists in the State Department. But most of them called McCarthy's bluff, by not fleeing the country. That wasn't McCarthy's fault, but, as they remained in their jobs, they were now more careful then ever to avoid detection.

Why did the threat of Communism fade away in the USA? Was it because of McCarthyism? The anti-Communists always far outnumbered the Communists in the USA. And the Communists in the USA were primarily intellectuals, hardly the type to take to the streets to rumble with millions of anti--Communists who preach God and Guns. There was no Communist Fifth Column to menace the homefront during the Korean War. Prosperity is the worst time for Communists. But during Depressions, Communists have no more exquisite pleasure than to find starving Capitalists and sell Communism to them, because it's so easy to sell Communism to people languishing in the gutter of Great Depressions. America, they say, enjoyed a post World War II economic boom. Revolutions transpired in rapid succession with the advent of mass communications - miraculous new mediums by which to prosleytise the new doctrines swiftly and efficiently. America went from the McCarthy Era to the Civil Rights Era to the Sexual Revolution Era - aka, the Women's Movement - and now we're in the Private Sector v. Public Sector Era. Almost everything that is discussed on Right-Wing Talk Radio today deals with our $14 trillion dollar debt, our ballooning entitlements, our high taxes, government waste, the jobs that are not being created by the Private Sector, our enormous and gluttonous Public Sector etc.

Admiral Morison mentioned that Senator McCarthy had taken up the cause of the German `martyrs.' Some German SS soldiers who were accused of mass murder said they were innocent and said they had confessed because they were tortured by their American captors and were forced to confess to crimes they hadn't committed. In Richard Rovere's Senator Joe McCarthy, 1959, the author writes of his personal encounter with McCarthy during this matter involving these German soldiers. He says McCarthy had no evidence to believe the U.S. Army was guilty of using torture on the German soldiers. A German SS unit, the `Blowtorch Battalion,' was accused of massacring one hundred and fifty American POWs, and one hundred Belgian civilians, in the village of Malmédy. Rovere and McCarthy reviewed together the Army documents. These certainly didn't show that any Army guards tortured any Germans.

We might surmise that a German soldier will confess to a crime which will earn him a hanging under certain circumstances: 1) He's guilty and he freely confesses his guilt because of remorse. 2) He's guilty and he freely confesses his guilt because of remorse, but, later, when his remorse has waned, and when he seeks the means to avoid execution, he claims he was tortured and forced to make a false confession. 3) He's guilty and has no remorse but he is forced to confess via torture or the threat of torture. 4) He's innocent but he confesses to crimes he didn't commit because he was tortured or threatened with torture. 5) He's guilty of war crimes, but he's also sick and tired of sitting in prison, and sick and tired of being interrogated, so he signs a confession to end the interrogations knowing that, later, he will claim that he was tortured and forced to sign a false confession. 6) None of the above

As there was conclusive proof that at least some in the Blowtorch Battalion were guilty, the natural assumption is that all or many of those SS soldiers were guilty of murdering Americans and Belgians, for how likely is it that only a few of these SS soldiers, in something called the Blowtorch Battalion, were guilty? Another assumption is that even if an SS soldier was innocent of involvement in an atrocity in one place, he was probably guilty of involvement in atrocities somewhere else. Still, the law is supposed to proceed on the basis of proper procedure and evidence, and not on speculations and lynch law tactics.

Aside from humanitarian and legal reasons to make sure the Germans were given fair trials, America wanted to give the German people reasons to ally themselves with America, because we wanted to form coalitions with as many people as possible to stop the spread of Communistic totalitarianism. The French, with their withering hauteur, with their artistic sensibilities and their intellectual pretensions or preoccupations, had disdain for the USA, a dollar-chasing race, a mass of bourgeoisie who ask for bottles of ketchup when dining at the Tour d'Argent. Recall that Jacques Tati put all of our American ladies in those ugly flower hats in `Playtime'. But, perhaps, if we were nice to the West Germans the West Germans would like us and would care to join our NATO.

If a legal system asserts that all signed confessions are proof of guilt, then evils must inevitably arise, i.e., there will be instances where innocent people will be tortured and forced to sign confessions to crimes they didn't commit.

If a legal system asserts that signed confessions are invalid should the accused later assert he was coerced to make his confession, then, evils will also arise. Killers who originally made confessions during moments of fleeting remorse will later recant when their brief moments of remorse have vanished. Then they will change their tunes and will say they were tortured by brutal cops and forced to sign false confessions. Thus, if these killers are set free, many of them can be expected to kill other people the next time they lose their tempers.

Evils arise under both systems, therefore, society has to find the lesser of the two evils. Thus, provided brutal cops and brutal soldiers are rare exceptions to the general rule which says cops and soldiers are honest citizens, what else can society do but adopt the system which says: if there is no evidence of torture aside from the claims of the accused, all signed confessions are to be taken as proof of guilt?

Some might insist that the USA should have followed after the wisdom of our Supreme Court - the German soldiers should all have been released because the US Army didn't tell them they had the right to remain silent when they were initially apprehended. Since they were not told of their rights, the USA should have set them all free. The critic of this says that `Miranda' warnings and the Exclusionary Rule apply only to American citizens. But if `Miranda' is sound under Natural Law then it must be extended to both Americans and non-Americans. If `Miranda' is unsound under Natural Law then it must be abolished everywhere. To say that `Miranda' is sound justice for Americans but it is unsound justice for foreigners is as crazy as saying slavery is just in Georgia but it is unjust in New York.

Professor Reeves, in his `The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy' gives us many pages of exposition on this Malmédy affair. German newspapers had printed huge headlines telling of Americans torturing German soldiers. German clergymen made protests. The German soldiers insisted that their American captors starved them, beat them, broke their jaws, crushed their testicles, subjected them to mock trials and mock hangings. Nearly 13 tons of paper was produced during the judicial process in which the Americans sought to determine the guilt or innocence of the Germans soldiers in the Blowtorch Battalion. But there never seemed to have been any definitive testimony from medical authorities saying that brutality was used, or wasn't used, to force the Germans to confess, and of course there are ways to brutalize people which leave no marks which can be detected by doctors.

If you don't have any clear evidence against an individual German soldier, though you have conclusive evidence that his battalion committed atrocities, how long are you allowed to keep the individual in prison? How often are you allowed to interrogate him? How often can you give him mock trials? How often can you pretend that he is about to be hanged, hoping that this imminent hanging will inspire him to make his peace with God, by confessing his guilt in some atrocities to his captors, a confession which can then be used against him at his real trial? If he won't confess, even after being led to the gallows several times, must you set him free? If you say he must be executed, because he was in a battalion that committed mass murder, even though you don't have any evidence saying the individual participated in the mass murder, then you're saying that individuals must prove they are innocent, when the accepted standard in criminal justice is the prosecution must prove the accused person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before the accused can be convicted. When there is no proof against individuals either of their guilt or their innocence, though it is conclusively proven that their battalion murdered a lot of people, must the individuals in that battalion be set free? Must they be shot? What do you do with them?

Today, many civil libertarians would say that McCarthy was right to fight for the lives of those SS soldiers. Civil libertarians would say that it was wrong to put on show trials and then mock executions, to make it seem credible to the accused that he was being led to a real hangman, and that, if he had any last words of remorse to say, he better hurry up and say them before `he is sent to meet his Maker and his ultimate judgment of heaven or hell.'

To set free every member of an SS battalion which committed mass murder, when conclusive evidence exists against the battalion but not against individuals in that battalion, is rather problematical! We know confessions don't mean anything when confessions are beaten out of people. We know the mock trials and mock executions wouldn't pass muster with the ACLU, but, to make the accused sit in prison, when there is no evidence against the accused person save that he was in a battalion which committed mass murder, to make the accused sit in prison for years waiting for him to make a confession, is also problematical. What if there is no confession after 5 years? Do you keep him in prison for another 5 years? That's not going to make the West Germans happy. And they were then our allies in containing the Soviet Union.

With the SS soldiers we had a case where there was clear proof that a battalion committed mass murder, but there was no clear proof saying various individual SS soldiers committed mass murder. You can't set all of them free. You can't beat confessions out of them. You can either keep them in prison or you can give them mock trials - you scare them into thinking that they will soon be hanged, and therefore, they might reason, that they had better confess the truth before they are hanged, so that they will thereby make their peace with God.

McCarthy couldn't use the same scare tactics that were used on the SS soldiers when he scared the Communists in the US government. But we had the same situation: clear proof that a group was guilty, but no proof against individuals in that group. That is to say Joe McCarthy had the words of Catholic prelates, and many other anti-Communists, telling him there was conclusive proof that Communists had made deep inroads into America. Just as he had conclusive proof that an SS battalion committed mass murder, he had what he believed was conclusive proof that the government was infested with Communist spies. Similar situations might require similar tactics. One way to find Communist spies and SS murderers is to scare them, and then catch them when they make mistakes.

He couldn't give everyone in the State Department a mock trial and a mock hanging. When a Senator says he has a list of 205 Communist agents in the State Department, but, if no employees in the State Department flee the country after he makes that declaration, and if none of the employees in the State Department who were under surveillance by the FBI suddenly began to show signs of panic, then, either there were no Communist agents in the State Department, or else the Communist agents in the State Department called the Senator's bluff. Spies are often daring and fearless, and they might prefer to call the Senator's bluff rather than run away.

Still seeking an accurate paraphrase of Joe McCarthy, still trying to find a reasonably concise epitome of his character and his influence on the USA and the world, we recall again that Thomas C. Reeves, a professor of history in the University of Wisconsin system, gave us a very detailed 700+ page biography of Joe McCarthy - `The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy'. He paints a portrait of an extroverted, industrious, generous, likeable, bright and ambitious Joe McCarthy, someone who was once the youngest judge in America, a man who left the bench to become a Marine to fight in World War II. McCarthy worked 80 hours per week to put himself through college and law school. Everyone seemed to like him when he was young. He had an absolutely first-rate memory. He could remember the names of thousands of people he had met only once. He seemed to learn everything by listening to lectures and by conversing with people. He couldn't sit still long enough to read a book. He was always working at his many jobs, partying and playing poker, and spending a little time now and then cramming for tests. In college - he went to Marquette University - McCarthy did odd jobs, yard work, janitorial work, sold flypaper door to door, washed dishes, was a short-order cook. He ran two gas stations. He was extremely popular in his fraternity. He borrowed money when he was broke to help a law school classmate attend the funeral of his father, this involved finding a car and driving him to his father's funeral. The man said Joe McCarthy would always be his friend for what he did to help during his grief. After working a few years in private law, he heard FDR call for younger men to be judges - this was during FDR's court packing expedition - and McCarthy, by focusing his criticism on the age of a judge, young Joe McCarthy was able to unseat the old man, and not too many years after entering high school he became the youngest judge in America. Reeves' book is very detailed. The portrait is expertly drawn, and an image emerges very clearly from his pages. We have no difficulty seeing the portrait of a boozing, gambling extrovert who is driven to go as far as energy and hard work and bravado will take him.

The fact that McCarthy was gregarious and very popular with ordinary folks reminds one of another controversial Republican Senator - Senator Jessie Helms of North Carolina. In Bill Lofy's `Paul Wellstone' we see that Senator Wellstone, p. 93, publically stated in 1990 that he despised Jesse Helms, and said he was a racist. Paul Wellstone - who had great charm as well as a talent for putting his foot in his mouth - eventually became friends with Jesse Helms. Senator Wellstone was a man of the people, he was all about making connections with ordinary folks - he was always talking to cops, backslapping union guys, kissing babies, always smiling and putting his hand out to strangers in supermarkets and drug stores and coffee shops, saying in a very friendly way, `Hi, I'm Paul, what's your first-name?' Wellstone was impressed with Helms because he saw that Helms liked to converse with the `little people' around the Senate - elevator operators, custodians etc. So they became friends. And if Senator Wellstone and Senator Helms could be friends, then you know that people at opposite ends of the political spectrum don't always have to have their daggers drawn. With all the testimony from JFK, RFK, LBJ etc. in his favor, one might be tempted to say that Senator McCarthy was another man of the people, like Senators Wellstone and Helms, and it is not fair to liken him to Titus Oates, or to call him a man of diabolical cunning.

Ann Coulter rehearsed the basic facts: McCarthy was very bright, requiring only nine months to get through high school. This was at a time when American public high schools had some academic standards, at a time when illiterates were not allowed to be high school freshmen much less esteemed graduates. McCarthy became a circuit court judge only four years after he graduated from law school. After Pearl Harbor McCarthy volunteered for the Marine Corps, worked as an intelligence officer, and also flew approximately a dozen combat missions against the Japanese, receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross for his valor, though of course other authors rip him a good deal on his war record. The Roman Catholic Church bestowed upon Senator McCarthy the highest honor that she can bestow, aside from Canonization or Beatification \- a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass, one which transpired before one hundred priests and two thousand well-wishers.

Rovere calls McCarthy a demon - and then he says worse thing about him! - in his `Senator Joe McCarthy'. Rovere was a superb literary artist but he does not come across as a terribly fair biographer. Professor Reeves comes across as a great biographer and a very judicious man. He paints McCarthy as blue collar guy with a big mouth and an immense craving for attention, but also a man with a good heart. M. Stanton Evans does not deal much if at all with McCarthy's personal life in `Blacklisted by History'. He's very favorable in his assessment of McCarthy's professional conduct. Ann Coulter writes in too much of a hurry. She supplies very interesting information but her judgments about McCarthy are hagiographical. Griffith seems like a professional biographer in `The Politics of Fear'. He's judicious but the result is he doesn't paint McCarthy as a scary person. Arthur Herman's pro-McCarthy bio `Joeseph McCarthy', which was written after Venona was disclosed to the public in 1995, goes into some detail in examining whether McCarthy was biopolar. How depressing would that be to Liberals to know that they beat up a man for decades who was suffering from an illness? That could only fuel the Liberal-guilt-complex into deeper depths of self-loathing.

No doubt, after his chicken farming days, Joe McCarthy was driven to never be a chicken farmer again. He discovered that he had brains, a great memory, great theatrical talents, a huge capacity for hard work. As Reeves explains, he expected the people he slammed in public to fight back, to play along with him in their roles as gladiators battling before a public that craves bread and circuses. He didn't understand that genteel souls don't know how to be gladiators. He thought he could be friends with people in private after he had ripped their heads off in public. That's the way a juvenile roughneck from Wisconsin farm country thinks. That's what he thought. But that's not what the Ivy Leaguers who got their heads ripped off thought. Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois said of him, `He was like a mongrel dog, fawning over you one moment and the next moment trying to bite your leg off.'

Some authors see a theme of class warfare through McCarthy's biography, saying he attacked those who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but McCarthy didn't have a problem with people who had money. For all of Joe McCarthy's hard work he was never going to have much in common with some suave and sophisticated people from Harvard and Yale, the Senate and the Press. Comparing the bios of Joe McCarthy and Dorothy Kenyon, we might speculate there was very little promiscuity and wife-swapping between their two constituencies. Kenyon: member of 28 Communist Front Groups: League of Women Shoppers etc., friend of Eleanor Rooseveldt, active in the ADA, ACLU, League of Women Voters, the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children. She believed that terming an organization subversive was a violation of civil liberty. McCarthy: ma and pa were poor farm folk. Joe was the fifth of seven children born into an Irish Catholic home, and was reared in the doctrine that Rome and only Rome is the True Church of God. Having left school to toil for honest wages he then went back to high school when he was 20 after all his chickens came home to roost, by getting sick and dying. He finished 4 years of high school work in 9 months. You have to be a little different to do that! That's a typical nightmare that people have - finding yourself transported as an adult back among High School Freshmen - and knowing that you have 4 years of work in front of you before you can escape the prison of the American public school. He was re-born after the 9 month nightmare. He knew that he had brains and could work hard. He probably suspected that he was different than other mortals. He must have suspected that with hard work he could climb a very long ways. Plutarch, writing of the Roman Empire, said that by the exercise of valor and fortitude it would attain the heights of human endeavor. Like Rome, the Senator certainly had valor and fortitude.

In America everything that is fashionable goes out of fashion, but, eventually, it always comes into style again. If Ann Coulter's view prevails, Joe McCarthy might be back in style sooner than you think. McCarthy was a pal to the little man; he was always gregarious around ordinary folks; he was an extrovert around Blacks and Hispanics when most white folks were not extroverts around these people. McCarthy's right hand man, Roy Cohn, was a homosexual, or at least that's the gossip.

If one wants to be fair in these sorts of controversies, one has to not only listen to the most articulate and well-reasoned denouncer of the person on trial, but one also has to listen to the most articulate and well-reasoned defender of that accused person. I'm not sure who the most persuasive defense lawyer for Joe McCarthy was. Perhaps Professor Reeves, as Joe McCarthy is portrayed with all his flaws, but the author also gives the good and brave aspects of the man, though it's difficult to boil down his 700+ page The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy into a paragraph. The way Reeves describes McCarthy's energy when campaigning for the Senate in 1946, it was as if he was superhuman, or at least he had to be dining on Benzedrine for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He worked 80 hours per week working two jobs while attending law school while partying at the Fraternity all night long etc., etc. Before he took up anti-Communism he made himself something of guru on housing legislation; he showed the same energy in helping the homeless as he had in helping himself win elections.

The whole controversy surrounding McCarthy is frustrating in the sense that one has to read many books and magazines to get more than a superficial understanding of what was going on. And, after much reading, one begins to ask: is it really worth the time and effort to understand the McCarthy Era? How is one to assess I. F. Stone if one doesn't read a good deal of his work? Consider all the misinformation about McCarthy and his era. For instance, Ann Coulter tells us in Treason that in 2002, the Seattle Times described the government's case against Judith Coplon as `entirely circumstantial', and that the Seattle Times neglected to mention that Venona had proven that Coplon was a spy, and thus the Seattle Times misled people because it gave its readers the impression that Judith Coplon was an innocent American caught up in McCarythite hysteria. Ms. Coulter explains that in March of 1949 Judith Coplon was arrested while giving secret government documents to a Russian agent. Rovere doesn't mention Judith Coplon at all. Griffith tells us that Justice Department employee Judith Coplon and a Russian United Nations attaché named Valentin Gubitchev were brought to trial on charges of spying for the Soviet Union, but he doesn't tell us the verdicts given at their trials. Reeves gives us a fuller account of what happened,

`The Judith Coplon spy case would be dismissed in December 1950 because of the prosecution's dependence upon another illegal FBI wiretap. Truman internal security expert Stephen Spingarn also blamed the bureau for the government's inability to convict those implicated by Elizabeth Bentley. "It was pure inefficiency, a rotten, bumbling operation by the FBI".'

Wiretaps, as we saw with MLK, are beneficial in the sense that they can give the suspected person his vindication. And were these wiretaps on MLK legal or illegal? Were the wiretaps on Judith Coplon just or unjust? When should a court dismiss a case involving wiretaps? The civil-libertarians insist that a person shouldn't have to prove he is innocent, insisting that everyone is given the presumption of innocence. Yes, that's the theory, but in practice, when the forces of hysteria are being fanned by various factions, the theory doesn't always work very well in practice. As Alexander Bickle said - a sane society must know how to muddle through. It must have laws, but it can't be a slave to laws which sound good in theory but don't work in practice.

Ann Coulter tells us Arthur Schlesinger was an anti-Communist who was adamant in saying Lawrence Duggan was not a Communist agent. Venona proved he was a Communist agent. Coulter makes the case which says that Owen Lattimore was a Soviet spy - though Venona hasn't shown him to be a spy. M Stanton Evans, in his Blacklisted by History, has a photo of Lattimore standing next to Mao, not that this proves anything, but his book is filled with all sorts of interesting things. On pp. 420 we find dirt on big shots in the American government. Frank Dorn said the `Big Boy' - either FDR or Harry Hopkins (the latter a proven Soviet spy) - had ordered his underlings to prepare a plan to assassinate Chiang Kai-shek. Dean Rusk was in on this plot, and he was Secretary of State under JFK when the USA was involved in the murder of South Vietnam's Ngo Dihn Diem and his brother. Dean Rusk tells us that the USA was willing to give several million dollars to finance the possible coup against Chiang. Sometimes you wonder if it's wise for the government to release information saying that it hires agents to murder people! What foreigner would trust the agents of the USA if it's public knowledge that the USA hires hitmen to murder people and topple foreign governments?

If the only evidence in the prosecutor's case were the words of some highly trustworthy US government agents saying they arrested Judith Coplon while she was giving a Russian United Nations attaché named Valentin Gubitchev documents containing State Secrets, then, Judith and her Russian paramour could still claim that the FBI agents planted these documents on two innocent people. But if the prosecutor has Judith and Valentin caught on tape discussing ways to bring down the government of the USA, and if he also has the testimony of the FBI agents saying they saw Judith give Valentin the big secrets that the USA doesn't want the Soviets to know about, then the jury can feel confident in knowing that they are just in convicting Judith and Valentin. One way to handle these matters is to keep Judith in her position but give her false information to give to the Soviets. The art is in finding the best sorts of true or false information to feed to the Soviets to confound them and to lead them to see the errors of their Commie ways.

Ann Coulter argues that it is idiotic to think the Liberals were afraid of McCarthy. They merely said he spread fear because they wanted to paint him as a tyrant to score political points. And of course politicians are always afraid to do the right thing if the right thing will come at the price of defeat in the re-election attempt. It's as if our political system turns men and women of pristine and shining virtue into liars who sell their virtue in order to buy the chance of winning elections. Everyone remembers the Democrats wanted to run the obscure yet pristine Governor Dean from Vermont for President in 2008, until he screamed like a maniac after losing a primary election in Iowa, which wasn't any big deal in itself save for the fact that the Republicans could use his exuberance against him and portray him as mentally unstable. Republicans don't buy his politics, but it is easier to sell to the masses the idea that he is unstable - just listen to him scream - than it is to sell the masses the idea that his politics are flawed. He was initially popular because he opposed the Iraq War, whereas other, more prominent Democrats had sold their souls to buy votes, when they voted for the Iraq War. They knew they would be portrayed as soft on evil dictators - and would lose their re-election bids if they didn't vote in favor of the Iraq War. Once they voted in favor of that war they had to find an excuse - Bush lied, People died - to explain why they voted in favor of the Iraq War after it became clear that voting in favor of that war had become a political liability.

We hear so often about the terrible fear that McCarthy inspired in people. How nightmarish was the fear that gripped the USA in the McCarthy Era? Did the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II, Dwight Eisenhower, the President of the USA, cower in fear of McCarthy? Was he unwilling to speak up in defense of his friend and mentor, his pal for 35 years, George Marshall, who was slammed by Joe McCarthy? Perhaps Eisenhower feared that McCarthy would destroy him in a debate - perhaps Eisenhower knew he was fuzzy-minded on the strengths and weaknesses of this 60,000 word speech which McCarthy gave in attacking Marshall - and perhaps he feared he would lose votes if he defended his old pal, especially if McCarthy slammed him in a debate. David Halberstam mentions in The Fifties that McCarthy announced, in 1955, curiously enough, seeking to grab some headlines no doubt, that it was all a big mistake for him to ever have been a red-baiter. And, furthermore, he had been so influenced by reading the works of Thomas Jefferson that he was going to take up the cause of civil liberties.

David Halberstam encapsulated what it is that Joe McCarthy taught us: `If nothing else, he had illuminated the timidity of his fellow man.'

The top brass often don't risk their necks in war, but one still hesitates to question the courage of Dwight Eisenhower. Yet, consider that this Republican, the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Forces which won the greatest war ever waged on this earth, and the President of the United States of America, declined to defend his old friend George Marshall after McCarthy attacked him, because he was afraid he would lose votes, and lose the next election, if he defended his old friend. Eisenhower defended Marshall in public before the 1952 election. But it wasn't soon enough after McCarthy's speech to satisfy Marshall's friends.

You have to be a little concerned when you get into a debate with a guy who can say things off the top of his head like: `I knew it would be thus - that vilification, smear, and falsehoods would follow, peddled by the Reds, their minions, and their egg-sucking phony Liberals who litter Washington with their persons and clutter up American thinking with their simple minded arguments.'

And recall this piece of inspired rhetoric from Joe McCarthy - `the pitiful squealing of those who would hold sacrosanct those Communists and queers who have sold 400 million Asiatic people into atheistic slavery and have the American people in a hypnotic trance, headed blindly toward the same precipice...'

Recall that McCarthy hammered Army General Ralph W. Zwicker, accusing him on national TV of not even having the brains of a 5-year-old. He told him he did not deserve to wear the uniform of a General in the United States Army. That's when McCarthy lost a lot of his friends.

Still, the 1950s version of The Iliad, starring: Senator Joe McCarthy, Senator William Benton, Whittacker Chambers, Alger Hiss, Roy Cohn, Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, Owen Lattimore, Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz, Freda Utley, Dorothy Kenyon, Annie C. Moss, Henry Wallace, Dexter White, Dean Acheson, Harry S Truman, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General George C. Marshall, Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, General Ralph W. Zwicker, General Douglas MacArthur, Bishop Fulton Sheen, Cardinal Spellman, JFK, LBJ, RFK, William F. Buckley Jr., Adlai Stevenson, The Communist Chorus, The Fellow-Traveler Chorus, The Anti-Communist Chorus etc., etc., was an American dramatic production which, compared to the genocide inflicted by the Communists in the USSR, China, Korea, Vietnam etc., was a very genteel and well-behaved dramatic production. There was a lot of shouting, a good deal of vitriol and barnyard language, a lot of lies and damn lies. But there wasn't any mass torture and mass murder from the political classes or the people.

One of James Patterson's complaints against McCarthy in `Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974' is that McCarthy did not attempt to understand Stalin. Could it be that he understood Stalin perfectly well, but, perhaps, many Liberals did not understand Stalin? Bertrand Russell knew long before 1950 that Stalin was an evil dictator.

We might look at Robert Conquest's: _Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps_ and Alexander Solzhenitsyn's _The Gulag Archipelago_. These books help to combat the delusion that the most conspicuous victims of the Cold War Era were some blacklisted film directors. These books also highlight the evil and hell that can hit a nation when all power is concentrated in one person and one faction. In the USA we have federalism – power is divided between the federal government, the states, the counties and the cities. When you see a city like Chicago have 60 people shot over a weekend, and when the USA is thrown into chaos whenever a white cop shoots a black criminal / alleged criminal, then you might say that if the USA was run by a benevolent dictator then so much evil and chaos afflicting the USA could be swept away. But then on the flip side of that logic is the logic which says that if the benevolent dictator turns out to be a malevolent dictator, and if he initiates a reign of terror where he crushes all of his enemies and all of his perceived enemies, then the people of the USA would wish we had the bungling inefficiency of federalism back, where the feds and the states and the counties and the cities, even with their bungling inefficiency, are a million times better than having to live under the tyranny of a despot.

Here's an extract of an abridgment – Folio Society Books, I forget the name of the translator – of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's _The Gulag Archipelago_ ,

"If the intellectuals in Chekhov's dramas who spent all their time speculating what would happen in the future had been told that in forty years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed within iron bands; that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath; that they would be trussed up naked to be assaulted by ants and bedbugs; that a piston heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the `secret brand'); that a man's genitals would be slowly crushed beneath a jackboot...not one of Chekhov's dramas would have got to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to lunatic asylums...What had been acceptable under Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in the seventeenth century, what had already come to be regarded as barbarism under Peter the Great...what had become totally impossible under Catherine the Great, was all being practiced during the flowering of the glorious twentieth century - in a society based on socialistic principles, and at a time when airplanes were flying and the radio and talking films had appeared \- not by one villain alone in a secret hole, but by tens of thousands of specially trained human beasts standing over millions of defenseless victims...we are now being told, thirty years later, `Don't talk about it!'? If we recall the sufferings of millions we are informed it will distort the historical perspective!...Rather, let's consider the blast furnaces, the rolling mills that were built, the canals that were dug...It is really difficult to see why we condemn the Inquisition. At the autos-da-fé, were not magnificent services also offered to the Almighty? It is hard to see why we are so contemptuous of serfdom. No one forbade the peasants to work every day. And they could sing carols at Christmas too. And for Trinity Day the girls wore wreaths...In 1952 Anna Skripnikova was subjected to her fifth imprisonment, and Sivakov, Chief of the Investigative Department of the Ordzhonikidze State Security Administration said to her: `The prison doctor says you have a blood pressure of 240/120. That's too low, you bitch! We're going to bring it up to 340 to make your death unpleasant, you viper...We wont let you sleep'...at the Lubyanka in 1926 they used the hot-air heating system to fill the cell first with icy-cold and then stinking hot air...the heat in such a cell was turned up until the prisoners' blood began to ooze through their pores. When the guards saw this happening through the peephole, they would put the prisoner on a stretcher and take him off to sign his confession...the more fantastic the charges were, the more ferocious the interrogation had to be in order to obtain the required confession...in the years 1937-8...The types of torture used were not regulated and every kind of ingenuity was permitted, no matter what...Like medieval jurists, our interrogators, prosecutors, and judges accepted the tortured confession of the accused as the chief proof of guilt...Stalin did not pronounce that final policy. His subordinates had to guess what he wanted. Like a jackal, Stalin left himself an escape hole. This was devious of him, because, for the first time in human history, the torture of millions to obtain confessions was being undertaken. Even with all his strength and power, Stalin could not be absolutely sure there would be no coup to destroy him. Stalin had to remain innocent, his holy vestments angelically pure...no list of tortures and torments existed to guide the interrogators!...but no interrogator would be made to answer for the death of an accused; and the prison doctor was to interfere as little as possible...Stalin's hands were clean; he issued no direct instructions to use torture, but at the same time he ensured that torture would be used...The bedbug-infested box has been mentioned. In the dark hole made of wooden planks, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bedbugs...The guards removed the prisoner's clothes, and immediately the hungry bedbugs assaulted him...At first he waged war with them, crushing them on his body...But after several hours he weakened. He let them drink his blood...a Sukhanovka method - also used in Archangel...A long towel was inserted between the prisoner's jaws like a bridle; the ends were then pulled back over his shoulders and tied to his heels. Just try lying on your stomach like a wheel, with your spine breaking for two days!...It seems a fairy tale that somewhere, at the ends of the earth, an accused person can avail himself of a lawyer's expertise, and have beside you in the most difficult time of your life a clear-minded ally who knows the law...everyone sat there in their underwear with their winter clothing piled beneath them. Their naked bodies were pressed against each other. They soon got eczema from one another's sweat. They sat like that for weeks at a time..."Your accomplices, accomplices! Others who share your views!' That is what they barked at everyone. A prisoner named Ralov fingered Cardinal Richelieu as one of his accomplices, and the Cardinal was in fact listed in his depositions. No one was made curious by this until Ralov was question about it at his rehabilitation proceedings in 1956...In the first months after the October Revolution Lenin was demanding `the most draconian measures to shore up discipline'...In December 1917 he suggested for consideration an assortment of punishments: confiscation of all property...confinement in prison, soldiering at the front and forced labour for all who disobey the law...According to the estimates of émigré Professor of Statistics Kurganov, this `comparatively mild' administrative policy cost us, from the beginning of the October Revolution up to 1959, a total of...66,000,000 lives...Here is how they kept prisoners in the punishment cells: poles the thickness of an arm were set from wall to wall. The prisoners were ordered to sit atop these poles all day long. At night they lay on the floor, one on top of another, because of overcrowding. The height of these poles were designed so that a prisoner's feet could not reach the ground...In fact, the prisoner spent the entire day merely trying to maintain his position atop his pole. If he fell, the jailers rushed in and beat him...D. P. Vitkovsky, a Solovetsky Islands veteran who worked on the White Sea Canal...painted us a picture of the evenings: "At the end of the working day there were always corpses left on the work site...peasant lads, the best workers one could possibly imagine...were sent to the canal by the tens of thousands...But no one could teach them anything, or warn them, and in their back-woods simplicity they expended all their strength in their work. They weakened swiftly and then froze to death...At night the sledges went out and collected their corpses...And in the summer the bones remaining from corpses which had not been removed from the winter ice got scooped into the concrete mixer. In this way their bones got into the concrete of the last lock at the city of Belomorsk and will be preserved there forever... "What an intelligent, far-sighted and human administration from top to bottom," wrote Supreme Court Judge Leibowitz of New York State in `Life' magazine, after having visited Gulag. "In serving out his term of punishment the prisoner retains a feeling of dignity"...We heard a famous incantation repeated over and over: `In the new social structure there can be no place for the discipline of the stick on which serfdom was based, nor the discipline of starvation on which capitalism is based'...Philosophers, psychologists, physicians and writers could have observed in our camps, as nowhere else, both in detail and on a large scale, the grinding process of the narrowing of the intellectual and spiritual horizons of a human being, the reduction of the human being to the condition of an animal: the very process of dying alive. Yet the psychologists who were thrown into our camps were, for the most part, not up to making observations. They themselves had fallen into the very same river that was dissolving the human personality into excrement and ash. What film cannot reveal will be described to us in slow, meticulous prose which will distinguish between nuances of the various descents to death. These are sometimes called scurvy, sometimes pellagra, sometimes alimentary dystrophy. If there is blood on your bread after you have taken a bite - that is scurvy. Soon your teeth begin to fall out, your gums will rot, ulcers will appear on your legs, your flesh will begin to fall off in whole chunks, and you will begin to smell like a corpse. Your bloated legs will collapse...you will crawl on all fours...But if your face grows dark, and your skin begins to peel, and your entire organism is racked with diarrhea, then this is pellagra...take three spoons of chalk a day, and they say that if you can eat a lot of herring the diarrhea will abate. But where are you going to get any herring in a concentration camp?...Sometimes the body of a man dying of starvation is covered with blue-black pimples...the tiny boils come to a head and burst: a thick wormlike string of pus is forced out. The man is rotting alive. If black head lice are crawling on the face of your neighbor on his bunk, it is a sure sign of imminent death. Fie! What naturalism. Why keep talking about all that? And that is what they usually say today - those who did not suffer - those who were themselves the executioners...At one time in Old Russia it was thought that the soul in a corpse could not get to heaven without a coffin. Therefore even the lowliest serfs, beggars and tramps were buried in coffins. Even the Sakhalin and the Akatui hard-labour prisoners were buried in coffins. But in the gulag archipelago this was seen as an unproductive expenditure of millions on labor and lumber. At Inta, after the war, one honored foreman of the wood-working plant was buried in a coffin. The Cultural and Educational Section was instructed to make propaganda of this: Work Well And You, Too, Will Be Buried In A Wooden Coffin. Women in Camp...women react more swiftly and sharply to arrest than men and to its principal effect - the loss of the family. A woman taken into captivity is spiritually wounded, and this expresses itself most often in the cessation of the vulnerable female functions...everything was more difficult for the women than for us men. First, there was the camp filth...There was an official prohibition against men entering them [the barracks reserved for women], but this prohibition was ignored...Beauty was a curse. A handsome woman had a constant stream of visitors on her bunk. She was constantly surrounded. They propositioned her and threatened her with beatings and knives. She had no hope of being able to defend herself. She could only be smart about who she chose to submit to - to pick the man best able to defend her with his name and knife from all the rest, from the next in line, from the whole stinking queue, from those insane juveniles gone berserk and who were aroused by everything they could see and breathe in her...The political instructor must never contradict himself, never make a slip. He must never tell the lads that some people are imprisoned here simply for believing in God...Here is one such political lesson, as remembered by a former escort guard..."Lieutenant Samutin was a lank, narrow-shouldered man...reciting in a monotonous voice: "The enemies of the people, over whom you stand guard, are Fascists; they are filthy scum. We embody the power and the punitive sword of the Motherland. We must be firm. We must have no sentimentality, no pity." That is how they form the youths who will kick a runaway's head when he's lying down. These are the youths who will learn to kick a piece of bread out of the mouth of a grey-haired old man in handcuffs, who can look with indifference at a shackled runaway...his face bloodied, his head battered....they are the Motherland's punitive sword, and he, so they say, is an American colonel...[Religious] Believers were dismissed from their jobs merely for their faith...[and were] compelled to attend antireligious indoctrination...the Baptists who arrived [to attend the trial of another Baptist] were held in jail for three days...While the trial was conducted there were shouts from spectators: `Pour paraffin over them and set then on fire!'... One of the defendants, a man named Bazbei, the father of nine children, was a miner who had never received any support from the union committee at his pit because he was a Baptist...from 1961 to June 1964, 197 Baptists were condemned...some got five years in a strict regime camp, narrowly escaping the hell of being herded with the hardened criminals!...All you freedom-loving, left-wing thinkers in the West! You left-wing labourites! You progressive American, German and French students! As far as you are concerned, none of my words amount to much. As far as you are concerned this book of mine is a waste of time. But you may understand it all some day when you yourselves hear: `hands behind your back there!' when you step ashore on our Archipelago.'

Robert Conquest writes in _Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps_ (Oxford University Press, 1979),

`A male prisoner working in the sick bay of the Sovlatvia in 1949 tells of conditions aboard: "When we reached the women's hold, the entrance was barred by two armed soldiers, but on seeing our red cross armbands, they let us pass...my eyes beheld a scene which neither Goya nor Gustave Doré could ever have imagined. In that immense, cavernous, murky hold were crammed more than 2000 women. From floor to the ceiling, as in a gigantic poultry farm, they were cooped up in open cages, five of them in each nine foot square space. The floor was covered with more women. Because of the heat and humidity, most of them were only scantily dressed; some had even stripped down to nothing. The lack of washing facilities and the relentless heat had covered their bodies with ugly red spots, boils, and blisters....women were perched like birds, and in the most incredible positions. There was no shame, no prudery, as they crouched there to urinate or empty their bowels. One had the impression that they were some half-human, half-bird creatures which belonged to a different world and a different age...Who were these women.?...they had been arrested all over Russia and those countries overrun by Soviet armies. The main accusation against them was collaboration with the enemy..."...Some of the most lurid accounts are of the women criminals [the gulags contained two classes of prisoners: political prisoners and common criminals]. Evgenia Ginzburg recalls, in 1939: "But the worst was yet to come: our first meeting with the real hardened criminals among whom we were to live at Kolyma. When it seemed there was no room left for a kitten, down through the hatchway poured another few hundred human beings. They were the cream of the criminal world: murderers, sadists, adepts at every kind of sexual perversion...When I saw this half-naked, tattooed, ape-like horde invade the hold, I thought that it had been decided that we were to be killed off by mad women. The fetid air reverberated to their shrieks, their ferocious obscenities, their wild laughter and their caterwaulings...Without wasting any time they set about terrorizing and bullying the `ladies' - the politicals - delighted to find that the `enemies of the people' were creatures even more despised and outcast than themselves. Within five minutes we had a thorough introduction to the law of the jungle. They seized our bits of bread, snatched the last of our rags out of our bundles, pushed us out of the places we had managed to find. Some of us wept, some panicked, some tried to reason with the whores, some spoke politely to them hoping to restore their self-respect..." A half-blind Polish woman, in 1944, tells: "One hundred thirty women were also taken, of whom I was one. In all there were taken five of us Polish women, a few Soviet politicals, and all the rest of that type of criminal which can be most nearly described by the European expression apache...One tore off my shawl...others tried to drag off my sweater and seize my sack. We fought in the darkness of the night...I hit out at random...I could taste blood...If I once gave in I knew they would murder me...All the way to Kolyma my battle with the apache women went on. One befriended me for a while and then she completely robbed me. She simply could not keep it up. Her name was Lola and she looked like the old female wolf who leads the pack...For the few days that she was my friend she shared her bread with me. The retching, the wild cries, the dancing and stamping of feet, the brawling, fornicating and wild-cat fighting went on night and day. Even the men were afraid of these women. The commandant was afraid of them too. Nevertheless, he helped me get some of my things back. I said to one woman, `You are so young, you are even beautiful, and yet you are as evil as the fiend himself. Why?' She looked at me with an expression of which I can give no idea. `Why should I be otherwise? Hell is where I live and the fiend is my brother.'...a fire broke out. The male criminals seized the opportunity to try to escape...the crew hosed them down to keep them quiet. Then they forgot about them. As the fire was still burning the water boiled and the wretched men died in it...And so Kolyma entered its long period as the worst and deadliest of the labour camp areas...The first major policy decision was to insist on winter work in the mines...the air in the pit, where there was no ventilation whatsoever, was filled twice daily with the poisonous fumes of blasted ammonal. Only thirty minutes were allowed for clearing of the fumes...after which the workers were driven back into the pits...many of them succumbed to the poisoned atmosphere and coughed violently, spitting blood and often particles of lung...The new prisoners, moreover, were mainly people who had never done any physical work...scientists, artists, politicians, educators, leaders of industry, trade and government...their faces all showed signs of frostbite...Conditions quickly killed them off. But `conditions' were assisted by a massive employment of execution as a reprisal against failure to produce adequate gold, and, in effect, on any pretext whatever...in 1937 it hardly needed explaining what counter-revolutionary agitation was: Praising a Russian novel published abroad - ten years; declaring that one queued too long to buy soap - five years...But in the camps there was none of this...Say aloud that the work was harsh, mutter the most innocent remark about Stalin, keep silent while the crowd of prisoners yelled `Long live Stalin', and you're shot - silence is agitation...The hierarchical structure of Kolyma...First came the urkas [common criminals]...they [officialdom] tried to let us know that we thieves were still not lost to the homeland...but the "fascists" and "counters" [counter-revolutionaries \- anti-Stalinists - a.k.a., politicals] there was no place on this mortal earth...We have described the strange subhuman culture of the urka world. Their speech was a strange jargon, with an amazingly continuous obscenity - (found, indeed, also among the administration, even at the highest levels). Their bodies, too, were usually distinguishable from the politicals by thick tattooing. Even their women were sometime indelibly disfigured in this way, often in a manner described as incredibly obscene. Urkas had one weakness, reported time and again in our sources. They loved to listen to stories. That is to say, not anecdotes, but, for example, the whole length of `The Count of Monte Cristo'...time and again politicals were not only saved from beating or murder, but actually fed and helped for this one talent...All accounts have reports in which innocent people were savagely beheaded with axes in broad daylight or stabbed to death with picks and shovels...one typical urka atrocity was to break the bones of the victim...the victim would groan and plead for mercy...after twenty or thirty of such vicious blows the victim finally remained silent...Intellectuals abounded...a botanist was beaten to death...a prominent surgeon shot for failing to fulfill his norm in the gold mine...a Polish professor was killed by a blow to the kidneys with a rifle butt...a poet admired by Lenin, perished at Magadan...all camp reminiscences proper teem with descriptions of former academics, administrators, Party officials, scientists, facing pain and humiliation, death by violence and death by exhaustion...a group of nurses and intellectual prisoners, in a unique effort, made an attempt to collect systematic factual evidence of events in Kolyma...they were all former members of the Communist Party...They were betrayed by a woman doctor...Communists who had not adapted themselves to the new Stalinist style of falsification were, of course, common. A typical tale: 'I belonged to a political study circle. One day our theme was the October Uprising in Moscow. I had been a soldier under Muralov, one of his artillerymen, and I was wounded twice in the October fighting...In the middle of the lecture the professor asks me: `who commanded the Soviet troops in Moscow at the time of the insurrection?" I answer: "Muralov"...I knew him personally. What else could I say?..."But that's a provocational answer, Gavril Alexeyevich! You know well that Muralov has been declared an enemy of the people."...They arrested me the same night...Christians...were beaten...Their skirts were tied over their heads...With some, their religion forbade them even to give their names to Anti-Christ...During the war a number of church dignitaries who had survived were released and restored to office under Stalin's then policy of broadening support. This did not apply to the rank and file of those sentenced for religious reasons, who remained. Muslim prisoners...Brought from the subtropical climate of their homelands to the coldest regions of the world...died like flies...they did not try to defend themselves. They let themselves be driven out to the gold mines...They stood motionless, their arms crossed...They made no response at all to orders and curses...the men stood numbed until they fell over like so many dolls. `Another frozen to death,' the prisoners would note...When one of them entered the hospital, it was certain he would leave it feet first. While their Russian comrades fought for life to the last breath, they waited submissively for death...Many died of tuberculosis, many of intestinal diseases, many of pellagra. But the real sickness was the cold, the sunlessness, and the actual imprisonment. These people, many of whom had been nomads, could not endure confinement...In 1946 came a new influx, the `homecomers' - former Soviet prisoners of war in Germany, virtually all of whom were sentenced as deserters on return, supplemented by large numbers of women and girls whom the Nazis had deported to work in German munitions plants and who were now sentenced for collaboration...Is it possible for a man...to refuse to wash, to get rid of the sweat and filth which cover a body devoured by skin diseases...Lice begin to attract the attention...when a crawling pullover starts to move on its own. Is it possible that a man, of whatever type, might not wish to escape this torture when he does not sleep and scratches his filthy body, gnawed by vermin, till the blood runs? No, of course not. But there is a `but.' On bath days there is no spare time allotted. You go before or after work. After long hours in the cold...one wants only to plod to the barrack, swallow something and sleep. The baths delay this moment: it's unbearable...The two cases of genuine counter-revolutionary demonstrations which took place in two women's camps were carried out, significantly enough, by criminals. They hung up a placard reading, "Long Live Fascism!" They were shot...Solzhenitsyn, it will be remembered, remarks on the farce of the Dalstroy orchestra playing marches and waltzes to the convoy of tormented, half-dead prisoners who, the ships having been unable to penetrate the late ice in early May, had to be disembarked on the ice and drag themselves over the last miles to shore...One day, looking in mute amazement at all those human ants carrying their heavy loads up the rugged mountain, I couldn't help thinking what an extraordinary picture of human life an intelligent film producer could have made of it. Among the women assigned to this heavy task I recognized a famous young actress I had admired very much...She was Nadiya Milionushkina, winner of the all-Soviet Union contest for drama in 1948. Tall and slender, with thick auburn hair down to her shoulders, beautiful green eyes and a milky complexion, Nadiya looked like a queen even in the shoddy camp clothes she had to wear. She was arrested in 1949 after being accused of having been the mistress of the German general commanding the Minsk area during the occupation. Her sentence: 25 years hard labor...Rape was, of course, regularly practiced by urkas. A twenty-one-year-old girl about to become a school teacher, but arrested for being of Polish descent and given ten years, was on cleaning duty at the Magadan men's camp. One day, the guard to take her back to the women's camp had not arrived when a brigade of men returned from work. They were, as it happened, urkas, and invited her into their barrack where twenty of them raped her. She caught both syphilis and gonorrhea. A prisoner who worked with her comments, "Her experience was not unique in Kolyma. There was even a common expression for it: `She fell under the trolley'."...Rozochki, that is `little roses', was the contemptuous name that the urkas gave female `counter-revolutionaries'; female urkas called themselves fiyalochki, `violets'. One woman political noted that behind the poetic word `rose' lies a rich complex of hatreds for those who differ from the masses...Women were particularly susceptible to brutality and humiliation. One was taken aback when, for the first time, she found in the transit camp that the commander and a couple of soldiers were present at the baths, among hundreds of naked prisoners. Her companions pointed out that they no longer thought of them as human...`I'll show you a scene you'll never see again in your lifetime'...hundreds of naked women...heads bowed, silent, had to submit to the indignity of having their hairy parts shaven by a man. It was done once a month. The administration explained it was for hygienic reasons...My legs were inflamed, hard, shining, in my hard prison boots; the skin was coming away in strips; blood was running into my boots...An insanity of anger came over me. I began to fight both the guards and their dogs...Later, in the new camp, called to answer what I had done, I said: `The English government and the Polish government will hold you responsible for what you are doing.' For this I was struck in the back with the flat of a bayonet, twice. 'Here,' I was told, `here is one for your Poland and here is another for your England.'...an ukase [official decree] was issued which provided that any worker who left his job in a war plant, no matter for what reasons, was subject to from six to eight years of imprisonment. Hundreds of young girls between the ages of eighteen and twenty were sent to Kolyma for running away to their villages because they could no longer endure the starvation in the cities where they had been forced to work. Some had only gone back for a few days to visit a sick mother, but the factory manager would not give them any days off and when they returned they were arrested. They came as adolescents and were instantly transformed by Kolyma into full-fledged prostitutes. Thousands of workers were sent into the Kolyma camps as ukazniki, for some petty misdeamenor...those who had not been physically wrecked were morally shattered...On the Sovlatvia in 1949, were a new-style group; `Many of the foreign girls living in Moscow, as well as some Russian girls who had graduated from the Foreign Language Institute, were often recruited into the secret service. Good looks and a certain knowledge of English or French were basic requirements. They would be given details on young bachelor diplomats newly arrived in Russia and instructed to visit the Metropol and the National hotels in order to get acquainted with them. Once contact was established, the girls were supposed to use their wiles and sexual charms to ferret out all possible information pertaining to the affairs of foreign embassies. All too often, however, the girls fell in love with the diplomats and after confessing their true mission, would implore them to save them and smuggle them out of the country. Because the `information' they brought back to their masters invariably turned out to be inaccurate, those girls who permitted love to interfere with their spying were punished with a 10-year sentence. Their crime came under Article 37, Paragraph 6 of the Soviet Penal Code and they were designated as `dangerous social elements'...as the ship plowed on, these unhappy girls were crying their hearts out and cursing the day they had accepted their assignments. Some of them managed to keep in their bosoms the tear-stained photos of their former boyfriends...One of the most extraordinary - and disgraceful - things about Kolyma is that its mere existence was ignored or denied in the West...This is, of course, true of the whole labour camp system...This Western attitude to Stalin's camp system was not due to lack of evidence. No impenetrable security curtain was required. Individual reports from survivors who had reached the West existed even before the war. Reports from the hundreds of Poles who had served in the Kolyma camps themselves, and had been permitted to leave the Soviet Union in 1941-3 under the Soviet-Polish Treaty, were soon available...in 1945, Mora and Zwiernak gave a comprehensive account of the whole system throughout the USSR...In 1946, Polish eyewitness stories were collected, with a preface by T. S. Eliot, in `The Dark Side of the Moon', including a number of experiences from Kolyma. In 1948, the old Mensheviks D. J. Dallin and Boris I. Nicolaevsky published their classic `Forced Labour in Soviet Russia' which listed fifteen camps or camp clusters in the Kolyma and gave a long and generally accurate account of the history and conditions of the area. In 1951, Elinor Lipper's `Eleven Years in Soviet Prison Camps' appeared and, in the same year, Vladimir Petrov's `It Happens in Russia': both of them full and careful descriptions, from the prisoner's point of view, of the Kolyma camps...In `The Great Terror', I gave a number of examples of distinguished Westerners nourishing extravagant delusions about Stalin's Russia. The credulity, stubbornly defended against overwhelming odds in the way of evidence, marked a whole generation of Western left-wingers...Sir Julian Huxley's prize-winning fantasy - that Stalin used to personally to go down to the yards to help unload railway trucks...Dr. Edith Summerskill's egregious remarks to the effect that Ivan the Terrible was to be remembered primarily for bringing some Western doctors to Russia, as a fact far outweighing any atrocities he may have committed...Baroness Wooten, writing in the mid-sixties, recalled her shame when, in the thirties, she went to Russian schools only to be greeted with the cry `You come from England where they beat children.' The retorts...seem fairly obvious...you live in Russia where they shoot children...How was it possible that the clear, cool and consistent material available and published in the West was not believed? What emerges is a sorry tale of self-deception. Few went as far as Jean-Paul Sartre who argued, in effect, that accounts of the Soviet labour camp system should be suppressed even if true, since otherwise the French working class might become anti-Soviet...Bertrand Russell wrote the preface to one labour camp book in 1951 - `A World Apart' by Gustave Herling - which concluded with letters from eminent Communists saying that no such camps exist. He commented: "Those who write these letters and those fellow-travelers who allow themselves to believe them share responsibility for the almost unbelievable horrors which are being inflicted upon millions of wretched men and women, slowly done to death by hard labour and starvation in the Arctic cold. Fellow-travelers who refuse to believe the evidence...are necessarily people devoid of humanity, for if they had any humanity they would not merely dismiss the evidence, but would take some trouble to look at it...the short stay in Kolyma of the Vice-President of the United States, Henry A. Wallace, with a group of advisors headed by Professor Owen Lattimore, representing the Office of War Information in the summer of 1944...both Wallace and Lattimore published enthusiastic accounts...Wallace tells us that the gold miners at Kolyma are `big, husky young men who came out to the Far East from European Russia'. He adds that they are `pioneers of the machine age, builders of cities'...Wallace, whose background was of course agricultural, was taken to a farm...He asked the well-dressed girl swineherds a polite question about their work which caused some confusion as they were in fact NKVD office staff selected for their looks and smartness and had little knowledge of pigs...the interpreter saved the situation...Professor Lattimore wrote about the visit in an article which appeared with photographs in the `National Geographic Magazine' for December 1944. After noting the deplorable methods by which Siberia had been colonized in Tsarist times, he went on to celebrate the enlightened system which had replaced them. The `orderly' development of the Soviet North was controlled by a `remarkable concern.'...This Soviet development was superior not only to the Tsars' methods, but also to the American-style gold rushes with their `sin, gin and brawling'. Instead, greenhouses provided tomatoes, cucumbers, even melons, to `make sure the hardy miners got their vitamins'...The illustrations to Lattimore's article fully accord with what he writes in it. He was able, for example, to print a photograph of a group of well-clad and physically fit men, taken at a gold mine visited under conditions similar to that at the pig farm...The caption is `They have to be strong to resist winter's rigors'... Lattimore goes on to comment in his letter [to the `New Statesman'] that Nikishov `must have slipped up' since Elinor Lipper `eventually got out'. The fact that there were survivors is thus used to imply that things were not so bad...In the original German edition of her book, Elinor Lipper, not having seen them, did not go into Lattimore's and Wallace's writings. In the English edition she added some - not unnaturally rather critical - remarks. In his `New Statemen' letter Lattimore explains all this quite simply. It was done at the behest of some sinister unknown, as part of the `McCarthyism' which was then rampant in the United States. In his old age Lattimore became a hero for the younger sociologists and others in the United States...Lattimore's role as an apologist for the Soviet regime went back a good way. In his journal `Pacific Affairs' (September 1938) he discussed, for example, the Moscow Trials. Asking himself if they represented `a triumph for democracy', he answered that the purge of top officials showed the ordinary citizen his power to denounce even them, and concluded `that sounds like democracy to me'...Anyone who could think in this way might, indeed, have found Kolyma admirable even if he had seen it as it was! Wallace, before he died, expressed his regret at having so deeply misunderstood the Soviet Union. Lattimore has never done so...Western well-wishers of Stalinism...brought to the location of some of its largest horrors...demonstrates a major side of Stalin's whole system based (as Pasternak put it) on `the inhuman power of the lie'. For an important part of his whole scheme was precisely the deception of the West. It is particularly appropriate that in addition to the killers and torturers, and the innocent victims, we should be able to find on the very soil of Kolyma that other key element - the dupes and the apologists.'

Getting back to Joe McCarthy, when he passed away the French newspapers referred to him as the `witch-hunter.' `Inquisition' was used by London's conservative Daily Telegraph in reference to McCarthy's legacy. America's most prestigious papers discussed the `ruthless demagogue' who threatened American civil liberties and savaged government employees. The same newspapers made profits printing his accusations. The same newspapers might have told Congress to conduct its investigations in private - but, of course, slander and innuendo sell, and newspapers can make money printing slander and innuendo. Joe McCarthy is still routinely denounced as a witch-hunter, and of course a writer is permitted to use figurative language, but the metaphor is inaccurate. The key question is: how fair was he in dealing with people under suspicion of being loyalty risks? To say Communism posed no malevolent threat is to declare oneself to be rather confused about the facts. Since it posed a malevolent threat investigations were needed to identify loyalty risks. Might Reds and Dupes scream `witch-hunt' when they are investigated? It couldn't hurt to re-familiarize ourselves with the evils involved in real, literal, historical witch-hunting. As we saw in an earlier chapter, H. R. Trevor-Roper writes in `The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries' (Harper & Row):

`In the eleventh century Roman law had been rediscovered in the west, and torture had soon followed it back into use. In 1252 Innocent IV, by the bull Ad Extirpanda, had authorized its use against the Albigensians. By the fourteenth century it was in general use in the tribunals of the Inquisition...In 1468 the Pope [Innocent VIII.] declared witchcraft to be a crimen exceptum and thereby removed, in effect, all legal limits on the application of torture in such cases...The evidence supplied by Lea clearly shows that the witch-craze grew by its own momentum...Accused witches often admitted to their confessors that they had wrongly accused both themselves and others, and these admissions are the more credible since they brought no advantage to the accused - unless they were willing, as they seldom were, to make a formal retraction, which meant submitting to torture again...When we consider the fully developed procedure at continental or Scottish witch-trials we can hardly be surprised that confessions were almost always secured. For such a crime, the ordinary rules of evidence, as the ordinary limits of torture, were suspended...As Jean Bodin would write, not one in a million would be punished if the procedure were governed by ordinary laws, So, in the absence of a `grave indicium', such as a pot full of human limbs, sacred objects, toads, etc. or a written pact with the Devil...circumstantial evidence was sufficient to mobilize the process. And the circumstantial evidence need not be very cogent: it was sufficient to discover a wart, by which the familiar spirit was suckled; an insensitive spot which did not bleed when pricked; a capacity to float when thrown into water; or an incapacity to shed tears. Recourse could even be had to `lighter indicia', such as a tendency to look down when accused, signs of fear...Any of these indicia might establish a prima facie case and justify the use of torture to produce the confession, which was proof, or the refusal to confess, which was even more cogent proof and justified even more ferocious tortures and a nastier death. Of the tortures used...Crushed the fingers and toes in a vice...the Spanish boot, much used in Germany and Scotland, which squeezed the calf and broke the shin-bone in pieces - `the most severe and cruel pain in the world', as a Scotsman called it...and there was the `ram' or `witch-chair' a seat of spikes, heated from below. There was also the `Bed of Nails'...In Scotland one might also be grilled on the caschielawis, and have ones finger-nails pulled off...Once a witch had confessed, the next stage was to secure from her, again under torture, a list of all those of her neighbours whom she had recognized at the witches' sabbat. Thus a new set of indicia was supplied, clerical science was confirmed, and a fresh set of trials and tortures would begin. It is easy to see that torture lay, directly or indirectly, behind most of the witch-trials of Europe, creating witches where none were and multiplying both victims and evidence. Without torture, the great witch-panics of the 1590s and the late 1620s are inconceivable. But can we ascribe the whole craze, in effect, to torture, as some liberal writers seem to do? Can we suppose that witchcraft had no other basis than the fanaticism and prurience of the inquisitors, spellbound by their own inventions? I must confess that I find this difficult to believe...If the confessions were merely a response to torture we should have to explain why even in England, where there was no judicial torture, witches confessed to absurd crimes...why some of the most original and cultivated men of the time not only accepted the theory of witch-craft but positively devoted their genius to its proposition...we have to stop before the great figure of Bodin: Bodin the Aristotle, the Montesquieu of the sixteenth century, the prophet of comparative history, of political theory, of the philosophy of law, of the quantitative theory of money, and of so much else, who yet, in 1580, wrote the book which, more than any other, reanimated the witch-fires throughout Europe. To turn over the pages of Bodin's De la démonomanie des sorciers, to see this great man, the undisputed intellectual master of the later sixteenth century, demanding death at the stake not only for witches, but for all who do not believe every grotesque detail of the new demonology, is a sobering experience...It was because he had heard confessions given without torture that Paolo Grillandi, a judge of witches in central Italy in the early sixteenth century, was converted to the belief that witches were transported bodily to the sabbat. Bodin too assures us that the confession which converted him to the science of demonology and inspired him to become its most formidable propagandist was made "sans question n'y torture"; and yet the woman, Jeanne Harvellier of Verbery near Compiègne, had been remarkably circumstantial. Not only had she compassed the death of man and beast: she had also the Devil for her paramour for thirty eight years, during which he had visited her `en guise d'un grand homme noir, outre la stature des homme, vestu de drap noir,' [in the form of a large black man, beyond the stature of men, dressed in black cloth].

Trevor-Roper says some liberal writers seem to ascribe the whole witch craze to torture, and he finds this difficult to believe. It certainly seems rather naïve to think, as some liberal writers think, that every woman burned as a witch was a pious woman who was slandered and burned after a false confession was tortured out of her. Apropos of the main theme of this volume, we know that it is evil under the New Law to torture and burn women, regardless if they are witches or not. The evil we are primarily concerned with is not evil from witches, it is the evil from Christians, such as Innocent VIII., who claimed to be good Christians, when, obviously, they have fallen away from the True Faith: Christ and the apostles were not women-burners! Whether modern people want to believe, or not believe, that actual witches, in the 16th and 17th centuries, after having made a pact with the devil, were actually given the infernal, superhuman powers to destroy crops, to cast spells which could kill, to cast spells which could drive men insane, is something for modern people to decide. How many modern people believe that the devil would make love to his witches, here on earth, in the 16th and 17th centuries? Who knows, but all of the main religions teach the doctrine that benevolent and malevolent supernatural powers exist. Rome still professes the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. The people who profess that Dogma don't believe Innocent VIII. and no end of other popes were fallible when they gave their blessing to the Inquisition. Rome still says you are on the devil's side if you reject Rome.

Trevor-Roper speaks of Bodin as a demigod. And if we looked into the works of Jean Bodin, this `prophet of comparative history, of political theory, of the philosophy of law, of the quantitative theory of money, and of so much else,' are we really going to find any great treasures? Isn't the truth simply that, the best we can hope to find, in Bodin, is a man who is less bigoted, less bloodthirsty, and less ignorant than the typical woman-burner in 16th century France? Let us suppose Trevor-Roper was right, let us suppose Bodin was an Aristotle, a Montesquieu. This only proves what everyone already knows. It is possible for a man to be a great genius on some matters and a great fool on other matters.

At various points Trevor-Roper takes his discourse away from history and diverges into sociology and psychology. He leaves the realm of facts and probabilities and begins to spin theories about the genesis of the witch-craze. Consider when he writes:

`Thus the genesis of the sixteenth-century witch-craze can be explained in two stages. First, there is social tension. Just as systematic anti-Semitism is generated by the ghetto...not by the individual Jews, so the systematic mythology of the witch-craze was generated not by individual old women casting spells in scattered villages...but by unassimilable social groups who, like the Jews and Moors of Spain, might be persecuted into outward orthodoxy but not into social conformity, and who therefore became, as the others did not, objects of social fear...Whatever seemed mysterious and dangerous (like the power of Joan of Arc)...could best be explained by it [devil-worship]. Nonconformists themselves, in search of a sustaining ideology, even deliberately took up the newly revealed doctrines; sadists like Gilles de Raïs dignified their brutalities by giving them a satanic impulse; helpless victims of society clutched at it for relief; and psychopaths co-ordinated their delusions about its central theme. In a climate of fear it is easy to see how this process could happen: how individual deviations could be associated with a central pattern. We have seen it happen in our own time. The McCarthyite experience of the United States in the 1950s was exactly comparable: social fear, the fear of a different kind of society, was given intellectual form as a heretical ideology and suspect individual were then persecuted by reference to that heresy.'

We know today, and we knew it when Trevor-Roper was writing a few decades ago, that millions of anti-Semites don't need to have any Jewish ghettos in their midst to learn how to be anti-Semitic. As to this Gilles de Raïs, who is said to have raped, tortured and murdered children, how exactly does one dignify these evils by giving them a satanic impulse? And as to these newly revealed doctrines, was satan invented in the 15th century? Had people in the 13th, and 9th, and 5th centuries etc., etc., never heard the words `satan' or `witches'? Whether one does not believe there is such a thing as the supernatural, or whether one believes that real witches with real and malevolent supernatural powers posed a threat to Europe a few centuries back, we know for a fact what happened in totalitarian states such as the USSR, China, East Germany and Cambodia in the 20th century. We know for a fact that Communism - the Communism of the Maoist and Stalinist varieties - committed the greatest genocide - the most murders - in the history of the world. Joe McCarthy never tortured or murdered anyone. Trevor-Roper says of the European witch-craze:

`The McCarthyite experience of the United States in the 1950s was exactly comparable: social fear, the fear of a different kind of society, was given intellectual form as a heretical ideology and suspect individuals were then persecuted by reference to that heresy.'

Yes, America in the 1950s was exactly comparable to the witch-craze of 15th, 16th and 17th century Europe. American Liberals were executed by McCarthy's legions of Fascist Followers. Hundreds of thousands of Liberals were hunted down by Right-Wing mobs brandishing the sign of the cross. Hundreds of thousands of Liberals were burned at the stake after torture had dragged confessions of their Liberal infamy from their mouths.

Of course Trevor-Roper's insistence on equating Joe McCarthy and the McCarthy era to the inquisitors and the witch-hunters of 15th, 16th and 17th century Europe is a common slip-up made by our Intellectuals. If one hears, from both the popular and the scholarly presses, from every Western University and every journalist, that Joe McCarthy was a witch-hunter, one probably would be brainwashed into believing he was indeed a witch-hunter.

The basic reason for looking at Joe McCarthy in some detail, aside from intellectual curiosity, pertains to teaching the New Law correctly. If you slander someone, then, you will be held accountable by God for the sin of slander. If one is a slanderer one certainly does not have a Divine Law written on ones heart.

And one is under pressure in the USA to have a sound and concise assessment of Joe McCarthy, because, thousands of journalists and professors in the USA say that an American would have to be an ignoramus if he did not have a sound and concise assessment of Joe McCarthy. If you parrot the more strident Liberals, you might follow after Leftists who say that Joe McCarthy is very easy to encapsulate: he was simply a cunning, malevolent, supremely vile Republican devil from America's Dairyland.

If one wants to understand Joe McCarthy, but if one doesn't want to read too many books in order to understand him, one might look at Professor Reeves' assessment of him in `The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy', A Biography, pp. 674-5,

`Joe McCarthy was mourned by a great many. Jean [his wife] received tens of thousands of messages of sympathy and condolence...Through the efforts of Cardinal Spellman, Jean was able to keep her adopted daughter, despite a New York Foundling Home rule to the contrary. Two decades later people glowed as they shared their memories of Joe's kindness, generosity, humor, intelligence, and industriousness. They often complained, however, that the qualities they most admired in McCarthy rarely, if ever, appeared in accounts of his life...Not a single college textbook from a major publisher is even neutral toward him...Perhaps no other figure in American history has been portrayed so consistently as the essence of evil. He is our King John...He was guilty of frequent lying and slander...The cliché is true: he did not discover a single Communist [WRONG! We know from the decrypted Soviet cables that the cliché is untrue: Joe McCarthy and the agents of McCarthyism did discover Soviet agents in the US government]. Untold hundreds of Americans suffered directly from his zeal to find and punish subversives...Still, Joe had many personal qualities that biographers and others have chosen to ignore. He was not the amoral, cynical, thieving, homosexual monster his critics described [that's a ringing endorsement anyone would be proud to put on his resumé]...He did not terrify the American people or hold them in his spell...From any standpoint, it seems clear that McCarthy's life was profoundly tragic. His native intelligence and his formidable energy were largely squandered...He was above all a reckless adventurer, an improviser, a bluffer. He once told a close friend, "Just remember, Gerry, he who does not live dangerously does not live at all."'

§ 36. America's Place in the Cosmos: Where Exactly Does the USA Stand with the Deity?

As we've seen there's a very interesting connection between Christ's words - `this is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for you' - and Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28. We've seen the logic which says if one rejects Zionism then one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28 one will also reject Jeremiah 31. 31-34. If one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then one will reject Christ's words at the Last Supper - `this is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for you'. And if one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper, then Christianity says one is damned. So the Christian can see the problem with rejecting Zionism.

Some of the great Anthems in the USA are the Star Spangled Banner, the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence. Every great nation, or great something, needs a Supreme Anthem.

The Supreme Anthem of the True Faith and the Divine Law is Jeremiah 31. 31-34. The Supreme Anthem of the True Church is Matthew 16. 13-19. The Supreme Anthem of the doctrine that Jesus is God is John 1. 1-14. As we've seen, the Supreme Anthem of Judaism is found in the Seventh Chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy:

`For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;'

The world's pre-eminent encapsulation of the humanistic creed is from Protagoris: `Man is the measure of all things.' But the Supreme Anthem of Humanism is to be found in Sophocles. Its eloquence is captured in English by the translator R. C. Jebb, and it runs as follows:

`Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy southwind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, unwearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year. And the light-hearted race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the deep, he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive, man excellent in wit. And he masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wilds, who roams the hills; he tames the horse of shaggy mane, he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain bull. And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods which mould a state, hath he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when it is hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; yea, he hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come; only against Death shall he call for aid in vain; but from baffling maladies he hath devised escapes.'

Still on the theme of Pagan Anthems - consider the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson writes about `Nature's God' and `We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assempled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the Rectitude of our Intentions...'

When one uses terms such as `Nature's God' and `the Supreme Judge of the world', what does one mean? Does one believe Baal is God? Does one believe Zeus is the Supreme Judge of the world? 2 Thess 1. 8 - Fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ makes perfect sense if indeed God was once crucified. It stands to reason one will anger the Christian God - The Father, Son and Holy Spirit - if one uses a phrase such as `Nature's God', as that sounds distinctly pagan. It is obvious one is not addressing the Christian God when one uses the term `Nature's God'. The `Supreme Judge of the world' is better, but after using the phrase `Nature's God' you'll want to clarify matters. If a Christian is the sort of Christian who believes 2 Thess 1. 8 is true, then, why would this Christian be pleased with The Declaration of Independence? If one doesn't believe in 2 Thess 1. 8, why would one believe in John 15. 6, in John 14. 23-26, in Luke 13. 5, in Acts 3. 23, in Matthew 26. 28, in Jeremiah 31. 31-34? If one doesn't believe in 2 Thess 1. 8, why would one hesitate to admit that one is anti-Christian, just as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine etc., etc. were anti-Christian?

America is both an Enchanted Land and a Deranged Hellhole full of Institutionalized Delusions. If Robert Bork or Miguel Estrada, or any other candidate for the Supreme Court, fails to profess the True Liberal Faith, fails to profess `Roe v. Wade' to be a holy Liberal sacrament, and fails to curse `Webster v. Reproductive Health Services' as a damnable heresy, then the renegade is immediately demonized by the Church of Liberalism. Harriet Miers is a solid pro-lifer but she had to be a stealth candidate to elude the Liberals in order to get on to the Supreme Court. She was too stealthy! The Right-Wingers thought she was a Liberal. It was the Right-Wingers during the Bush the Younger Era who prevented the pro-life Harriet Miers from reaching the Supreme Court, though Justices Roberts and Alito were confirmed. No doubt there are some college professors in the USA who would rather be sent to Right-Wing concentration camps than refuse to take up arms and watch meekly as `Roe v. Wade' is rendered null and void. But it is not always possible to accurately prophesy the future of someone simply by considering their past. Hillary Clinton, the daughter of a tobacco-chewing Republican, was a Goldwater Girl. Sandra Day O'Connor, a champion for abortion, was a Reagan appointee. The Liberal Harry Blackmun, author of the majority opinion in `Roe v. Wade', was a Nixon appointee. John Marshall Harlan the Elder, a former slave owner, was the lone dissenter in `Plessey v. Ferguson' (1896) which upheld segregation. Chief Justice Earl Warren was the Republican candidate for Vice President on the Dewey ticket in 1948. Warren was once the Republican Governor of California. He did not endear himself to the American Left when he helped put Californians of Japanese ancestry into concentration camps during World War II. Warren, who gave his name to the much abused Warren Commission, also gave us the `Miranda' infamy. The conservative Byron White was appointed by the liberal JFK. The liberal Benjamin Cardozo was appointed by the conservative Herbert Hoover. The African American Thurgood Marshall, who you might think would have be sensitive to the rights of Female Americans, wrote the majority opinion in `Florida Star v. B. J. F.', a decision which trampled on Amendment X. by declaring the States could not pass laws which prevented newspapers from printing the names of rape victims. The Republican Charles Evans Hughes, who very nearly defeated Woodrow Wilson to become President, articulated a Pillar of Liberalism when he said: the Constitution means whatever the courts say it means, albeit Liberals also insist it is absurd to say the Constitution means what the Supreme Court said it means in `Dred Scott v. Sanford', `Plessey v. Fergusson', `Schenck and Abrams', `Bakke v. Regents of the University of California' and `Bush v. Gore' etc., etc. As we've seen, by a judicious use of the Equity Clause and the Due Process Clauses, the letter of the law as written in the federal Constitution need never go to war against Justice and Equity, provided of course the justices on the Supreme Court know how to recognize Justice and Equity. Consider the long and circuitous road travelled by Hugo la Fayette Black. He served on the Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971. He was a former member of the KKK - Reactionary Conduct. He wrote the majority opinion in `Gideon v. Wainwright' -Progressive Conduct. He was a great defender of all free speech, arguing that obscene speech and libelous speech are protected by the First Amendment - Idiotic Conduct. He played a big role in driving Christianity out of the public schools - anti-Christ Conduct. He dissented in the decision which opened the door to `Roe v. Wade', that is he dissented in `Griswold v. Connecticut' - Puritanical Conduct - `Griswold' led to `Roe' but it was still infinitely less radical than `Roe', and in 2013 a jurist is seen as Puritanical if he dissented in `Griswold'. He acted in Liberal Fashion in concurring with the Supreme Court's majority decision to let the publication of the Pentagon Papers proceed. These were classified Department of Defense documents comprising a Secret History of US activities in Southeast Asia from the end of World War II to 1968. The Papers revealed that the public pronouncements of various American politicians were not always honest. There was more covert warfare than the politicians were letting slip in public.

Every so often an American stands before God, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and other earthlings and takes an oath. Article II., i, 7 reads:

`I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Article VI. informs us that every high Official in America is bound by a similar Oath to support the Constitution. These oath-takers have a rather arduous task defending and supporting the Constitution. As the American people are too confused to understand the problems which have, like the unwashed bodies of flea-bitten squatters, taken up permanent residence within American Constitutional Law, strong leadership from statesmen in defending the Constitution might appear, in the eyes of an ignorant populace, as a naked attempt to subvert the Constitution, and who knows what reactions might transpire when the rabble is roused.

In America the two most powerful factions fight it out for the future of America. American Constitutional Law is the result of endless arguments over Justice and Constitutionality between these factions: the Liberals and the Conservatives. At the end of the 19th century, in `Plessey v. Ferguson', the Supreme Court determined that segregation was Constitutional. The Equal Protection Clause in Amendment XIV. was used in `Brown v. Topeka Board of Education', five decades after `Plessey', to declare that segregation was Unconstitutional. Liberals have recently learned that Conservatives can wield the Equal Protection Clause like a knife, for a Conservative Court slashed Al Gore and the Liberals with it during the 2000 election, using the Equal Protection Clause to hand the Presidency to George W. Bush. A Liberal can well understand how the Equal Protection Clause can be used to slam all sorts of doors in his face, as was done in the majority ruling in `Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co'. The Supreme Court ruled here that the city of Richmond could not mandate that 30% of all city construction projects be awarded to minority-run businesses, as the same violated the Equal Protection Clause. Like so many things in America, the Equal Protection Clause started out with such a bright and promising future. But lately it has become just another punk who slams doors in the faces of gentle Liberals.

The two most powerful factions in America, the Republicans and the Democrats, have no end of good reasons to be cynical about American Constitutional Law. In some ways it resembles an embarrassing first novel written by an impassioned teenager. There is merit in some of it, but much of it is also a wretched mess. Sometimes the only thing you can do with a wretched mess is put a match to it and start over. America might first wish to cure her schizophrenia. Columbia might want to decide if she is one sovereign nation or a collection of 50 sovereign nations. Presently she's a mule - a queer crossbreed sort of nation, where sometimes the Feds are supreme, and sometimes the States are supreme, and the line dividing the power of the Feds from the power of the States swings on the whims and capricious mood swings of 5 or more unelected judges on the Supreme Court. Why have an Amendment X. at all if it only serves as a door mat for the Feds to wipe their feet on?

Rather like Prometheus who brought fire from heaven and gave it to earthlings, it was some Conservative judges who taught us how to wield the due process clause of Amendment XIV. in bold and revolutionary new ways, in ways to protect the rights of individuals to make contracts, so as to defy State laws prohibiting Yellow Dog contracts. Soon enough the Liberals also began to play with the Constitution, rather as Picasso or Dali might have toyed with it, in daring, non-Euclidean, post-modernist fashion. In the days before `Roe v. Wade' (1973) the States determined their own abortion laws. But it only takes five Supreme Court justices to issue a declaratory judgment to invalidate `Roe v. Wade'. And if the Supreme Court casts `Roe' into the dustbin, the Supreme Court might not give the power to make laws regarding abortion back to the States, because the Supreme Court might use the due process clauses of Amendments V. and XIV. to declare that, since unborn human beings are indeed human beings, they have inalienable Substantive and Procedural Due Process rights under Amendments V. and XIV., fundamental rights which may not be abridged by any level of government in America, not by the Feds, not by the States, and not by any County or City governments. Unborn human beings, like all other human beings, enjoy the inalienable right to not be murdered. If the Supreme Court was to issue a declaratory judgment outlawing abortion across the USA, the Liberals would be singing the blues and spewing more than a few profanities, perhaps uttering dark oaths about Civil War, about the inalienable nature of States' Rights, about the unambiguous meaning of Amendment X., but, certainly, longing for yesteryear and those idyllic days before `Roe' when the States were unhindered by the Feds, free to fashion their own abortion laws.

In `Brewer v. Williams' (1977) our Supreme Court went insane when it freed Robert Williams, the murderer who actually led the police to the body of the little girl he had murdered, Pamela Powers, on the logic that, since the police failed to get a lawyer to Williams as swiftly as they might have preferred: Justice and Substantive Due Process of Law and the Constitution of the United States of America demanded that the evidence about Williams' confession, and the evidence concerning his actions in showing the police where he buried the little girl's body, was evidence which must be excluded from his trial. This meant there was no evidence presented against him at his trial, meaning the murderer of the little girl was sprung loose by your Supreme Court. The rulings in `Brewer v. Williams' and `Miranda v. Arizona' are still the controlling laws of the USA after all these years. The typical citizen has no great difficulty understanding that the Supreme Court blew it in these cases, but Academia doesn't see it that way, and many of our most confused people teach at schools such as Harvard and Yale, Smith and Wellesley, the Universities of Wisconsin, Virginia, Minnesota, Michigan, California etc. No one likes to admit they've been a slave to idiocy for 40 years! What a humiliating experience that would be. Those who have been acting like mindless zombies for 40 years might have a tendency to deny that they have been acting like mindless zombies even when the facts prove they have been acting like mindless zombies. And thus the `Roe' and `Miranda' abominations only perpetuate themselves.

It's curious we often find teachers who can't think straight; students who can't concentrate; freedom fighters who use bombs to kill innocents; psychologists who are emotionally unbalanced; artists destitute of any ability to draw; poets who compose worthless verses; connoisseurs who despise the sublime; priests who crucify God and burn saints; doctors who slaughter the unborn; judges who know nothing about Justice; elegant statesmen who make themselves slaves to the masses and the almighty dollar; philosophers who seek the gold at the Rainbow's end but who also construct systems as worthless as dirt; dolts with Ph.D.'s; billionaire socialists; Rugged Individualists on the dole etc. Recall the hysterical law professor at the University of Michigan who taught that all sex is rape. This is about as rational as announcing that all jaywalking is interstate flight to avoid prosecution, hardly the sort of legal logic a sane society likes to see from its law professors. Tocqueville, in his Introduction to `Democracy in America', lamented such eternal travesties:

`Men of faith fight against freedom, the devotees of liberty vilify religions; generous and noble souls praise slavery, while base, servile minds laud independence; sincere and enlightened citizens are the enemies of all progress, while men without morals or love of country transform themselves into apostles of civilization and enlightenment! Have all ages been as ours? Have men always dwelt in a world of illusions? where virtue is shorn of genius, and genius arrives sans honor? where love of order is confounded with a tyrant's will, and the love of freedom is seen as contempt for the laws? where nothing any longer appears either forbidden or permitted, honorable or dishonorable, true or false?

H. L. Menchen maintained that the tribe of journalists was on average more intelligent than the tribe of academics. William F. Buckley Jr. said the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory would run a more competent government than would the impractical faculty of Harvard. Mr. Buckley's remark was a ferocious thrust of the dagger into the swollen brains of those who populate our ivory-towers, for the greater part of the Boston directory, long habituated to drudgery and incessant TV viewing, or, rather, long habituated to honest labor and the strict avoidance of every intellectual pursuit, would of course be more capable of planning and supervising an intelligent State than the intellectuals at Harvard.

Consider the refrain of our more impassioned feminists. The same insist that pro-life people are motivated by a desire to subjugate and control women, certainly not by any humanitarian instincts to protect unborn human beings. But everyone knows that if an eighteen-year-old male and an eighteen-year-old female conspire to produce a third party, the young man will be held responsible by the State to provide child support until this third party is eighteen-years-old. 18 years is 216 months. 216 child support payments, especially when one toils at a low wage job, can be a very oppressive burden upon a young man. And thus we see why many of our young stallions would want to keep abortion legal in America, and we see why these males might seek to intimidate their girlfriends into aborting their mistakes, or rather, into killing the unborn inside them. This pro-life logic which says that it is pro-choice males who seek to subjugate women is only so much sophistry in the eyes of the feminists.

If your name is Bob Williams you seem to stand a fine chance of being sprung from prison by the Supreme Court, should you ever voluntarily confessed to the police your involvement in murder. As we've seen in `Brewer v. Williams', the Supreme Court freed a man named Robert Williams who led police to the body of the little girl he had murdered. The Supreme Court didn't think the police got him to a lawyer soon enough, so they threw out the evidence, the evidence about him leading the police straight to the body of the little girl he had murdered. In `Withrow v. Williams' (1993) the Supreme Court set another Robert Williams free. He admitted to the police that he drove the shooter, in a double murder, to and from the scene of the homicides, and confessed that he had witnessed the murders, and confessed that he had helped dispose of the incriminating evidence. The Supreme Court sprang him loose because it was angry at learning that the police had been tardy in reading Williams his `Miranda' rights, and Williams had already made his confession before the police were quick enough to tell him to shut up and stop incriminating himself.

American exports are plummeting - sometimes it seems as if we can't sell anything to anyone anymore - The USA should have listened to Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot - but the Republicans and the Democrats shipped so many manufacturing jobs overseas. Who could have guessed that while we practiced Free Trade other nations practiced Mercantilism? But, certainly, we can export some of our Supreme Court's judicial wisdom to other nations: Spring murderers free should they confess to their murders before the cops can tell them to shut up and stop incriminating themselves. What foreigner wouldn't want to buy that sort of product manufactured right here in the United States of America?

The most lionized Western statesman of the modern epoch, Sir Winston Churchill, was astute enough to have recognized the Nazi menace long before most, tough enough to have withstood the withering scorn and contempt of the appeasers when they formed the majority faction, eloquent enough to find the words to inspire his countrymen to fight when the Teutonic terror was descending over Europe and menacing Great Britain with falling bombs, yet he was also befuddled enough to have declared war on Finland in 1941. The opinion that Finland was a vicious little nation which deserved to have war declared against her is not an opinion which is shared by the majority of scholars specializing in early to mid-20th century Northern European History. If even the greatest statesmen can make remedial blunders, such as by declaring war on innocent Finland, how can humble citizens who spend most of their time raising their families and earning their livings and not pondering facts and possible solutions to problems ever hope to find the path which leads the Republic to peace and prosperity?

But it was not the average citizens - not the anti-intellectuals - who were responsible for the rank idiocy of `Brewer v. Williams' and `Withrow v. Williams', `Escobedo v. Illinois' and `Miranda v. Arizona'. It was intellectuals who gave us those. We have a Utah professor who said, some years ago, that the `Miranda' ruling has resulted in 1,000,000 lost convictions for violent crimes. Every school teacher knows that fifty years ago the most crying abuses in the nation's schools were gum chewing and some high-spiritedness from the lads. Today we have rape, murder, battered teachers. In `The Stealing of America', p. 68, John Whitehead informs us that serious crimes (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) committed by children fourteen years of age and under rose, between 1950 and 1979, 11,000 percent! Dinesh D'Sousa wrote in `The End of Racism' that in our inner city black ghettos we have many thirty-year-old grandmothers, some forty-year-old great-grandmothers, and many youths with no fathers, but with a strong liking for gangland murder, profanity and cocaine. In Adam Cohen's and Elizabeth Taylor's `American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation', we're informed that Coretta Scott King was terrified of the rapists, murderers, drug addicts, and psychos who roamed her ghetto of Lawndale, also known as Slumdale.' People in Chicago started a program which sought to exterminate millions of rats, for parents had to guard their infants through the night because rats as big as cats were attacking them in their cribs. On p. 42 of Dinesh D'Souza's `The Virtue of Prosperity', Gertrude Himmelfarb states that America has a toxic culture and that we are drowning in vulgarity and immorality.

We earlier looked at Chicago, but every big American city is pretty much the same as every other big American city: New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Cleveland, Tampa are all more or less the same as Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, St Louis, St. Paul, Denver, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Baltimore, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Seattle, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul etc. They all have murderers and rapists, con artists and swindlers; they all have nasty pimps and battered prostitutes; they all have a few sickos who torture dogs and cats for fun; they all have their skid rows where the streets are sewers and cesspools; they all have their deviants and their psychos adept at every sort of sexual and sadistic perversion; they all have public prosecutors who make plea bargains with both the innocent and the guilty; they all have slums filled with block after block of ramshackle tenements where the drug addicts fill the tenements full of their excrement and then move on to new tenements which they will fill with their excrement; they all have politicians who promise solutions to the problems; they are all filled with graffiti and gangs, hopelessness and despair; they all have schools which keep kids ignorant and stupid; they all have drug laws which only maximize the profits to be made through drug trafficking, thereby inciting more violence; they all have clinics where highly trained doctors and expert medical professionals perform abortions. Our newspapers are forever telling us about women raped at knife point by an ex con with a rap sheet a mile long, or assaulted by some juvenile just embarking into the world of violence - like an infant learning to take his first baby steps. There are always murdered bodies being found behind bars, pawn shops, welfare offices, public housing tenements, pool halls here in the USA, the greatest nation on earth, as our statesmen all proclaim. Who could be so cynical as to suspect they might exaggerate something as serious as this? In the poverty-stricken hellholes of America, the inner cities, women and children are sexually brutalized, sadistically violated and dehumanized, while men are viciously stabbed or gunned down by gangs of angry or blasé youths. As Justice White well knew, the `Miranda' decision would be a disaster for the USA. And over 1,000,000 lost convictions is a disaster. A nation with 300 million people will have a huge number of psychopaths, murderers, rapists etc. even if only a small percentage of the population is violent. And if the court system becomes skilled in keeping these criminals out of prison and on the street, then that court system will obviously multiply the number of victims of violence in the USA. The idea that having the police read arrested persons their rights will lessen police brutality, and will lessen the likelihood that the police will fabricate evidence, and will lessen the likelihood that cops will beat confessions out of innocent people, boggles the mind at how idiotic it is. And the idea that the courts must immediately free accused persons, and immediately declare them to be not guilty, should it be learned that the police failed to read them their rights, though the accused freely admitted their guilt, perhaps even to vicious crimes, is only malevolent idiocy piled on top of the previous idiocy. Our politicians are forever insisting the USA is the greatest nation on earth. If this is true, then, just imagine what fools these foreigners must be!

The words carved in stone above the portals of the Supreme Court's temple in Washington D. C. read: EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW. To read some words which more accurately reflect the condition of the laws in the USA, recall our tax codes, which are horrendous, we turn to the Recall from earlier, the Book of Isaiah, in the 44th chapter, verses twenty-four and twenty-five,

"`Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb: "I am the Lord, who makes all things...who frustrates the signs of the babblers...who turns wise men backwards, and makes their knowledge foolishness."'

The twenty-fifth verse of the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel tells us, in so many words, that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because the children of Israel were rebellious children. They would not even obey the very good Ten Commandments, and were forever playing the harlot with Baal and Ashtoreth or making their first-borns pass through the fire. One might see American Constitutional Law as akin to the Mosaic Law, in that, though they are quite different, they both have some good laws in them, and they both have some ghastly laws in them. The good laws in the Mosaic Law would include: Love God, love your neighbor, obey the Ten Commandments, have mercy on the poor and the oppressed; be kind and just to the stranger; use just weights and measures; have one law for both the rich and the poor, one law for both the native and the stranger. But as for most of it: animal sacrifices, wave offerings, grain offerings, sin offerings, peace offerings; burnt offerings: execute the adulteress, execute the enchantress, execute the Sabbath violator, execute the perpetrators of unnatural vice, punish the children for the sins of the fathers even unto the third generation - who needs this? The amount of slaughtering in the Mosaic Law boggles the mind. To call oneself a priest of the Creator of the Universe, and yet to be forever awash in a sea of bulls' blood and cows' blood, goats' blood and birds' blood, would seem a very cruel contradiction. A New Law was rather emphatically required! And we certainly have an ancient prophecy from Jeremiah which says God will write His New Law, not on stone tablets atop Sinai, but in the hearts of His people.

The genesis of the United States of America is found in the Constitutional History of England. For centuries on that tumultuous island, kings, queens, bishops, dukes, earls, barons, knights, priests, pardoners, sheriffs, monks, nuns, freedmen, serfs, villains, cheorls, slaves and brigands were sunk in sanguinary strife. Blood and gore were poured out in endless battles waged among Romans, Britons, Celts, Picts, Iceni, Caledonians, Hibernians, Saxons, Angles, Danes, Normans, Scots, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Dutch, Irish etc. Englishmen spilled the blood of Englishmen to determine who would collect the taxes, fashion the laws, wed the fairest wenches of the realm - to see who would preside over the Church, reign over the army, rule over the seas. The power of the crown waxed under the houses of Saxony, Denmark, Normandy, Plantagenet, and Tudor; it waned under the houses of Stuart, Hanover, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Windsor. The Constitutions of Clarendon, adopted during the reign of the first of the Plantagenet kings, Henry II., struck a blow for the throne against the priestly caste. Henry would suffer no man or monk to remain in his dominions if he would not pay homage to Henry. The fierce reaction resulting from the slaying of St. Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral revivified the sacerdotal forces. King John, Henry's youngest son, in order to subdue the nobles, his implacable adversaries, betrayed his nation by selling England to the papacy. Innocent III. would excommunicate the barons who opposed John, and Innocent would damn Magna Carta as a usurpation against the divine right of kings to wield the temporal sword. Magna Carta placed limitations upon the powers of both the Pope and the Monarch, giving special protections to the nobles and to the freedmen of England, and promised to give justice to all subjects of the crown. For centuries after 1215 and the signing of Magna Carta, the power of the British crown remained tyrannically strong. It waned somewhat when Parliament put some distance between the head of Charles I. and the shoulders of Charles I. in 1649. It was not until the Habeus Corpus Act of 1679 that one of the most elementary checks against tyranny was adopted: a subject of the crown could no longer be tossed into prison and left to languish for months or years, without a trial to determine his guilt or innocence, caged and forgotten on the caprice or policy of the crown. Henry VIII. broke with Rome in the early 16th century and Britain never returned to the Roman fold after the reign of Mary I. Parliament, in the Supremacy Acts, adopted during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth I., made the British Monarch the leader of the Christian Church in Britain, the Pope being evicted from that exalted office. In the Bull of Demarcation, Inter Caetera, the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI., gave the New World to Spain and gave the New Lands to be discovered in Africa to Portugal. Portugal would later be given papal blessing to take the land which is now Brazil. Britain defied Rome's authority and established her colonies in the New World. The United States of America therefore owes her existence to Britain's defiance of the Church of Rome. The American Revolution was essentially the most recent of several English Civil Wars, a Civil War in which the power of both the Crown and Parliament were abolished altogether in the USA. The American Revolution was both a civil war and a religious war because for many centuries British monarchs emphatically claimed a divine right to rule over their subjects. The American Revolution ended all this in America, when the Colonies rose up in arms and refused to be the subjects of King George III., a King who claimed to be God's supreme agent in ruling the British Colonies in North America. On July 4, 1776, the Representatives of the United States of America declared the Thirteen Colonies to be absolved of all allegiance to the British Crown, in a Declaration of Independence which made an appeal to the Creator of the Universe in the phrase: `appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our Intentions.'

In 1760 the British Empire was the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Much would change for the British in North America over the next two decades with the revolt of her colonies and the revolutionary birth of the United States of America. And in a few more decades Napoleon and his armies would raise up the greatest empire in the world, only to see it shattered in Russia and finally at Waterloo. The German Empires under the Kaiser and Hitler, the Russian empire under the Czars, the Soviet Iron Curtain Empire - all rose up and all faded away. The United States of America resembles a powerful old prizefighter, as does our ally and ancestor, the United Kingdom. We're both battered and bloodied up, staggering around with our brains scrambled from some vicious blows. Braxton Bragg was driving the Army of Tennessee toward Cincinnati and he was very close to driving a dagger into the Union's heart. He had over 40,000 rebel soldiers and was expecting to pick up another 20,000 Kentuckians ready to kill for the rebel flag. But enough people in Kentucky sided with the Union and we dodged the Confederate dagger. How bitter it would be for the USA to have survived the powerful Armies of the Confederacy, survived the Japanese Imperial Forces, survived Germany's ferocious Third Reich with her lightning war and her frightful Gestapo, Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, and to have survived the unimaginably vast conquering power of the Soviet Red Army, only to be stabbed in the back and killed off by the insatiable greed of the special interest groups in the USA.

Is the United States of America beloved by the Creator of the Universe? You get different answers from different experts and exalted authorities. On the one hand America supports Israel. And this certainly helps to endear the USA to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

On the other hand, the United States of America, a nation created by God to be a refuge and a beacon of hope for oppressed peoples round the world, turns aliens away, and we know what is written in Malachi 3. 5 about those who turn away aliens. And we know America has banished Christianity from the public schools, even in elective classes, and this can't be pleasing to Christ. And though USA has, more or less, 150 million pro-lifers, it also has 150 million pro-choicers. The strongest argument for pro-lifers has become: unborn babies have a right to life based on humanistic principles, just as all human beings have a right to life. This has become the strongest pro-life argument because it carries some weight with the pro-choicers, whereas the argument which says that God hates abortion, because abortion is evil, is an argument which carries no weight with millions of pro-choicers. Millions of Pro-Choice Americans respond to the opinion that God hates abortion with their own opinion: WE DON'T GIVE A $#!% WHAT GOD THINKS ABOUT ABORTION.

Some might believe there is an invisible and yet unbreachable barrier - one very different from that feeble barrier which was first built in `Frothingham' and then breached in `Flast' - an unconquerable wall which surrounds, protects and defends the United States of America in a halo of invincibility. Nothing far-fetched here! With all the madness and confusion in the world one might, like Arthur Balfour, have a resigned or even a cynical attitude about golden ages and the march of human progress \- `this world is a bridge to pass over, not build upon.' Another might find the optimism of Frederic March in `Seven Days in May' too contagious to resist catching - `someday men will leave the dark tunnels of tyranny and will stand in the bright light of freedom.'

As we've seen, the most sensational elements in Christianity, the things which most easily grab the attention of the mass market, are the startling prophecies concerning the end times: the angels will be sent forth at the end of the age to divide the children of light from the children of darkness. Christ must return to earth in a Second Coming which resembles the lightning which flashes from east to west. Christ must destroy Antichrist. And there must be an Antichrist, a man of sin, a son of perdition. There must be a terrifying beast from the abyss of hell and Revelation 13 which drags vast multitudes of deluded souls to perdition. As we saw earlier, people always envision Satan and the Antichrist as evil geniuses, but, really, how bright can they be if they act in a way which is so displeasing to God that God finds it necessary to ship them off to hell where they will burn forever in fire? Daniel 12. 1 tells of a time of unprecedented tribulation on earth when the archangel Michael finally shows up to deliver the Jews. Habakkuk 2. 14,

`For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.'

As they are immutable, one can hardly miss seeing the immutable patterns in human history which Herodotus saw 2,500 years ago: God raises empires up and God throws empires down: human fortunes fluctuate: human happiness is fleeting: God punishes the arrogant but God helps the humble. The theme of God throwing empires down and ruling the world is of course prophesied in Psalm 2. 5-9,

`Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion... I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.'"'

Chapter 7 - The LORD vs. Allah

The standard epitome of Islam runs as follows: 1) There is one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet, 2) Pray in the direction of Mecca five times per day, 3) Abstain from alcohol and swine's flesh, 4) Give charity to impoverished Muslims, 5) Keep the fast of Ramadan, 6) Make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in ones lifetime, and 7) Profess the truth of the Koran.

The Koran informs us in Surah 2. 256 that there is no compulsion in religion. And of course we know these sorts of teachings can't be taken too literally. No sane society, Islamic or otherwise, can permit pagans to practice their religion when their religion commands them to sacrifice their children, or other people's children, to some pagan deity. There must be compulsion by the State, such a State comprised of Christians or Muslims, to prevent people from practicing the free exercise of their religion when their religion contains evil and bloodthirsty religious rites. Surah 2. 256 tells Muslims they are not to use torture to force people to convert to Islam.

Surah 9. 29 commands Muslims to subdue Christians, Jews, Agnostics etc., and bring everyone under Islamic Law: `Fight those who do not believe in Allah...until they pay tribute... and acknowledge...they are in a state of subjugation.'

If one likes some parts of the Koran, but not all of it, there's Surah 2. 85,

`Dost thou believeth in part of the Book yet denieth the rest? What is the reward for those who do this disgrace in the life of this world? Allah is not heedless, they will be sent back on the day of resurrection to a painful chastisement.'

Surah 2. 190-93 implies that Allah is displeased with those who exceed the limits in fighting unbelievers. Muslims are to fight their persecutors and conquer their enemies, but True Muslims are not to persecute non-Muslims - provided these non-Muslims do not insult Allah or Islam, and provided they obey Islamic law.

Christ taught His followers to love and pray for their enemies. But the Christians slaughtered each other for century after century under the sign of the cross. Muhammad taught the Muslims to spread Islam by the sword, and yet today, though most Muslims have not formally renounced Jihad, they are certainly not very enthusiastic in practicing Jihad.

Nothing in the career of Muhammad is more certain than that Islam was spread via the sword. Is Jihad - waging Holy War - an intrinsic element of Islam, as essential to Islam as the Divinity of Jesus is to Christianity? We are now entering the land which divides the Muslim Fundamentalists from the Moderate Muslims. In Mohammed's day, Muslims probably felt they had two options, either fight or surrender to the enemies of Islam. But Islamic States in the 21st century: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran etc., are not facing those options. They do not have to either kill non-Muslims or prepare to be killed by non-Muslims, albeit many Muslims believe the culture of non-Muslim nations is so decadent that it presents a danger to the souls of Muslims, especially young and impressionable Muslims who might be led to hell by the influence of anti-Islamic cultures.

In any case, the Koran is quite clear in stating that if non-Muslims surrender to the armies of Islam, though they choose to remain non-Muslims, these infidels are not to be murdered or tortured and forced to convert to Islam. Of course they will have to behave themselves when they live under the rigors of Islamic Law - no fornicating, no adultery, no drinking of intoxicating spirits, no derogatory comments directed at Allah, no cartoons making fun of Muhammad, no criticism directed at Islam, no sarcasm leveled at Muslims etc. - or else the infidels will learn how painful are the chastisements given to those who violate Islamic Law. But, again, as Islam says there is no compulsion in religion, non-Muslims must not be murdered or tortured or forced to renounce their religions.

Islam is also very clear in preaching hellfire for those who reject Islam. Some controversial teachings from the Koran would include:

Surah 4. 14: Those who disobey Allah and His Apostle will abide in fire.

Surah 5. 33: Crucify or murder or cut of the hands of those who war against Allah and His Apostle

Surah 5. 36-9: Fire for unbelievers. Chop off the hands of thieves.

Surah 5. 51: Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends.

Surah 5.86 Disbelievers are the companions of fire.

Surah 7. 40-1: Those who reject the Koran will suffer in a bed of hell-fire.

Surah 9. 68: The hypocrites and the unbelievers will burn in hell.

Surah 17. 8: There is a hell for unbelievers.

Surah 22. 19-21: Boiling water, garments of fire and whips of iron will torment the unbelievers.

Surah 24, 2: Whip the fornicatress and the fornicator, give them each a hundred stripes.

Surah 32. 20: Fire for transgressors. Chastisement of fire for those who doubt the Islamic fire.

Surah 33. 64-6: Allah has cursed the unbelievers and has prepared flaming fire for them.

Surah 37. 55-74: The bottom of hell and serpents await unbelievers who were warned.

Surah 40. 70-2: Boiling water and fire for those who reject the Book and the Apostle.

Surah 41. 26-28: Those who reject the Koran will burn.

Surah 45. 20: These are clear proofs and a guide and a mercy for the people who are sure.

Surah 56. 92-5: Scoffers are given an ordeal of boiling water and will burn in hell.

Surah 76. 4: Chains and fetters and cruel fire await unbelievers.

Surah 88. 2-5: Unbelievers are thrust into burning fire and forced to drink boiling water.

Lest I'm accused of lifting things out of context, in all those verses from the Koran seen above, there's nothing in the surrounding text which inclines one to believe that Allah is only joking, or that he is not serious about these threats of hellfire.

If the Koran is trustworthy, if it is a work of non-fiction, then it is hateful to not try to make the whole world Muslim. It is hateful to reject Jihad. It is hateful to simply let the unbelievers and their children and grandchildren burn in Islamic hellfire because you refuse to wage Jihad, because you want to be a Moderate Muslim, because you want to be popular with Christians, Jews and all non-Muslims. One might find the tactics of Hamas and Hezbollah imperfect but, at least they're trying. At least they are trying to rescue people from the terrible fire which awaits all those who do not become true Muslims.

If the Koran is untrustworthy, if it is a work of fiction, then renounce Islam.

In the West, where very few are worried about Islamic hellfire, the above Islamic hellfire verses only inspire concern in the sense that people believe that religious zealotry leads to violence and hell in this life, even though there's nothing to fear from Islamic fire in the afterlife.

Surah 4. 93 says whoever kills a believer intentionally will go to hell. Evidently when Iran and Iraq went to war both sides were of the belief that the other side didn't have any believers in their armies.

Surah 2. 280 tells us Islam is very indulgent and liberal toward debtors: if they run into some liquidity issues they can postpone their payments until they're liquid again. Surah 5. 90 says liquor and gambling are unclean, the work of the Shaitan (Satan or the demons).

The most controversial elements of Islam might be epitomized as follows, 1) Islam is very clear in stating that the souls of those who reject Islam will be tormented with fire in the afterlife, 2) Islamic Law is very harsh. People found guilty of fairly minor crimes have their hands and limbs cut off, 3) Islamic Law calls for the execution of Muslims who renounce Allah and Islam, and 4) Jihad - war must be waged against those who refuse to be subject to Islamic Law.

As the world has grown smaller via mass communication people of different religions and cultures see themselves as neighbors in a global village. The strongest argument saying that Jihad must not be waged seems to be an appeal to the emotions: good Muslims will feel a sense of shame or repulsion when they see the results of their Jihad - mothers and fathers torn with anguish because of the deaths of their children in bomb attacks waged by Jihadists etc. As the world has become a neighborhood, because of mass media, because of professional sports, because of the ease of modern travel etc., it is certainly does not seem very neighborly for Muslims to play soccer with non-Muslims one day, and then plant a bomb under their opponent's bus the next day. As there are over a billion Muslims in the world, and as the vast majority of these Muslims do not throw bombs against non-Muslims, the natural assumption would be that the vast majority of Muslims have renounced Jihad, save perhaps in matters pertaining to Israel. Pakistan and India have their issues, but we don't see millions of Pakistani Muslims launching Jihad against the Hindus in India.

If the Koran is a work of non-fiction, if all non-Muslims will indeed burn in hellfire as the Koran asserts, then Jihad is a wonderful thing - or at least it is an attempt to rescue those who are presently bound for hellfire.

But if the Koran is a work of fiction, then Jihad is mass murder, plain and simple.

If there are any fulfilled prophecies in the Koran I haven't found them. What is the strongest evidence in favor of Islam? Religion is like romance: it is a matter of the heart. And, often enough, it's a waste of time arguing with people about matters of the heart.

Is there clear and convincing evidence which says those who reject Islam will to go to hell? Whether there is or not, if you reject Islam, Islam says you will burn in hell.

Surah 4. 171 says that Jesus is merely a human being, merely an apostle - certainly not God the Son, albeit that same Surah also says Jesus is the Messiah. Islam says it is blasphemy to say, as those of us who are Christians say, that Jesus is God, that is God the Son, and that God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Surah 9. 30 invokes Allah to destroy the Christians for saying that Jesus is the Son of God.

One finds Christians nowadays who say that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Of course Muslims and Christians and Jews all claim to worship the Creator of the Universe, but merely because people claim to worship the Creator of the Universe does not mean they worship the same God. If Theseus says Zeus created the universe, and if Khalid says Allah created the universe, then Theseus and Khalid don't worship the same God. God is known by his attributes. St. Pius V. used the Inquisition against many people, such as those who sought to renounce their Roman Catholic baptism so that they might worship only Allah. Therefore, the Roman Catholic who says that God wants everyone to venerate St. Pius V. does not worship the same God as the God who throws people into hellfire should they reject some or all of the Koran.

A moderate Muslim is a Muslim (and a Muslim is someone who believes in Allah and the Koran) who is opposed to Jihad and the harsher aspects Islamic law: such as chopping the hands off of thieves, which is recommended in the Koran. Female genital mutilation is never mentioned in the Koran, and there's no evidence that Muhammad approved it, so one might be opposed to it and still be an `extreme Muslim.' A moderate Muslim believes in some parts of the Koran and disbelieves in other parts. As with Roman Catholicism, we have a Case 1 and a Case 2.

Case 1. The Koran is more or less trustworthy. It might be inerrant, or it might have more than a few errors, but, either way, it is trustworthy enough in showing people how to attain heaven and how to avoid hell.

Case 2. The Koran untrustworthy and inaccurate in describing how souls may attain heaven and how they may avoid hell.

If Case 1 is true, then it is wrong to be a moderate Muslim, though one might feign being a moderate if this is a useful subterfuge in creating a world where both Muslims and non-Muslims are subject to Islamic law.

If Case 2 is true, then it's wrong to be any sort of Muslim, either a Moderate or a Fundamentalist / Jihadist. If Case 2 is true, everyone should reject Islam.

In both cases it makes no sense to be a moderate Muslim, therefore it is always folly to be a moderate Muslim.

Many Christians say that Jewish tradition - that is thousands of rabbis and millions of their followers - prevent the Jews from understanding Isaiah 9. 6, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Ezekiel 36. 24-28, Psalm 2., Daniel 9. 24-27, Zechariah 12. 10, Zechariah 9. 9, Isaiah 53, Psalm 22 etc., these being, as we have seen, key Old Testament scriptures which support Christianity. The Jews have every reason to be angry with how people under the sign of the cross have treated the Jews for century after century, but we've been all through the Christian scriptures which say there will be a falling away from the True Faith - 2 Thess 2 - that wolves will enter the flock - Acts 20. 29-31 - and that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, and that his ministers masquerade as ministers of righteousness - 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15.

As we saw in previous chapters, Christians usually don't understand the interconnectedness of Christ's words at the Last Supper `this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for you' with Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28. Therefore Christians don't understand the Christian logic which says one is damned if one opposes Zionism. But there is still immense respect for Christ's words at the Last Supper among the billion Christians in the world.

Zechariah 9. 9,

`Behold your King is coming to you. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey...'

Zechariah 12. 10 says,

`And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have pierced; they will mourn for Him as one who mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.'

Psalm 2. 4-9 is the supreme articulation which says the Jewish Messiah will conquer the world,

`He who sits in heaven shall laugh; the LORD shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.'"'

We've seen that 2 Thess 1. 8 says there will be hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. John 1. 1-14 is not the only scripture in the Bible which says that Jesus is God, the Creator of the Universe. And John 1. 1-14 is consistent with the scriptures which tell us that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit created the universe.

As the Koran most certainly tells of hellfire for those who reject Islam, those of us who reject Islam can't say we weren't warned.

If one can't be persuaded to take the Islamic threats of burning in hell seriously, perhaps one might be enticed to embrace Islam through a burning desire to embrace young and voluptuous maidens! Surah 52. 18-20 says true believers will be married to the large-eyed beautiful ones.

Gibbon writes,
`Seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls, of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility, will be created for the use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a thousand years, and his faculties will be increased a hundred fold, to render him worthy of his felicity. Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the gates of heaven will be open to both sexes; but Mahomet has not specified the male companions of the female elect, lest he should alarm the jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb their felicity, by the suspicion of an everlasting marriage..."Friends and kinsmen," said Mohammed to the assembly, "I offer you, and I alone can offer the most precious of gifts, the treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has commanded me to call you to his service. Who among you will support my burden? Who among you will be my companion and my vizier?" No answer was returned, till the silence of astonishment, and doubt, and contempt, was at length broken by the impatient courage of Ali, a youth in the fourteenth year of his age. "O prophet, I am the man: whosoever rises against thee I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet, I will be thy vizier over them."...A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the sons of Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently dropped a dish of scalding broth on his master: the heedless wretch fell prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and repeated a verse of the Koran: "Paradise is for those who command their anger: - "I am not angry:" \- "and for those who pardon offenses:" - "I pardon your offense:" - "and for those who return good for evil:" - "I give you your liberty, and four hundred pieces of silver."...About four years after the triumphs of the Persian war, the repose of Heraclius and the empire was again disturbed by a new enemy, the power of whose religion was more strongly felt, than it was clearly understood, by the Christians of the East....A smile of indignation expressed the refusal of Caled. "Ye Christian dogs, you know your option: the Koran, the tribute, or the sword. We are a people whose delight is in war, rather than in peace..."...under the walls of Emesa, an Arabian youth, the cousin of Caled, was heard aloud to exclaim, "Methinks, I see the black-eyed girls looking upon me; one of whom, should she appear in this world, all mankind would die for love of her. And I see in the hand of one of them a handkerchief of green silk, and a cap of precious stones, and she beckons me, and calls out, "Come hither quickly, for I love thee." With these words, charging the Christians, he made havoc wherever he went, till, observed at length by the governor of Hems, he was struck through with a javelin.'

Al Cockburn writes in `The Nation' (2009.1.26),

`The Israelis wipe out whole families...Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post celebrates the birth of the new year by extolling Israel for being `so scrupulous about civilian life.' Professor Alan Dershowitz dishes out congratulation for Israel's `perfectly proportionate' onslaught...Bomb ghettos and civilians die...I write as news comes that Israeli gunners have managed to shell and kill nearly fifty Palestinians, including women and children...What alternative does Hamas have but the rockets?'

What alternative does Hamas have but the rockets? Hamas might let Israel live in peace. We can understand why a Jihadist is driven to wage Jihad, but is Al Cockburn a Jihadist? If Israel has the right to exist, though Al Cockburn might not concede that she has this right, then she has the right to defend herself, though of course soldiers must try to avoid causing casualties among innocents. Zechariah (7. 9 - 8. 23),

`Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil against his brother. But they refused to heed...they made their hearts like flint...I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them"...Thus says the LORD of hosts of hosts: "I am zealous for Zion with great zeal...I will return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth...Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem...The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets...I will save My people from the land of the east and the land of the west; I will bring them back and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. They shall be My people and I will be their God, in truth and righteousness"...Thus says the LORD of hosts: " In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying 'Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you'."'

The Christian refutation of the non-Christian religions can only be fully accomplished when the Christian prophecies come to pass. Christ must destroy Antichrist. There has to be an Antichrist who attempts to drag souls down to hell, who leads to perdition those who do not have the Divine Law written on their hearts. There must be an archangel Michael who arrives to deliver the Jews. There has to be a great tribulation etc., etc.

If these prophecies come to pass, then the Bible and Christianity are certainly proven to be trustworthy. The 18th chapter of the Book of Revelation describes life on earth when the world is being smashed like a potter's vessel, recall Psalm 2.

As for the Jewish contention that Christians are wrong to worship the Son as God, we know that Isaiah 9. 6 was not a teaching invented by a Gentile. It was Isaiah, a Hebrew prophet, a man inspired by God, who declared the Son was God. And Psalm 2 certainly implies the son is Divine.

Of course the Muslims say Psalm 2 will never be fulfilled, because the Muslims insist Psalm 2 is a superstition, because the Muslims insist that God does not have a Son. Nevertheless, if indeed Psalm 2 comes to pass - if the world is dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel - one would have to be very stubborn to insist this is not powerful evidence attesting to the truth of Christianity.

Again, Zechariah 12. 10 says,

`And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have pierced; they will mourn for Him as one who mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.'

Zechariah 12. 10 tells Christians that the Jews will eventually understand the meaning of Isaiah 9. 6, and they will eventually understand that Jesus is God, the Divine Son.

Once Zechariah 12. 10 comes to pass, once the Jews are converted to Christianity, then the scripture immediately preceding Zechariah 12. 10 will have come to pass. Zechariah 12. 8-9 says,

`In that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the LORD before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.'

When the Muslims see that the Jews have been converted to Christianity, the Muslims might wish to decide if they too want to convert to Christianity. Should the Muslims renounce Allah and embrace Christianity? Should the Muslims remain devoted to Allah? Should the Muslims attack the Jews in Jerusalem in defiance of Zechariah 12. 8-10? The Muslims must decide if Zechariah 12. 8-10 is trustworthy. If the Muslims decide it is unwise to attack Jerusalem out of fear of Zechariah 12. 8-10, then, haven't the Muslims decided it is unwise to remain Muslims? Have they decided to renounce Allah in favor of Jesus?

If a Muslim determines that Zechariah 12. 8-10 is trustworthy, if he believes the LORD will destroy those who attack Jerusalem, then he has renounced Allah and Islam, and he has been converted to worshipping the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or at least it is obvious to Christians that Jesus - God the Son - is being referenced in Zechariah 12. 10.

There's also Zephaniah 3. 8-20,

`"Therefore wait for Me," says the LORD, "until the day I rise for plunder; My determination is to gather the nations to My assembly of kingdoms, to pour on them My indignation, all My fierce anger; all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy. For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, that they all may call on the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one accord. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia My worshippers, the daughter of My dispersed ones, shall bring My offering...I will leave in your midst a meek and humble people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD. The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness and speak no lies; nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed their flocks and lie down, and no one shall make them afraid. Sing O daughter of Zion! Shout, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Zion! The LORD has taken away your judgments, He has cast out your enemy. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall see disaster no more...The LORD your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you in His love, He will rejoice over you with singing...Behold, at that time I will deal with all who afflict you; I will save the lame, and gather those who were driven out; I will appoint them for praise and fame in every land where they were put to shame. At that time I will bring you back, even at the time I gather you; for I will give you fame and praise among all the people of the earth, when I return your captives before your eyes," says the LORD.'

Zechariah 14. 1-12,

`Behold, the day of the LORD is coming...For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished...Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations...And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.'

Isaiah 60. 1-21,

`Arise, shine; for your light has come!...The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising...the wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you...For the nation and kingdom which will not serve you shall perish, and those nations shall be utterly ruined...the sons of those who afflicted you shall come bowing to you, and all those who despised you shall fall prostrate at the soles of your feet; and they shall call you The City of the LORD, ZION of the HOLY ONE of Israel...Violence shall no longer be heard in your land, neither wasting nor destruction within your borders; but you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise...Also your people shall all be righteous; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified.'

Joel 3. 15-21,

`The sun and the moon shall be darkened and the stars shall withdraw their shining...the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion...Egypt shall be a desolation...But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation...for the LORD

Isaiah 49. 22-3,

`Thus says the LORD GOD: "Behold I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, and set up My standard for the peoples; they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughter shall be carried on their shoulders; kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers; they shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet. Then You will know that I am the LORD."'

Chapter 8 - The Engines of Philosophy

§ 1. The Finer Points of Learning to Teach Religion with the Authority of the Deity . § 2. Analyzing the Deluded as they Recline on the Psychoanalytical Couch. § 3. Heterogeneous Curiosities. § 4. Delusions in Academia: The Chaos in the Mind of Norm Cantor. § 5. History: What's the Point of It? Why Learn about a Lot of Dead People?

§ 1. The Finer Points of Learning to Teach Religion with the Authority of the Deity

Isaiah 59. 20-21 says,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

Both the instructor on the post-graduate level and the instructor on the K-12 levels will be thrilled to know that we never forget, throughout this volume, that, since we are supposed to have the words of God coming out of our mouths, we must not have crazy or idiotic words coming out of our mouths. We recall again that Jesus listed foolishness in His list of sins in Mark 7. 20-22,

`"What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.'

Lord Acton told us:

`The main thing to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood and certainty from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude of erudition, that the study of history strengthens, and straightens, and extends the mind.'

This is a little odd because Lord Acton was a titan of erudition, which means he devoted most of his time and efforts to amassing an immense plenitude of erudition, reading ponderous tome after ponderous tome, day after day after day. His words are analogous to Bill Gates saying: you don't measure a man by the number of billions of dollars he has, but by...

Let us not neglect the cultivation of our finer feelings while we strengthen, straighten and extend our intellects via the study of history. In `The Summit of the Years', the American naturalist John Burroughs told us:

`With the rise of the scientific habit of mind has come the decline in great creative literature and art...The more we live in the scientific spirit, the spirit of material knowledge, the farther we are from the spirit of true literature...The more we live in the hard, calculating business spirit, the farther are we from the spirit of the master productions; the more we surrender ourselves to the feverish haste and competition of the industrial spirit, the more the doors of the heaven of the great poems and works of art are closed to us. Beyond a certain point in our culture, exact knowledge counts for so much less than sympathy, love, appreciation. We may know Shakespeare to an analysis of his last word or allusion, and yet miss Shakespeare entirely...We may put it [an animal] through a sort of inquisitorial torment in the laboratory, we starve it, we electrocute it, we freeze it, we burn it, we incarcerate it, we vivisect it, we press it on all sides and in all ways, to find out something about its habits or its mental processes that is usually not worth knowing. Well, we can gain a lot of facts, such as they are, but we may lose our own souls. This spirit has invaded school and college. Our young people go to the woods with pencil and note-book in hand; they drive sharp bargains with every flower and bird and tree they meet; they want tangible assets that can be put down in black and white. Nature as a living joy, something to love, to live with, to brood over, is now, I fear, seldom thought of. It is only a mine to be worked and to be through with...We fairly vivisect Shakespeare and Milton and Virgil. We study a dead language as if it were a fossil to be classified, and forget that the language has a live literature, which is the main concern. We study botany so hard that we miss the charm of the flower entirely...Biology in the college class means dissecting cats and rats and turtles and frogs...Must our finer spiritual faculties, whence come our love, our reverence, our humility, and our appreciation of the beauty of the world, atrophy? "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Perhaps for want of a clear perception of the higher values of life. Where there is no vision, no intuitive perception of the great fundamental truths of the inner spiritual world, science will not save us...'

Burroughs writes in his essay `The Bow in the Clouds',

`WHOSE heart does not leap up, be he child or man, when he beholds a rainbow in the sky? It is the most spectacular as it is the most beautiful thing in the familiar daily nature about us. It has all the qualities that are most calculated to surprise and delight us - suddenness, brilliancy, delicacy, sharp contrasts, and the primal cosmic form, the circle. No eye so dull but turns to it with pleasure - a painted triumphal arch, yet as intangible as a dream, suddenly springing athwart the dark storm cloud. Born of the familiar and universal elements, the sun and the rain, it is yet as elusive and spectral and surprising as if it were a revelation from some other sphere. It is a kind of incarnation of the spirit of beauty - a veritable wraith that hovers and retreats before you like an angelic vision. It is fixed there against the cloud, irrespective of the falling motion of the drops of rain through which it is formed. They fall, but it does not fall. They are swayed or whirled by the wind, but the bow keeps its place...Sometimes we see two rainbows, as if nature were in an extra happy mood. In the second one the colors are in reverse order from that of the first. The first is due to the rays of the sun falling upon the outer portions of the drops and suffering two refractions and one reflection before reaching the eye, while the second bow is due to the rays falling on the inner side of the drops and suffering two refractions and two reflections...The sunset is afar off, painted upon the distant clouds, but the rainbow comes down to earth and spans the field or valley. It hovers above the playing fountain; it beams out from the swaying spray of the cataract...The rainbow...brings the cosmic circle, the perfect curve of the sun and moon, and paints it upon the shifting mist of the storm. Not often in the organic world does nature repeat the precision of her astronomic curves and circles; in the wavelet which a dropped pebble sets going in a pool of water, in the human eye and in the eyes of some of the lower animals, and in some vegetable forms does she draw the perfect curve. Astronomy comes down to earth now and then and casts its halo about familiar things...I do not mean to be fantastic, or to give the fact more sail than it can carry, yet I cannot but feel that the rainbow has a deep significance, and in its flitting, intangible, transmundane, yet beautiful and constant character, may well be a symbol of much that there is in nature and in life.'

Most of us like to think that if we are given the facts we will be able to draw sound conclusions from these facts. But if we don't know the facts, even though we think we know the facts, then errors are bound to happen. The highest ranking American public servants to die by gunplay in recent years were JFK, RFK and Vincent Foster. There's no great mystery surrounding the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. But one can find no end intelligent people who take conflicting views on the violent deaths of JFK and Vince Foster. The matter is frustrating because people with impressive credentials take diametrically opposing views. The controversies surrounding the deaths of JFK and Vince foster don't weigh as heavily upon ones psyche as would, for instance, having the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic tell you that you will soon die if you don't have an operation, whereas, at the same time, Johns Hopkins and Beth Israel Deaconess are telling you that, not only will you be fine without the operation, but you will most certainly die if you have that operation. Nevertheless people with impressive credentials line up on opposing sides of these controversies.

Let us consider the case of Vince Foster, the late White House Deputy Counsel, Bill Clinton's boyhood chum from Hope, AR, and Hillary Clinton's friend and colleague at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, AR. The government version of the Foster case holds that he committed suicide. Others, such as Christopher Ruddy of the Pittsburgh `Tribune-Review', tell us that the facts of the case lead one to conclude he was murdered. Vince Foster was certainly given a funeral at the Cathedral of St. Andrew's Catholic Church in Little Rock. But unless one can find the more obscure facts surrounding his case it will be impossible to discover if he was murdered or if he committed suicide.

Everyone seems to agree that Vince Foster's dead body was found on 7.20.1993, at or around 5:45 pm in Fort Marcy Park near Washington D. C. Mr. Ruddy says that relatively little blood was found at the scene. A great deal of blood would incline one to the conclusion of suicide, for a human heart will continue to beat for a minute or two after an instantly fatal head wound. A small amount of blood would incline one to believe his body was dumped there after being murdered elsewhere. Everyone seems to agree that his clothes were covered with carpet fibers, which of course leads one to speculate that he was murdered somewhere, then his body was wrapped in a carpet, and then his body was dumped at Fort Marcy Park. Everyone agrees that the bullet which killed Foster was never found. This would of course be powerful evidence that he was murdered as Fort Marcy Park was searched very thoroughly.

Not unlike `Dial M for Murder', there is a good deal of drama involving a key in the case. When the body was found, Foster's Honda was parked 700 feet away. From these facts one must not jump to the conclusion that Vince Foster drove his car to Fort Marcy Park. Detective John Rolla searched the dead man's pockets. He found no keys, neither house keys nor car keys. But how carefully did John Rolla search those pockets? Christopher Ruddy reports in an article of 9.20.95 (NewsMax.com) that Senior police investigator Cheryl Braun told the FBI that she saw Detective Rolla check the pockets. Police officer Christine Hodakievic told the FBI that she too saw John Rolla check the pockets. There's no use speculating that Foster left his car keys under his car seat, or hid them under the bumper, or that he liked to push-start his Honda, and therefore didn't use an ignition key, for the ignition key, and indeed two sets of keys, were found in Vince Foster's right-front pocket, later that night, at the morgue.

Thus, did Detective John Rolla do a slipshod job in searching for the keys in the dead man's pockets while at Fort Marcy Park? Or were those keys planted on the corpse at the morgue by some mysterious figure? Is it rational to conclude that Investigator Braun, Detective Rolla, and Officer Hodakievic must have missed those bulky metal rings which held those hard metal keys even though they were indeed in Vince Foster's right-front pocket all of the time? Mr. Ruddy implies that Detective Rolla was certain no keys were on the corpse at the park. There are only two possibilities, 1) Detective Rolla failed to find two sets of keys even though they were in that pocket the entire time, or 2) the keys weren't in that pocket until some mysterious figure planted those keys in that pocket at some time after Detective Rolla's initial search. Thus the question: how carefully did Detective Rolla search that pocket?

Conservatives speculate that Craig Livingstone, White House chief of security, who was hired by some shadowy feminine figure in the White House, and William Kennedy, a lawyer and a friend of the Clintons, might be the prime suspects in shenanigans or skullduggery if indeed the keys were planted on the corpse at the morgue. We are told that Livingstone and Kennedy came to the morgue to identify the body. Were they ever left alone with the corpse? Were they given the opportunity to plant some keys? Is there is a nurse somewhere who will testify that Livingstone and Kennedy were at the morgue before the police arrived? Will she testify that these two were left alone for a time with the deceased?

Mr. Ruddy writes: `The report of former Special Counsel Robert Fiske, issued June 30, 1994 - which concluded Foster died of a suicide at the park - states innocuously and without detail: "The keys to the car were found in Foster's pocket." Typical of the Fiske report, it incorrectly implies the keys were found during the investigation at the park while failing to describe the strange circumstances of their discovery...Rolla, the lead investigator, described the results of his search of the pockets at Fort Marcy in a Senate Banking Committee deposition: "I searched his pants pockets. I couldn't find a wallet or nothing in his pants pockets." Foster's wallet and other personal effects were found in his Honda but no keys were found...Braun said when she re-checked Foster's right front pants pocket she found car keys. Records show Braun found two sets of keys in a pocket that had already been searched by Rolla at the park...New York City Police homicide expert Vincent Scalice...has 35 years of homicide experience, specializing in examination and reconstruction of scenes where suspicious deaths have occurred...Foster's eyeglasses were found 19 feet from where his head lay...Fiske said the eyeglasses "bounced" through thick foliage. But Scalice and two other experts determined it was physically impossible for the glasses to have been thrown that far after the shot was fired.'

Christian Josi is the author of `Hillary Rodham Clinton: What Every American Should Know' (2000, Special Abridged ACU New York Senate Race Edition). Mr. Josi says Vince Foster's eyeglasses were resting 13 feet from the corpse, with gunpowder residue on them. Other authorities say the glasses were 19 feet away, perhaps some were measuring the distance from his feet and others from his head six feet further away. Perhaps glasses are not going to fly either 13 feet or 19 feet off a man's head when he puts a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Either, 1) Mr. Foster threw his glasses aside before he pulled the trigger and committed suicide in fort Marcy Park, or 2) the glasses fell of his face while a murderer or an accomplice to murder was carrying his lifeless body, or 3) Vince Foster committed suicide elsewhere and then his body was carried to Fort Marcy Park, or 4) some other scenario explains the truth of what happened. If 1 from above is true, how did gunpowder get on the glasses?

No one reported hearing a gun being fired in the park on 7.20.93. Lead prosecutor Miquel Rodriguez resigned in protest because he claimed he was prevented from conducting a thorough investigation. Mr. Ruddy says that no soil or grass stains were found on Foster's shoes. If Foster had walked, and was not carried wrapped inside a carpet, 700 feet from his car to the spot where his body was found, one would expect to find soil or grass stains on his shoes. The final position of the body was inconsistent with a suicide: flat on its back, arms neatly resting at the sides, all prepared for the coffin. It is extremely curious that the lethal bullet was never found. It certainly exited his skull. Fort Marcy Park was searched repeatedly and with sophisticated equipment. Either the police and FBI were careless in using this sophisticated equipment which they use to find bullets, or else the bullet is still in Fort Marcy Park waiting to be discovered, or else someone pocketed the bullet, or else Vince Foster didn't die in Fort Marcy Park. The police and the FBI found 12 modern bullets and many old bullets strewn round the grounds of the old fort, but none were fired from the .38 Colt found in the dead man's hand (aficionados of conspiracy theories will recall that Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald with a .38 Colt). This weapon bore no fingerprints; there were no traces and no smudges of fingerprints. This is not unusual for the rough handle of the Colt, but on the smooth metal, it is very suspicious. Mr. Josi, with Mr. Ruddy for his authority, reported that three witnesses say Foster's car was not in Fort Marcy Park until long after the time of his death. The `suicide note' which was torn into 28 pieces did not have Vince Foster's fingerprints on them. Three independent experts testified that the note was a forgery. This note was found six days after Foster's death in his briefcase, which had been searched twice before. Vince Foster's body was found with, a) mysterious blonde hair on his clothes, b) mysterious carpet fibers on his clothes, c) no soil or grass stains on his shoes even though he was 700 feet from his car and he had to traverse grass and soil to get to the site where he was found.

Mr. Ruddy reports Detective Rolla saying he was specifically looking for a suicide note. If the detective was searching for a thin scrap of paper, how likely is it he would miss two sets of metal keys? Even if Investigator Braun, Officer Hodakievic, and Detective Rolla all failed miserably at the simple job of searching a dead man's pockets, even if they didn't find the keys in Foster's pocket when indeed those keys were there all the while, then, what are we to conclude about the rest of the evidence which we do have? There were no finger prints on the gun, and none on the forged suicide note. There was gunpowder residue on the glasses. The police say it is impossible for the glasses to have flown 13 feet after a .38 blast to the mouth. There were no soil or grass stains on the shoes, no sound of a pistol's report. The experts say that the small amount of blood which was found at the scene was inconsistent with a suicide. Mr. Ruddy says about 20 people at the scene saw no blood on the vegetation in the direction the government claims the bullet took. Mr. Ruddy takes Ken Starr to task for hiring Dr. Henry Lee, who is a great expert at his forensics trade. It is curious that Dr. Lee could help acquit O. J. but he couldn't get Vince Foster acquitted of the charge of murdering himself. With O. J. there was basically a river of blood running from Gretna Green to Rockingham and up into O. J.'s bedroom, but with Vince Foster, there was no bullet found at the scene, no ignition key to Foster's car at the scene, no massive blood loss consistent with a suicide found at the scene, no fingerprints were found on the gun or on the suicide note; no pistol report was heard, no lack of witnesses to accuse the government of corrupting witness statements; there was no exhumation of the body to check for a mysterious neck wound, no logical explanation for the magical flying glasses; no explanation for the powder burns on Foster's hands, for the carpet fibers on Foster's clothes, for the missing dirt and grass strains on his shoes, for the mysterious appearance of the suicide note. And there was no reverence for the great American legal precept: `if it don't fit you must acquit.'

But if the above facts are not facts, then it would be crazy to base conclusions upon them.

And the way most of us check the facts in cases such as these is we find a group of people whose judgment we respect, and then we parrot their opinions. If National Public Radio, CBS News, The Washington Post, and The New York Times say the evidence pertaining to the Foster case points to suicide, and if The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and NewsMax.com say the evidence points to murder, then one parrots the opinion of the news source which one sees as the most august and trustworthy source. How can we not be parrots of the Press? Who has the time to make exhaustive investigations into even 1% of the controversies which impact the Republic? All that we can do is try our best to find trustworthy people in the Press. Mr. Ruddy never made the accusation that Vince Foster played the role of St. Thomas à Becket, and that the White House was the scene of a hit ordered by a head-of-state - as Canterbury Cathedral was the scene of hit - and that either Bill or Hillary or both were playing the role of Henry II. But were there nefarious underlings, who, acting on their own initiative, murdered Vince Foster?

Wikipedia (10.9.2009) includes the following information on Christopher Ruddy: he is currently CEO of Newsmax Media. Dick Morris told Forbes that Newsmax is the most influential Republican-leaning media outlet in the USA. Mr. Ruddy graduated summa cum laude in history from St. John's University; he has a master's degree in public policy from the London School of Economics; he also studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He first gained fame by debunking a PBS documentary which claimed an African-American Army unit liberated two Nazi death-camps at the end of World War II. He was hired in the early 1990s by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which is owned by Richard Mellon Scaife. In 2004 Mr. Ruddy came out publically against George W. Bush and the War in Iraq. Over time he came to believe that Bill Clinton was a good president, and he insists that he never accused the Clintons of any involvement in Vince Foster's murder. In September of 2008, Mr. Ruddy and Mr. Scaife met with Bill Clinton - the three of them are now friends! People are always saying you can't trust Wikipedia, and after what Newsmax.com wrote about Bill Clinton, it does seem rather far-fetched to think he is pals with Messers Ruddy and Scaife.

If, after investing some time in research, it is obvious that Vince Foster was murdered, or obvious that he committed suicide, or obvious that the case is inconclusive, then sane people ought to be able to recognize the reality of the situation. And it's no great consolation prize if one knows the truth about the JFK assassination and the Vince Foster case, but one doesn't know the truth about the True Church and the New Law.

Again, most of us like to think that if we are given the facts, we will be able to derive sound conclusions from these facts. But we are bedeviled by the fact that books and newspapers, reporters and talk show hosts, historians and scientists, priests and politicians might not know the facts.

The entire Global Warming fact / delusion revolves round the search for facts, e.g., is it a fact that the earth is getting hotter and hotter? Is it a fact that we must drastically reduce our burning of fossil fuels or else the planet will suffer a terrible catastrophe?

Many are uninterested in delving deeply into the controversy surrounding Edward IV.'s sons - the two boys who were the Princes in the Tower - as all authorities agree there is no eye-witness evidence and no physical evidence against the uncle, but, everyone knows that the uncle became King Richard III. after their disappearance, and we know that he put them in the Tower. Their bodies were discovered buried under a staircase two centuries later. We don't have any photographs of Richard strangling the boys, and we don't have any finger-print evidence on any clubs which he or one of his henchmen might have used to murder the boys, but, don't we understand, more or less, what happened? If people, after a cursory look at the controversy, believe that a good defense lawyer could get Richard III. acquitted of murder, as it is impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty of a double murder, but if people also concluded after a cursory inspection of the case that he most likely had a hand in a double murder, then, people might not be inclined to delve much more deeply into the matter. People are hesitant to delve into a controversy if they suspect the evidence is inconclusive, or if they suspect they won't find the key which unlocks the mystery, or if they think they think the key to the mystery has already been found. People are hesitant to delve into the matter surrounding Joe McCarthy, because, they don't believe there is any controversy! Many believe Joe McCarthy was a liar and a witch-hunter: that's the key to that mystery!

§ 2. Analyzing the Deluded as they Recline on the Psychoanalytical Couch

Dr. Gleason Archer, author of `Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties' (Zondervan, 1982, p. 284), opined on the Liberal insistence of giving a second century B. C. provenance to the Book of Daniel,

`Only a dogma-ridden obscurantist can adhere to it any longer, and he must henceforth surrender all claim to intellectual respectability.'

These bold words merit a close examination. How is it that Dr. Archer, adept in Hebrew, Aramaic, and other eastern languages, felt confident enough to declare, after a thorough scrutiny of the manuscript evidence, that one could have no claim to intellectual respectability if one maintained that the Book of Daniel was a second century B. C. production?

Many people, even many Christians and Jews, maintain that the Book of Daniel is untrustworthy. A great many Christian theologians, all those of the Rationalist School, see the Book of Daniel as a work of human fabrication, a work of fiction, one designed primarily to comfort afflicted Jews, Jews of the Maccabean period in the throes of Greek atrocities and sacrilege. If one can make cogent arguments that, a) The Book of Daniel is a work of non-fiction, that is, the things which it says happened actually did happen, and its prophecies of the future are indeed true prophecies - they are from God, and b) the `anointed one' who is to be `cut off', as described in the ninth chapter of Daniel, refers to the Messiah, then one can make an excellent start in defending Christianity.

One dilemma arising from Dr. Archer's analysis is that, even if we can be certain that the style, diction, and content of the Aramaic and the Hebrew in the Book of Daniel are perfectly consistent with sixth century B. C. writing, wouldn't this merely suggest to many that it was the handiwork of an astute forger? It is clear why one would reject the Book of Daniel if one felt, while reading it, a visceral inclination to damn it as a fabrication. And if one felt the Book of Daniel was phony, why would one then, merely on the basis of powerful textual evidence, which, after all, could have been produced by an astute forger, be convinced that it was a work of non-fiction? Perhaps Dr. Archer can prove his case via textual analysis alone. The problem is that most of us aren't even dilettantes, much less experts, in Aramaic and Hebrew. And thus we must either, 1) place blind faith in Dr. Archer's judgment, because we simply can not, in our present ignorant condition, devoid of all skill in the relevant languages, understand the textual evidence which he understands, or 2) we must look elsewhere in our attempt to arrive at a sound assessment of the Book of Daniel.

In Matthew 24. 15 we read Jesus saying,

"Therefore when you see the `abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand)."

If one believes that Jesus is God, that is, God the Son, then, in reading Matthew 24. 15, one will believe that God is telling us that Daniel is a prophet. If one is a Christian, if one believes that Jesus is God, if one accepts Colossians ii: 8-10, I Timothy iii: 16, John 1: 1-14, Isaiah 9. 6 etc., then, it is quite rational to believe that God is quite trustworthy that Daniel is a true prophet, and hence the Book of Daniel is not a second century B. C. fabrication. Various Christian theologians assert that, though Jesus is God, one can't trust what God is saying in St. Matthew 24: 15, and they insist that one must not accept the Book of Daniel as a work from a true prophet. Could it be that the adepts of the higher criticism are the adepts of higher nonsense?

Everyone agrees that Jesus walked the earth nearly two centuries after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Again, in Matthew 24: 15 we read Jesus saying,

"Therefore when you see the `abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand)..."

It is obvious to anyone who respects the authority of the Gospel of St. Matthew that this abomination of desolation will be set up after the time when Jesus was speaking, and therefore long after the age of Antiochus Epiphanes.

The Liberals say that the `anointed one' of Daniel 9: 26 was probably Onias III., a second century B. C. high priest. Sir Robert Anderson, formerly head of Scotland Yard, and a leader of the Evangelicals in England, informed us that the `anointed one' of Daniel 9: 26 could only refer to the Messiah. Dr. Keith and Dr. Archer are other authorities from this school.

Ezekiel 14. 14 mentions Daniel. To proclaim that the Book of Ezekiel is not a 6th century BC production is basically the same as proclaiming that one will believe whatever one wants to believe. Evidently, Liberal Theologians insist that this Daniel of Ezekiel 14. 14 is not the Daniel of the Book of Daniel. The fact that the Book of Daniel is a written in a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic would obviously suggest that we are dealing with copies of copies of copies of the original, and would suggest that things got a little mixed up over the centuries.

Jesus said in St. Matthew xii: 40,

`For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.'

If one is willing to accept the doctrine that Jesus is God, the Second Person in a Divine Trinity, and accept the miracle of Christ's resurrection, and the miracle that He spent three days and three nights in the center of the earth as historical facts, is it rational to reject the account of Jonah as mythological? 2 Timothy 3: 16 states, `All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.' We recall that Jesus taught with parables, parables being illustrative fictions which teach wisdom and religious truth. Thus, as 2 Timothy iii: 16 does not say that every scripture is literal truth, how is one to know if a scripture is a parable or if it is literal truth? One might not be able to know, and it doesn't matter that one might not be able to know. All that we need to know is that scripture is sufficient for constructing sound doctrine. Is it rational to place great faith in scripture? To answer this question one might first want to acquire at least a remedial understanding of scripture. Voltaire didn't argue that there was no God or that God was incapable of performing miracles. He asserted that all creation shouted the truth that a Divine Architect existed. If God exists perhaps it is preposterous to think that miracles are beyond the power of the Creator of the universe. Judaism asserts that in 165 B.C. there was only enough oil in a Temple lamp to burn for a single day. Through a miracle from God, oil was provided to burn for eight days. This miracle, or superstition, call it what you will, is annually celebrated in the Feast of Dedication, also know as Hanukkah. There can be little which is more miraculous than creating matter out of nothing, in this case creating olive oil without crushing any olives. Provided God can create olive oil out of nothing, then raising Lazarus from the dead, cleaving the Red Sea, transmuting the Nile into a river of blood, bringing forth water to gush from a rock, raining manna from heaven, Noah's Ark, etc., are all perfectly rational propositions. If one is willing to believe in a Creator whose powers enable Him to create universes then one is irrational if one also believes that this Creator lacked the power to miniaturize and assemble all of the animals on Noah's Ark. If that still sounds too implausible to believe, then one can of course see the account of Noah as a parable, and II Timothy iii: 16 does not say that scripture can't employ stories or parables to illustrate truths. Nevertheless a rejection of miracles is Atheism, as it is madness for a Theist, that is, one who believes in a Deity, to deny the existence of miracles, for, by definition, one of the attributes of the Deity is the ability to perform miracles, such as remaining invisible. It is also irrational for an Agnostic to deny the possibility of miracles, because, by definition, an Agnostic is someone who professes to not know about these matters.

Liberal Christians often descend into irrationality because, though many in Academia will not sneer at them if they profess a belief in Christ, many in Academia will sneer at them if they read the Bible as history, and profess belief in the miracles involving Noah, Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Daniel etc. The Liberals seem to form their theology not on the basis of study and contemplation but on the basis of not wanting to be sneered at.

If a man has a comfortable living as a professor of theology, or as the pastor of a fat and abundant flock, he might not care to sacrifice his exalted station in life by preaching doctrines which will cause him to be sneered at. He has a vested interest in retaining his comfortable living, and thus, Truth is that which helps him keep his comfortable living, and Falsehood is that which causes him to lose his comfortable living. Christian professors at prestigious universities, or at least formerly prestigious universities, knowing that they will be seen as deluded fools by the other professors at these universities if they adopt a Fundamentalist view of the Bible, adopt the `higher criticism', or, at any rate, adopt systems which make them look respectable, or at least semi-respectable, in the eyes of their colleagues.

You wonder about the rationality of people who claim the New Testament was written after 70 AD. The Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. There is not one mention in the New Testament of the Temble being destroyed. Jesus makes a prophecy in Matthew 24. 2 about the future destruction of the Temple, and from this, evidently, Liberals conclude that this proves that the Gospel of Matthew had to be written after 70 AD. In any event, the Book of Daniel is in the Hebrew canon because it terribly impressed many ancient Jews. If it was a 2nd century BC production, how would it impress any ancient Jews? The Book of Daniel prophesies the rebuilding of Jerusalem. This prophesy is only impressive to people provided people know the Book of Daniel existed before the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was announced. The decree to rebuild Jerusalem was announced long before the 2nd century BC. On this theme of discerning true prophets, consider Tom Ryther, a former Minneapolis TV sports broadcaster, writes about a former baseball player who suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, a condition which involves nervous twitching. We read in the June 20, 1984 edition of `Freeway News',

`The trying times of Jim Eisenreich will someday be looked upon as just one of those things, but somehow it does not seem that simple. Eisenreich has the tools to become one of the top players in the game. One Twins [Minnesota Twins baseball team] official told me he had $1 million million per year potential because he could do it all. His running is listed as excellent and he hit the ball with authority most of the time. Managers look for the guy who can consistently make contact with the ball and Eisenreich did more than that. His defense was outstanding because of his speed and he could throw with accuracy and power. Jim Eisenreich has no glaring weakness except where none of us can see. He somehow was able to convince himself that people are cruel and mean and he let them get to him. The fans here were lovingly supportive, but he could not stand the fans at Boston where they made fun of him several years ago. In late May he told teammates he hoped all three games would be rained out at Fenway Park...He would look with disdain at any fellow player who used profanity to spice up their verbal expressions. Eisenreich seemed upset with the very realities of life. People were simply not computer-like machines and they have imperfections - something Eisenreich could not tolerate. What a shame it got to him because it may have ended a brilliant career that could have led to financial freedom. Now he must return to St. Cloud to work at archery ranges and play town baseball while struggling to make a living as the rest of the imperfect souls must do. The word around the Twins organization about Eisenreich is possibly he did not want to play the game with the desire it takes to overcome handicaps. One executive told me that anyone who wanted to overcome a problem should bite the bullet and dedicate himself to beating the rap and quieting the critics. Eisenreich never did that...I can never see another team giving him a chance to exhibit those magnificent talents. The Twins went above and beyond giving a player every opportunity to make it. What a waste.'

Mr. Eisenreich re-dedicated himself to playing baseball, overcoming his Tourette's Syndrome, and as a result, he went on to have a distinguished career in Major League Baseball. After leaving the Minnesota Twins he went on to play for the Kansas City Royals, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Florida Marlins and the Los Angeles Dodgers, and he won a World Series with the Florida Marlins in 1997. If Tom Ryther had prophesied, in that ominous year of 1984, that Jim Eisenreich would go on to win a World Series with a team called the Florida Marlins - a team which didn't exist in 1984 - then people today would hail Tom Ryther as a true prophet - though some might denounce him as a sorcerer - but, either way, lots of people would know the name of Tom Ryther, and lots of people would be very impressed with his prophetic gift. But since he didn't make any great prophesies, no one says Tom Ryther is a great prophet! The ancient Jews were impressed enough with the Book of Daniel to put it in the canon of scripture. Perhaps one would have to be a materialistic bigot to insist that Daniel could not possibly be a true prophet.

Analyzing ulterior motives and convoluted logic is one of the duties which devolves upon those who wish to understand the world. Often enough, no sooner than the patient is lying flat on his back on the psychoanalytical couch, it becomes apparent that the patient is a madman because he is a covetous fellow: he has an intense desire to either attain or maintain a vested interest, and irrationality will bloom whenever longing and desire trample upon truth and honesty. In `A History of the Jews', Paul Johnson informed us that the Jehovah's Witnesses were the only Christian sect (they're not actually Christians though - a Christian is one who believes in the Divinity of Jesus) which did not, on the whole, disgrace themselves in Nazi Germany. Mr. Johnson quotes Hitler stating that the German Protestant ministers were such grovelers that they would accept anything from Hitler's regime if only they might retain their titles, so dearly coveted, as leaders of their churches. David Klinghoffer, who we visited with earlier, informs us in `National Review' (12.31.2007) that there is a photograph of the adjutant to the commandant of Auschwitz lighting, in 1944, the candles on Auschwitz's Christmas tree. We've heard accounts of concentration camp guards saying they killed Jews because the Jews were Christ-killers. Paul Johnson also tells us in `A History of the Jews' that there was great resistance in America to accepting the fact that the Holocaust actually happened. Even when the US army broke into concentration camps and offered eyewitness testimony to piles of corpses and walking skeletons, there was scorn for their testimony. James Agee, writing in `The Nation', denounced the film footage of the concentration camps as propaganda and refused to watch them. The GIs were furious that Americans refused to believe eyewitnesses, and refused to even look at their photos.

Evidently Agee and some others had romantic illusions about Germany which they didn't want to part with. Perhaps they wanted to think of Germany only as a Magical Land, a land of Mad Ludwig's castles, abounding with fair frauleins in dirndls, with gorgeous Alpine prospects. Perhaps they wanted to desperately cling to some fairy tale which said Germany could only be an exalted land, with an exalted culture - a land of Black Forests and Loreleis and serving wenches lifting clusters of beer-laden goblets - the home to such as Durer, Beethoven, Schiller, Leibnitz, Luther, Goethe, Novalis and Mommsen. They refused to face up to the fact that Germany is also a land of extraordinary soldiers, and, should a particularly eloquent, mesmerizing and ferocious German soldier take control of that nation, then one probably ought to be open to the possibility that holocausts might happen, especially when the Nazis made no secret of their hatred for Jews long before the war began. We certainly knew that Hitler started a war which put an end to many millions of Gentile lives, and which inflicted an unimaginably vast amount of suffering on humanity. Therefore, if he was capable of doing that, he was certainly capable of doing some nasty things to the Jews, especially as never hid the fact that he hated the Jews. There had been a great deal of propaganda in the USA alleging inhuman German brutalities inflicted upon Belgians in 1914, and perhaps the memory of these exaggerations lingered for a few decades. The Germans obviously committed atrocities against the Belgians in World War I but the propaganda portrayed them as monsters who routinely impaled Belgian babies on their bayonets. The BBC was announcing in July of 1942 that 700,000 Polish Jews had been massacred. Even if one was skeptical about the BBC, one would think films showing bulldozers pushing piles of Jewish corpses into mass graves would be conclusive enough proof for any sane person.

§ 3. Heterogeneous Curiosities

To indulge in a few more glances at the art of rational thinking, Rev. Milman, in one of his annotations to Mr. Gibbon, gave us a picture of a very agitated politician. The Emperor Caracalla would execute those who asked no favors of him. His rationale for doing this ran as follows: those who asked no favors of him must distrust him; those who distrusted him must suspect him; those who suspected him must fear him; those who feared him must hate him; and those who hated him deserved to be put to death.

Sir Winston Churchill, in `The New World', in discourse pertaining to the Popish Plot, told us that a certain judge had been found murdered in London at the foot of Greenberry Hill, now called Primrose Hill. Curiously enough, three men by the names of Green, Berry and Hill were arrested and hanged for the murder. Now one might speculate that if the evidence implicating Green and Hill was strong, then, even if the evidence against Berry was weak, some jurymen might nevertheless insist that Berry had to be involved, reasoning that Green and Hill wouldn't have troubled themselves to place the body of the murdered judge at the foot of Greenberry Hill if Mr. Berry wasn't involved in the murder, because, the punch line of their joke only works provided Berry was involved. But, before a juryman hangs Berry, he might want to have more evidence against Berry than merely the legal precept which says: if the joke fits you must convict.

I haven't studied the Titanic disaster aside from looking over Wikipedia's article and watching a few movies. The Leonardo Di Capprio version overshadows the others, but the one with Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Wagner is very good, and don't forget about the one with Honor Blackmun - she was in Goldfinger, and she played Emma Peal in The Avengers before Diana Rigg settled into that role with aplomb. It seems the captain didn't want to warn the passengers too quickly that the ship was doomed, because he didn't want to create a panic. So, he waited to the last minute, after the people in steerage were locked up, before he created a panic! It is not all that difficult to survive in ice water for a few hours if one has a few things to combat the cold. Certainly you will die swiftly if most of your ill-clad body is submerged in ice-water, therefore you will need some time to find things that float. You need to find whatever it takes to give you some floatation, planks of wood, wooden deck chairs, life-preservers etc. - things with buoyancy which you can sit on, because you need to keep your torso out of the ice water. And if your torso is submerged, wool provides excellent insulation even when wet, so one will want to pile on as many wool sweaters, coats and blankets that one can if your torso is sunk in ice-water. As long as one has enough buoyancy to keep ones torso out of the ice-water, or as long as one is wrapped up in enough wool, one can survive while one waits for the rescue ship to arrive. The Titanic sank a little after 2 o'clock in the morning. The Carpathia arrived in the area two hours later.

First, the captain was driving the big boat far too fast in seas known to have icebergs. Then he didn't alert the passengers to give them enough time to collect the necessities needed to stay warm enough to stay alive long enough in ice-water while they waited to be rescued. Then he locked up the poor people in steerage so that all the rich women and all the rich children were assured of places in the life boats before all the poor women and all the poor children. Not a great showing for the captain!

Procopius, close reader of Herodotus and Thucydides, wrote of the Emperor Justinian in a way many Liberals speak of Joe McCarthy. We read in J. B. Bury's `History of the Later Roman Empire From the Death of Theodosius I. to the Death of Justinian', vol. ii, pp. 423-4,

`Procopius gravely asserts that he himself and "most of us" had come to the conclusion that the Emperor and Empress [Justinian and Theodora] were demons in human form, and he did not mean this as a figure of speech. He tells a number of anecdotes to substantiate the idea. Justinian's mother had once said that she conceived of a demon. He had been seen in the palace at night walking about without a head, and a clairvoyant monk had once refused to enter the presence chamber because he saw the chief of demons sitting on the throne. Before her marriage, Theodora had dreamt that she would cohabit with the prince of the devils..."Anxious [Procopius remarks now on Justinian's ecclesiastical policy] to unite all men in the same opinion about Christ, he destroyed dissidents indiscriminately, and that under the pretext of piety; for he did not think that the slaying of men was murder unless they happened to share his own religious opinions."'

Bury, in `History of the Later Roman Empire', strived to articulate his assessment of the empress Theodora. One can imagine why a modern historian might hesitate to insist that Theodora, the Monophysite Queen of 6th century Constantinople, a woman celebrated for her beauty, valor and intelligence, was also a demon. Certainly she was reputed to be cruel and licentious. Certainly Theodora had more than a few enemies with motives to besmirch her reputation. But, in assessing her character, so much depends on whether or not Procopius is trustworthy in his `Secret History'.

Gibbon gave us his assessment of Theodora and Constantinople, and he certainly gets off to a colorful and provocative start,

`Those who believe that the female mind is totally depraved by the loss of chastity will eagerly listen to all the invectives of private envy, or popular resentment, which have dissembled the virtues of Theodora, exaggerated her vices, and condemned with rigor the venal or voluntary sins of the youthful harlot...Her secret apartments were occupied by the favorite women and eunuchs, whose interests and passions she indulged at the expense of justice; the most illustrious personages of the state were crowded into a dark and sultry ante-chamber, and when at last, after tedious attendance, they were admitted to kiss the feet of Theodora, they experienced as her humor might suggest, the slight arrogance of an empress, or the capricious levity of a comedian...Her numerous spies observed, and zealously reported, every action, or look, injurious to their royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast into her peculiar prisons, inaccessible to the inquiries of justice; and it was rumored, that the torture of the rack, or scourge, had been inflicted in the presence of the female tyrant, insensible to the voice of prayer or of pity...Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of ancient Rome...Every law, either human or divine, was trampled under foot...they profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars were polluted by atrocious murders...The dissolute youth of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of disorder; the laws were silent...The despair of the greens, who were persecuted by their enemies, and deserted by the magistrates, assumed the privilege of defense, perhaps of retaliation; but those who survived the combat were dragged to execution, and the unhappy fugitives, escaping to the woods and caverns, preyed without mercy on the society from whence they had been expelled...'

The German philosopher Fichte once wrote to his girlfriend, Fraulein Rahn, telling her that upon first gazing into Kant's `Critique of Pure Reason' he was enraptured with its mass of head-splitting speculations, which, though they had no immediate bearing on the 18th century Teutonic sphere, nevertheless presaged consequences of immense importance in a future age. Herr Fichte had imbibed an intoxicating elixir in Kant's book, and under the influence of its euphoria he wrote his leibchen and told her he would devote his life to making sure that the name Immanuel Kant was forever luminous in the world.

In our hectic era, should book reviewers use the phrase `mass of head-splitting speculations' to describe a new book, that book would be doomed because no one today wants to read speculations: people want facts and sound conclusions to be drawn from these facts, because everyone today knows it is futile to speculate

If one knows that a 50 mph wind is far from a lethal force, and, thus, a wind which is four times stronger than a 50 mph wind will indeed be strong, but it will still not be anything lethal or ferocious, then one might speculate that a hurricane with 200 mph winds (4 times swifter than a 50 mph wind) is nothing lethal or ferocious. Speculation leads one astray here because the laws of physics inform us that the kinetic energy of the molecules which comprise air - nitrogen molecules, oxygen molecules etc. - are proportional to the square of these molecules' velocity; thus the force of a wind is proportional to the square of the wind's velocity, therefore a 200 mph wind is 16 times stronger than a 50 mph wind. If one `knows' that a hurricane's 200 mph winds are merely four times stronger than a 50 mph wind, one might die from ones delusional if one refuses to flee a hurricane when one needs to flee this hurricane.

Thucydides wrote that storm winds alone, sans lightning, have caused great forest fires. We never hear modern scientists lecture on the subject of winds sans lightning causing forest fires, and yet Thucydides writes of pitch-soaked boughs, and it stands to reason that if a storm wind drives opposing pitch-soaked boughs together with sufficient force to cause sufficient friction to cause sufficient heat to cause ignition, then perhaps it is not absurd to say that storm winds alone, with no lightning, have caused great forest fires. But we never hear modern scientists lecture on the subject. The method of reasoning which relies on human logic says it could happen, because, with pitch-soaked boughs, and with strong enough winds, logic says it might very well happen. Yet if no one in the history of the world, save perhaps Thucydides, has seen it happen, perhaps it is absurd to think that winds unaccompanied by lightning can start forest fires.

Even if we concede that St. Thomas Aquinas possessed a very powerful intellect, this does not prove that he was correct, a) when he supported the Inquisition, or b) when he said that since the Jews are the slaves of the Church the Church may dispose of their property, or c) when he announced that the Cross, and images of Christ, must be worshipped with latria - `latria', in Roman Catholicism, is the supreme form of worship. For instance, God is worshipped with latria. The Virgin Mary is adored with `hyperdulia', and the saints are venerated with `dulia'. Roman Catholicism has bestowed upon St. Thomas Aquinas the title of Doctor of the Church, and Roman Catholicism asserts that a Doctor of the Church is incapable of teaching heresy.

The Spanish Constitution of 1812 declared the people's assembly, the Cortes, to be superior to both the Church of Rome and the Crown of Spain. It also declared Roman Catholicism to be the one True Faith, and it forbade the practice of all others, these being false and deceitful creeds. Perhaps unresolved conflicts between the revolutionary and the reactionary elements in Spanish society resulted in psychosis, as evidence by this insane Spanish Constitution of 1812. If the Church of Rome is the one True Faith, then, obviously, it was madness to place the Spanish Cortes above the Church of Rome. And if the Roman Catholic Church is not the one True Faith, it was rather idiotic to ban all creeds from Spanish dominions save the Roman creed.

One might say that every sensible person knows that arrogance and injustice lead to human misery, just as every sensible person knows that reading history will re-enforce the wisdom that arrogance leads to human misery. But how much history do the young and impressionable need to read before the light bulb gets lit? How much history does one need to read before one sees that human arrogance leads to human misery? To simply tell students: `don't be arrogant, and don't be stupid either,' probably won't accomplish very much. It's all very well to say that a violin is a small cello, and a cello is a large violin, but if a kid has never seen either a cello or a violin, he's not going to know what you're talking about. We need to see concrete examples of how it is that arrogance leads to human misery, but, again, after a certain point, example piled upon example become rather superfluous. World War I was a little Christian squabble between the grandchildren of Queen Victoria. It was also the balloon of European pride bursting in a huge bloodbath. The modern State of Israel was one of the upshots of the bloodbath, and many millions of people now argue over the merits of Israel. The Bible mentions something about at huge apocalyptic bloodbath at the end of the age. And we know the enemies of the Jews are forever insisting that the Jews are the enemies of God. In the Dreyfus Affair, those who sought above all else to protect the French Army ended up doing the exact opposite. By insisting that Dreyfus was guilty, even though the facts showed he was innocent, the people who loved the French Army ultimately plunged the French Army into a sewer, because, when the truth finally got out that Dreyfus was innocent, and when the truth got out that the French Army had framed an innocent man, and when the truth got out that the Army told lies which it knew were lies, then the liars, the anti-Dreyfusards, the people who supposedly loved the French Army, saw that it was themselves who had plunged the Army's reputation into the sewer.

It may be that a history professor, such as at an American military college, is able to take a classroom full of arrogant, war-like young hot-heads and transform them all into level-headed and professional soldiers, but that will require some talent in the instructor. Simply handing a history of the Boer War or a volume on World War I to an arrogant cadet at West Point or to an imperious, dictatorial young lady at the Virginia Military Institute probably won't transform either of them into Alan Alda. There's a classic scene about the upshot of military arrogance in The Hunt for Red October. A torpedo goes astray and turns back on the Soviet submarine that fired it. The sailors can hear it honing in on them. Just before the lethal impact a Soviet officer turns to the Soviet captain and lets him have it, telling him what an arrogant S.O. B. he is for getting everyone killed.

Jacob Bronowski, in `The Ascent of Man', blasts Hegel for saying there could not possibly be more than seven planets in the solar system. Bronowski was even so arrogant as to say that he detested Hegel, and he hints there are other reasons to detest Hegel. Bronowski paints him as a cretin unworthy of any respect. Perhaps Hegel merely insisted that for a planet to qualify as a planet it must be visible to the eye from earth. The difference between a large asteroid and a small planet isn't perfectly clear, and who made Bronowski the Emperor of Asteroids and Planets? It's not as if Hegel was in favor of putting people who disagreed with him into concentration camps. The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963) has a long and reverential article on Hegel, one which claims, no doubt with some exaggeration, that Hegel is not as inscrutable as he seems to be.

The broad outlines of the scholarship surrounding the Book of Isaiah might be explained in three minutes or less. The Spiritual School holds that the Book of Isaiah was written by one prophet who was able to peer into the future and make accurate prophecies, such as, gaze into the future and see the name of Cyrus, the Persian emperor, who, after his conquest of Babylon, permitted the Jews to return to Palestine following their Babylonian exile. The Materialistic School holds that the Book of Isaiah was written by at least two men, and neither were able to peer into the future. As we saw earlier, Will Durant, in the first volume of his The Story of Civilization, p. 326, citing the Cambridge Ancient History, said that modern research does not regard the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 to be a prophetic reference to Jesus. But modern research is split into factions over Isaiah 53. Christian scholars believe that the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is a prophecy referring to Jesus. Non-Christian scholars do not believe that this scripture refers to Jesus. Therefore, it is a large slip-up to imply that modern scholarship is in agreement that Isaiah 53 does not refer to Jesus. He stated in `Our Oriental Heritage' (1935, p. 3) that given like material conditions different races will produce the same results, and thus `Japan reproduces in the 20th century the history of England in the 19th.' He might have wanted to see more of the 20th century than merely the first 35 years before writing such words.

Consider Eugene Rice's `The Foundations of Early Modern Europe', 1460-1559 (W. W. Norton, 1970). This is in many respects an excellent volume - note the fine treatment of the mercury amalgamation process used to extract pure silver from silver ore, such as at Potosi in what is now Bolivia. And we read how the discovery of enormous piles of silver in Latin America made people in Latin America and in Europe more miserable, not happier. There are however problems with page 71. Here Rice gives us an overview of the case saying that Erasmus showed that I John v. 7-8, which pertains to the Trinity, was added by someone other than St. John, and perhaps added by a clever forger who lived centuries after John. Rice gives readers the impression that a forgery in John's Epistle provides the sole basis for the Christian belief in the Trinity. The Divinity of the Holy Spirit is taken for granted, as we don't have any scriptures specifically stating that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and the Son, albeit Jesus said blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the one unforgiveable sin. When one says I John v. 7-8 is the only scripture in support of the Trinity, one is misleading readers: one is implying there is not immense scriptural support for the Divinity of Jesus. We've been all through Isaiah 9. 6, Psalm 2, Col 2. 8-10, 1 Tim 3. 16 and John 1. 1-14. Rice didn't deny the existence of these scriptures, but he implies the doctrine of the Trinity is founded solely upon a forgery, and this is very bad scholarship.

We read in the PREFACE to The Holy Bible, New King James Version (1982, Thomas Nelson Inc),

`There is more manuscript support for the New Testament than for any other body of ancient literature. Over five thousand Greek, eight thousand Latin, and many more manuscripts in other languages attest the integrity of the New Testament. There is only one basic New Testament used by Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox, by conservatives and liberals. Minor variations in hand copying have appeared through the centuries, before mechanical printing began in A. D. 1450. Some variations exist in the spelling of Greek words, in word order, and in similar details. These ordinarily do not show up in translation and do not affect the sense of the text in any way. Other manuscript differences, regarding the omission or inclusion of a word or a clause, and two paragraphs in the gospels, should not overshadow the overwhelming agreement which exists among the ancient records...The manuscript preferences cited in many contemporary translations of the New Testament are due to reliance on the relatively few manuscripts discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dependence on these manuscripts, especially two, the Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts, is due to the greater age of these documents. However, in spite of their age, some scholars have reason to doubt their faithfulness to the original autographs, since they often disagree with one another and show other signs of unreliability. The Greek text obtained by using these sources and related papyri is known as the Alexandrian Text. On the other hand, the great majority of existing manuscripts are in substantial agreement. Even though many are late, and none are earlier than the fifth century, most of their readings are verified by ancient papyri, ancient versions, and quotations in the writings of the early church fathers. This large body of manuscripts is the source of the Greek text underlying the King James Bible. It is the Greek text used by Greek-speaking churches for many centuries, presently known as the Textus Receptus, or Received Text, of the New Testament. Since the latter nineteenth century the theory has been held by some scholars that this traditional text of the New Testament had been officially edited by the fourth century church. Recent studies have caused significant changes in this view, and a growing number of scholars now regard the Received Text as far more reliable than previously thought. In light of these developments, and with the knowledge that most textual variants have no practical effect on translation, the New King James New Testament has been based on this Received Text, thus perpetuating the tradition begun by William Tyndale in 1525 and continued by the 1611 translators in rendering the Authorized Version.'

William F. Buckley Jr. once wrote a famous book - `God and Man at Yale' - which took 20th century Yale to task for various things, such as giving employment to professors who despise Christianity. Almost all of America's great colleges were founded by Christians with the intention that these colleges would at least try to promote Christianity. Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton etc. are of course conspicuous for being founded by Christians. The University of Chicago began as a Baptist Institution. America has many hundreds of other colleges and universities which were founded by Christians who expected these universities to promote Christianity. If a university president believes his university was founded upon a delusion, he might want to divorce his modern university from the old delusion, such as by a change to a new name. Or he might want to give Christianity another chance, and he might examine it, and try to arrive at a thorough and complete assessment of Christianity.

Michael Savage, in his `Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, (2005, Thomas Nelson Inc.) looked into the psyche of Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University's Center for Human Values. Singer sees nothing morally wrong with humans having sex with animals. Singer says it is OK if parents have a child in order to kill it and harvest its organs, in order to transplant one of these organs into an older child to cure his illness. Necrophilia, having sex with a corpse, is fine with Singer. Herodotus has a curious story apropos of ghosts and necrophilia (`The Histories', Book V, Penguin),

`Once, on a single day, he [Periander, King of Corinth] stripped every woman in the town naked, on account of his wife Melissa - but let me explain: Periander had mislaid something which a friend had left in his charge, so he sent to the oracle of the dead, amongst the Thesproti on the river Acheron, to ask where she put it. The ghost of Melissa appeared and said that she would not tell, either by word or sign; for she was cold and naked, the clothes, which had been buried with her, having been of no use at all, since they had not been burnt. Then, as evidence for her husband that she spoke the truth, she added that Periander had put his loaves into a cold oven. The messengers reported what they had seen and heard, and Periander, convinced by the token of the cold oven and the loaves (because he had lain with her after she was dead), immediately issued a proclamation to the effect that every woman in Corinth should come to the temple of Hera. The women obeyed, crowding to the temple in their best clothes as if to a festival, and Periander, who had hidden some of his guards for the purpose, had stripped them all naked - every one of them, freeborn women and servants alike - and had their clothes collecting into a pit and burnt, while he prayed to the spirit of his wife Melissa. After this he sent to the oracle again, and Melissa's ghost told him where he had put whatever it was his friend had left with him.'

Fallacious reasoning by ignoratio elenchi means being under the delusion that you have proven Proposition B when in fact you haven't done anything of the sort, though you might have given evidence which supports Proposition A. Or, said another way, it is thinking you've proven something when you haven't proven it at all. Let us further explore this ignoratio elenchi by considering analogies. Analogies can make memorable images but they are not facts, and they are not evidence. One might say that civilizations are like forest leaves: they bud, bloom, wither and die. But staring at some leaves is not going to teach you anything about any civilizations. An analogy can help us remember a few things and can help us frame a line of reasoning, but if the only evidence you have is an analogy, then you have nothing.

Let us put all of our voluminous learning on the subject of analogies, and all of our great erudition concerning fallacious reasoning by ignoratio elenchi to work, and let us turn to Jim Manzi's `The Origin of Species, and Everything Else: Coping with Evolution and Religion', pp. 42-6, `National Review', 10.8.2007. Mr. Manzi gives us a long and interesting analogy, an analogy which, unfortunately, is not worth paraphrasing, because, as it is an analogy, and because analogies are not evidence or facts, and because analogies are worthless in any attempt to prove or disprove anything, they are worthless in using to corroborate or invalidate the Theory of Evolution. Mr. Manzi's analogy, which pertains to a manufacturing plant, is as relevant to proving or disproving Evolution as a discourse on Hillary Clinton's fitness to survive and reproduce in the jungles of Little Rock, AR. Mr. Manzi is promoting the doctrine that Evolution is both true and it is perfectly reconcilable with religion. It certainly is reconcilable with religion, but is it true? If one insists the Theory of Evolution is true, one must account for the missing links in the fossil record. Perhaps the fossil record will eventually prove Evolution to be valid, or perhaps Evolution can be proven in some other way, in which case Creationists will still be Creationists: we will simply say that Evolution is one of God's creations.

As most of us have no direct or deep knowledge of the fossil record, we can't speak authoritatively about the evidence for Evolution. We can only say we don't know, or else we can become parrots -either parrots of truth or parrots of error.

Everyone knows that it would make no sense to become a Materialist simply because Evolution was proven to be valid. Why couldn't God have created Evolution? Everyone knows that parts of Genesis can be seen as parables: one doesn't have to believe the universe was created in 6 literal days. Everyone knows it is insane to say one has two and only two options: one must either believe that the world was created sometime around 4004 BC or else one must renounce God, renounce the Bible, renounce Christianity, and embrace the Communist Party.

I suspect most people believe in Evolution because most people are intimidated by an argument from Evolutionists which runs as follows: Scientists A, B, C etc., are all great geniuses, all of them are immortals in their scientific disciplines, and they all subscribe to the Theory of Evolution, therefore, only a fool, only a brainless Creationist would disagree with these Giants of Science. I suspect a lot of people are so intimidated by that argument so they surrender to it. Materialists think Creationists are fools and Creationists return the compliment by concurring with St. Paul in Romans 1. 18-21

`For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.'

Mr. Manzi is an intelligent man but perhaps he has capitulated to some shrill, wild-eyed, Evolutionists who insist that Creationists are brainless fools?

Again, Woodward estimated that three minutes was the length and breadth of the span of the average American's attention on matters which pertained to neither love-making nor money-making. If Woodward was right about this then we can be fairly certain the average American is not armed with a series of devastating arguments either for or against Evolution. Recall how King Solomon, who was himself quite interested in love-making, swiftly determined via a sound understanding of the maternal instinct which of the two mothers was lying, by feigning to have the child in dispute hewn asunder.

Generally speaking we`re more outraged at arrogance than fallacious reasoning by ignoratio elenchi. Well into the 20th century one could, with impunity, hail a French waiter with `garçon!' In America you'll have to get ready to rumble if you hail a waiter with `boy!' Charles Dicken's David Copperfield, George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and many of Balzac's novels leave one wondering if people could ever have been that horrible. In `Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee' we're informed that the Indians despised the whites more for our arrogance than for our habit of breaking treaties.

We find in `National Review' (July 4, 2005, pp. 10-11) that an episode of the crime drama Tatort, which is broadcast on taxpayer-funded German television, and which is watched by 7 million viewers, portrayed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on Manhattan as the work of President Bush. We're also told that in a poll published in Die Zeit, nearly one-third of Germans under the age of 30 believe that the U.S. itself may have been the principal actor in these attacks

One has to be careful about the sociological conclusions one draws from TV and movies. It wouldn't be terribly astute of me to announce that, while I was watching Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, I was shocked to discover the viciousness that exists in the heart of the typical English workingman. There's also the fact that the information from Die Zeit's poll is completely worthless, because the word may in the phrase `nearly one-third of Germans under the age of thirty believe that the USA itself may have been the principal actor in these attacks' makes the poll completely worthless. Millions of French citizens may believe that France may be destroyed by an asteroid in 2012. In 2011 one can't say with 100% certainty that France will not be destroyed by an asteroid in 2012. It may happen. Pollsters have to re-phrase the question and ask: do you think it is likely that the US government perpetrated mass murder and the destruction of the World Trade Towers so that it would have a pretext to go to war against some Islamic nations?

Apropos of evaluating evidence, such as historical evidence, both Tacitus and Suetonius painted the Roman Emperor Tiberius as a monster, or at least they indicated that he degenerated into a monster toward the end of his life. Various modern scholars say that Tiberius was the victim of slanderers and he was not a monster. The New Testament is silent on the issue of whether Tiberius was a monster or not, though of course he was the emperor who reigned at the time of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. We can certainly speculate that there is something irrational about modern historians who insist that Tacitus and Suetonius were great historians when, at the same time, these modern historians also insist that Tacitus and Suetonius slandered Tiberius. Suetonius, who was an archivist with access to state secrets, says Tiberius was very strong, and that he could stick his finger through the skull of a young man. This implies that he did this at least once! Both Tacitus and Suetonius say Tiberius executed the children of Sejanus. Roman law said that virgins were not to be executed. The daughter of Sejanus, a child, was first raped by the executioner, and then executed, to circumvent this little technicality in Roman jurisprudence. That information says Tiberius is a monster. The intrinsically evil nature of the Roman Empire - it was a bloody, pagan, slave empire where many thousands were crucified, where slaves and witnesses were routinely tortured, where slaves and prisoners of war were thrown to wild beasts or to gladiators etc. - would seem to make it rather difficult for anyone to be both a good man and a Roman emperor. And then if one became drunk from all the adulation and power which accompanies being the supreme ruler of Roman Empire, and if one became addicted to wine and women, and if one became habituated to yielding to various temptations to luxuriate in decadence and vengeance, debauchery and cruelty, it's not hard to see how ones character could go to hell rather swiftly. Tacitus and Suetonius painted Tiberius as a hideous monster. If Tacitus and Suetonius told blatant lies about him, why do they still have reputations as great historians? If they told the truth, why do we have modern historians defending Tiberius?

Alice Morse Earle wrote of the blood-ordeal in `Colonial Dames and Goodwives',

`Women, as well as men, when suspected murderers, had to go through the cruel and shocking "blood-ordeal." This belief, supported by the assertions of that learned fool, King James, in his Demonologie, lingered long in the minds of many...The royal author says: - "In a secret murther, if the dead carkas be at any time thereafter handled by the murtherer, it will gush out of blood." Sometimes a great number of persons were made to touch in turn the dead body, hoping thus to discover the murderer.'

Now we see that in this blood-ordeal from King James that if one was to take known murderers, and have them touch their victims, and then observe that the corpses did not gush out of blood, then this experiment would not invalidate the blood-ordeal, because King James writes, `in a secret murther,' and this nuance complicates matters. To invalidate the blood-ordeal one simply asks: what evidence is there in favor of the blood-ordeal? If there is no credible evidence in favor of it then sane people don't place any credence in the blood-ordeal. This is simply Locke's First Precept: believe no proposition with greater faith than the evidence for that proposition merits.

Alexander Cockburn, writing in `The Nation' (4.6.2009) tells us that during the Cold War there was `never the slightest chance of the Soviet Union and its auxiliaries in the Warsaw Pact rolling west' (invading West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France etc.) He wasn't trying to be arch to achieve a literary effect. He was perfectly serious. We know for a fact that the USSR invaded Poland and Finland in lowdown, dirty rotten invasions. We know about the horrors of the gulags. We know the USSR possessed a lot of thermonuclear warheads. We know she had a huge army, and even if she wasn't overflowing with spare parts for her tens of thousands of tanks, we know that she had terrifying power in her missiles and her nuclear weapons. We know that the USSR imposed her totalitarian will on East Germany, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, the Baltic States etc. Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter because his brain froze up for a few seconds in a debate with Carter, and he said the USSR did not dominate Eastern Europe, and that botch cost him enough votes to give Carter the presidency in 1980. We know the USSR crushed revolts in the Baltics, in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere with totalitarian brutality. To say that there `was never the slightest chance of the Soviet Union and its auxiliaries in the Warsaw Pact rolling west' is rather amazingly dogmatic.

I've reviewed my stack of The Nation mags to get a better idea of who Al Cockburn is. In nationality, he was an Irishman but he entered the Transformation Matrix and he has been metamorphosed into an Alien-Born, Second-Class Citizen of our Republic, someone still too untrustworthy under our Constitution to be permitted to be a candidate for the Presidency. In ideology, he belongs to a sub-faction of the tribe of the Naderites. In years, he's getting long in the tooth. In methods of operation - he likes to use a blunt instrument - he's a smash and dash practitioner - he's not shy in breaking the idols of the Right and the Left but he is particularly energetic in combating Wall Street and all the rich guys who pull the strings on the Puppet of America - to make the USA dance the way the rich guys want her to dance. He seems to think he can profit in the USA by not flattering people on either the Left or the Right. What effrontery!

He reviews (2008.8.8) the Pregnant Girl-Friend-of-Candidate John Edwards Scandal/ the Cheating-on-Sick-Wife Scandal/ The Lies and Denials Scandal /The You-Should-Have-Known-You- Were -Through -Far-Sooner Scandal / The Mainstream-Press-Covers-up-these- Scandals Scandal. These scandals were first broken by the National Enquirer, which in the annals of Distinguished American Journalism, is not exactly in the same league with H. L. Mencken, Edward R. Murrow, Eric Severeid, Walter Cronkite, Howard K. Smith, David Brinkley, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw etc. though Al Cockburn reminds us that the Enquirer has had many proven scoops under her belt, though he only mentions two: Rush Limbaugh's addiction to Oxycontin and Jesse Jackson's love child. The main Sub-Scandal centers round the allegation that the Mainstream Press willfully perpetrated a Cover-up, and conspired to squash news which was vital to the security of the USA, and conspired to withhold information which the turbulent masses in the USA needed to know in order to intelligently choose the next President. The question is: when would an honest journalist, exercising a reasonable amount of ethical and journalistic integrity, realize that he had a responsibility to announce that the National Enquirer was accurate in its story stating that Candidate Edwards was having an adulterous affair with a female, and that he had impregnated this female, and that he was lying when he denied that he had impregnated this female?

There are Two Main Schools of Thought on these politician-adultery scandals, 1) the journalistic integrity of the nation's Mainstream Press fails miserably when it covers up these scandals, and 2) the journalistic integrity of the nation's Mainstream Press fails miserably when it exposes the adulterous affairs of politicians, because, as the French well know, excellent statesmen often have mistresses, and it exhibits a hick-town mentality, and it shows one is a bumpkin who just fell off the turnip truck, to demand that statesmen never play around extra-marital style.

Al Cockburn writes in The Nation (2008.9.29),

`[President Obama's] prime foreign policy commitment is to increase the US military presence in Afghanistan and hence the certainty that Afghan children will be shot from the air or blown up by US gunships in steadily increasing numbers. As Obama said in 2002, he is not against war per se. Wars mean dead children. Now he wants to send 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan.'

He has sent a lot more than that. Stay tuned to see how the war turns out.

Al Cockburn writes of big-shot Democrats (2009.01.05),

`The Washington Post congratulates Obama for steering clear of the slime of Chicago politics, but what actually happened is that Obama moved to richer pastures. Not for him Tony Rezko's dingy billfold but the dignity of anticipatory bri...[Al Cockburn is insinuating bribe-taking but probably doesn't want to get sued for saying it straight out]...uh, campaign contributions from the Pritzkers, the Crown family, the big ethanol interests in the Midwest, the nuclear industry and Wall Street financiers, the biggest of big-time money, now gratefully acknowledged in the form of Obama's cabinet appointments. Obama raised more money than any presidential candidate in American history, with nary a squeak from the liberals about his de facto destruction of campaign finance reform.'

The whole system of elected government almost seems as if is built on bribery. People tell Candidates: `you do this, that, and some other things for me, and then I'll vote for you, otherwise no dice!' The people are looking for bribes! - though of course they will insist that what they want is also exactly what is best for the entire nation. What an amazing coincidence that would be. President Obama knows that if he doesn't succeed he'll be out the door in 4 years; he's probably made the decision that, to succeed, the rich will have to get richer. A large government - as they know so well in Chicago - allows you to create large classes of voters who are indebted to you - but you have to crack the whip, and make sure they earn their money - because the Private Sector is getting squeezed tight - and the Private Sector includes millions of Democrats, and the Private Sector is in no mood to read about government slackers getting rich by reaching into the back pockets of hard working Private Sector people. Perhaps President Obama knows something, in 2009, about Iraq and Afghanistan which we didn't know, State Secret-wise. I suppose he realizes that it would help the USA out, justice-wise, economy-wise, international-prestige-wise and terrorist-fighting-wise to cut back somewhat on the number of unnecessary wars that we're waging in the Middle East.

In Eric Rohmer's My Night with Maud Jean Louis Trintaignant plays an engineer drawn to mathematical studies. We're told that Pascal had come to renounce mathematics, for reasons which escape me now. Mathematics has of course a very powerful aesthetic appeal. Steven Weinberg, who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979, gives us some insight into the beauty and power of mathematics on pp. 154-7 of his Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist's Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature. 19th century mathematicians such as Gauss and Riemann probably never suspected that their discoveries in pure mathematics had any relevancy to the laws of nature. They pursued their careers in mathematics because they found their discoveries to be beautiful. When one speaks of metrics and first and second fundamental forms, affine transformations, metric tensors, co and contravariant tensors, first and second Christoffel symbols and all the other paraphernalia of Riemannian geometry one is speaking of the mathematical language physicists use to explain gravity and relativity. The Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie never suspected that his Lie groups could be used to explain the structure of a crowd of elementary particles. Dr. Weinberg tells us the physicist Eugen Wigner wrote a famous essay entitled The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics which describes how mathematicians are artists who invent or discover beautiful creations, and it is only later that physicists discover that these beautiful creations explain the physical universe.

The philosopher / mathematician Bertrand Russell, in 1948, called for a nuclear first strike against the Soviets. Russell realized that Stalin was inflicting misery on millions of people, though burning Soviets in nuclear fireballs was not the answer to ending Stalin's misrule. We could get lost on a long tangent looking into the life of Bertrand Russell. He was one of the few clear-sighted people in Great Britain who spoke out against the carnage which we now refer to as World War I, a little squabble which broke out among the Christian grandchildren of Queen Victoria, and which only consumed the lives of millions of other Christians.

For a dissertation on Bertrand Russell's ability to draw necessary conclusions here's A. D'Abro's The Rise of the New Physics (Dover, 1951), in which we read, pp.186-7:

`One of the definitions is due to Benjamin Pierce. It runs: "Mathematics is the science which draws necessary conclusions." Although Pierce's aphorism is not patently incorrect, it may convey a misleading impression to the unwary...There are many universities, and in each of these universities there are many men who deliver courses in elementary and advanced mathematics. Many of them have written textbooks, which in view of their excellence have been translated into other languages. We may presume therefore that these men have a considerable knowledge of their special provinces of mathematics. And yet we can count on our fingers the number of creative mathematicians living today who have evolved new methods and established new theorems instead of merely commenting on the work of others. This is strange if, as Benjamin West appears to believe, mathematics is nothing but the drawing of necessary conclusions. Also, how does it happen that an eminent logician like Bertrand Russell, who is constantly talking about mathematics, should never have furnished a single theorem, whereas Poincaré, whose hostility to the identification of mathematics and logic is well known, should have been one of the most prolific creators of all time? Are we to suppose that Mr. Russell is unable to draw necessary conclusions? We do not believe that this supposition would be warranted. In our opinion the answer to our question must be sought in a totally different direction.'

Durant wrote of Blanche of Castile, the mother of St. Louis (Louis IX.), wife of Louis VIII., third daughter of King Alfonso VIII. of Castile, granddaughter of Henry II. and Eleanor of Aquitaine, niece of King Richard I. (Couer-de-Lion) and King John (John Lackland). Blanche was twice regent of France, during her son's minority and again when he was away on crusade. Durant painted her in superlatives, though he also said she involved herself in the cruel Albingensian crusade. Shakespeare immortalized her in King John. The Pimlico Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, edited by Professor Cantor, asserts that she hanged the messengers who brought her the bad news that her son had been captured by the Saracens. Durant writes with eloquence, and if he paints someone in superlatives one is led to believe he had some reason to do so. Nevertheless, if indeed Blanche did murder some messengers bearing bad news then this is a crime which can't be whitewashed. One might say that employing cruel forces against the Albingensians was part of the theological rabies of those times, but murdering messengers who bring bad news has always been understood in every civilization to be evil.

Henri Pirenne argued (I., 39) in `A History of Europe' (Doubleday, 1956), that it was not because the Roman Catholic Church was Christian, but because it was Roman, and had mastered the Roman arts of organization, discipline and administration, that it maintained its control over western civilization for centuries.

In the above seemingly innocuous assertion, polemical lions will find much meat to snarl over. A rationalist historian might agree with Pirenne without a qualification. An ardent Catholic will insist it was the Holy Spirit who guided the Catholic Church to dominate western civilization for centuries. An ardent Protestant will agree with Edward Gibbon:

`The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, wars, massacres, and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual censures.'

William Stearns Davis, author of the inspired re-creation, Life on a Medieval Barony, informed us that the peasants of St. Aliquis would honor the donkey which carried Jesus, Mary and Joseph into Egypt and away from the wrath of king Herod. That's genuinely touching, but, unfortunately, for every endearing, child-like peasant attribute there was probably one which was filthy and foul, such as, asserting every Jew was a Christ-killer. Professors Hoyt and Chodorow in their textbook Europe in the Middle Ages tell of an overpowering stench emanating from the European lower orders. Throughout Christendom, for century after century, the lower orders lived much like animals, filthy and illiterate. Their homes and their pig sties were one and the same, and the pigs served to keep the humans warm in the winter. Of course the nobles played some role in creating these conditions. John Crow, late Professor of history at UCLA, writes in his book Spain: The Root and the Flower of the cult of filth and stench - "sanctity," as the monks called it, which nothing but the stench of a human body which hadn't been washed for years. Joan of Arc always referred to the profane English as the `goddamns,' as that was the word they were most fond of using.

Eusebius, in the eighth book of his History of the Church writes that after the Decian persecution, but before the cruelties of Diocletian, Maximian and Galerius, many Christians had become arrogant. Eusebius notes that Christians were cutting the throats of other Christians in the 3rd century. But it was also at about this time, which Eusebius narrates in his seventh book, that the early Church was united against Paul of Samosata, the Bishop of Antioch, who made himself infamous by denying the Divinity of Christ, among other sins. In the horrors of the persecution pursued by Galerius there is no doubt that many in the Christian Church evinced great purity of faith and courage of heart. But in the fourth century the spirit of arrogance returned, and in that century the people most conspicuous for employing torture and judicial tyranny were not pagans but Christians. In Paul Johnson's A History of Christianity we read that the Bishops of Rome, when once in office, became free from all worries about money and the lack thereof. The lure of a life of ease, and the inducements of riches, resulted in bloodshed between the martial followers of the worldly claimants to the chair of St. Peter, and we are reminded of what Gibbon told us: in 366, in the election battle between Damasus and Ursinus, 137 corpses were found in a church on the site where the church of St. Maria Maggiore presently sits. Prior to the 4th century pagans were often impressed with Christian love and charity, but Ammianus quotes Julian's words that in his time, the 4th century, there were no wild beasts as cruel to each other as were the Christians. Hypatia, a comely Alexandrine pagan philosopher, was cruelly murdered by a mob of Christians. We can certainly find tumult and rancor in Christendom far earlier than the fourth century. St. Paul mentions false brethren by name. Eusebius, in History of the Church (III., 23) quotes Clement of Alexandria in regards to the son of the apostle John, the apostle loved by the Lord. John left his boy in the care of a bishop who, though he had the boy baptized, was none too scrupulous in supervising his upbringing. The son of the apostle fell in with the wrong crowd and soon enough he became the leader of a gang of brigands, with the leader being the most cruel and bloodthirsty of the lot. John, through fastings, tears, prayer, and the `enchanting power of words' persuaded his son to repent and cease with the brigandage.

William Stevenson's A Man Called Intrepid (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovitch, 197 6) is a very interesting book. Many scholars have issues with it - it uses still photos from movies and purports that these are photos of actual secret agents and commandos. If one Googles the matter on the internet one sees that Revilo P. Oliver, a Professor of Sanskrit, was an impassioned denouncer of the book. One has to be a little suspicious of men with palindromes for names, and especially suspicious if he also denies that the holocaust happened. Historians have a huge problem with books based on one source, but if Sir William Stephenson is your one source, then perhaps you might have a trustworthy source. We know he was given all sorts of impressive medals from various nations, and, of course so much of the activity in espionage is impossible to verify. If a British agent says he met a Soviet agent in fogbound Prague, and this is not verified by either British and Soviet archives, and if there were no newspapermen at the meeting to get everything well-documented as to what was actually said at this meeting, the meeting still might have taken place, or it might not have taken place. Sir William Stephenson has received some of the highest medals the USA can give to foreigners, not that this is proof that errors haven't crept into his biographer's book.

In A Man Called Intrepid we see that the book asserts that FDR broke American law by permitting a British counter-espionage ring to operate in New York, to combat the Nazis in their operations in the Americas. This action by FDR took place long before Congress declared war on Nazi Germany at the end of 1941. If FDR's actions ultimately helped to save Allied lives, and helped the Allies win World War II, isn't one being a little too harsh on FDR to damn him as a delinquent and a lawbreaker? We find some very strange and dubious-sounding exposition regarding Hitler's heir apparent, Rheinhard Heydrich, a.k.a. the Blonde Beast, the Butcher of Prague, described for us in A Man Called Intrepid. In any event, according to the author's source INTREPID, a.k.a., Sir William Stephenson - the Canadian spymaster not to be confused with the author William Stevenson - it was the demonic, inhuman Heydrich who was the mastermind behind operation CANNED GOODS. In this operation hundreds of Polish prisoners were removed from German jails in late August of 1939. Heydrich dressed these prisoners in Polish army uniforms and then gave them lethal injections. The corpses were machine gunned to bloody them up and were then strewn around German forts on the Polish frontier. The press was invited in to see the carnage. The upshot was that some in London and Paris believed Heydrich's lies, and believed that Poland had indeed attacked Germany first, and, therefore, the Nazis had a legal right and a convenient pretext to launch their lightning war against Polish cavalry. Britain and France were paralyzed for a few days. By the time they learned the truth the Nazis and the Soviets were well on their way to carving up Poland. The Poles had a two million man army but it was smashed in a few weeks by the Panzers and the Stukas. The inhuman Heydrich was said to have personally whipped Jews till they died. Stevenson certainly paints him as the incarnation of evil. His forgery of the Tukhachevsky letters enlightened Admiral Canaris of the Abwher, the chief of German Naval Intelligence, to the demonic nature of this former protegé. Via these 36 Tukhachevsky letters Heinrich induced Stalin to decimate the Soviet officer corps, by purporting that the Soviet military was infested with traitors, and that Soviet generals were in cahoots with the German High Command and were plotting against Stalin. The upshot was that Stalin purged 35,000 loyal Soviet officers; half of Soviet officer corps was slaughtered; all of the top Soviet admirals were executed; almost all of the top generals were as well. The USSR was therefore rendered more vulnerable to the coming Nazi attack, as must happen when competent Soviet officers are purged and replaced with those distinguished only for their blind obedience to Joe Stalin. Had Hitler not meddled with his High Command's tactics and strategies, had he delegated the invasion of the USSR to his Panzer generals, the USSR might well have been defeated in a matter of months. The ineptitude of the Soviet military leadership, resulting from Heydrich's lies and Stalin's paranoia, was revealed in the Soviet invasion of Finland. That little nation fought bravely but with minuscule war materiel compare to the enormous resources of the Soviet Union. Heydrich succumbed in 1942 to poisoned shrapnel, to steel steeped in the botulism toxin, being assassinated in Prague by Allied commandos. His assassination enraged the Nazis and led Hitler to take revenge on the village of Lidice, where several thousand civilians were butchered. Wikipedia, if you can trust Wikipedia, says that Heydrich was once the head of Interpol - he was once the world's top cop! It makes some sense to say it takes a thief to catch a thief, but putting Satan in charge of Interpol would not appear to be terribly sane.

A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War provides no end of food for thought. The main course, the piece de resistance pertains to the subject of nice guys who break laws. FDR guided by men such as General William Donovan. And William Donovan was a brilliant Irish-Catholic, Republican lawyer from New York, a man whom General Douglas MacArthur once said was, `the most determined, resourceful and gallant soldier I have ever known in my life.' General Donovan founded the OSS, which of course would become the CIA. In England, Sir Winston Churchill's top man in the espionage and counter-espionage ranks was Sir William Stephenson, a quiet Canadian who hailed from Winnipeg. Ian Fleming would loosely base James Bond on Sir William. Sir William and General Donovan seem to have been the two most influential voices, when speaking into the ears of Churchill and FDR, on the subject of Adolph Hitler. Both men were saying that this Hitler was not merely a crackpot with an amazingly bad mustache, but, rather, he was an evil genius intent on world domination, intent on acquiring atomic weapons, intent on using them to conquer not only Europe but indeed the entire world. Donovan had been sent to Germany in the 1930s and had made careful reports of what was going on there, reports which went directly to FDR. The public in England and America, who didn't exactly spend their leisure hours investigating the latest developments in Germany, to put it mildly, would have laughed Churchill and FDR to scorn if they had both, in 1937, made speeches saying that Hitler was aggressively seeking to build something called `atomic weapons', a new kind of weapon of unimaginable destructive power, and that he was intent on killing millions of Jews, and that he was determined to set up `breeding programs' whereby blonde German supermen and blonde German superwomen would be put to work in creating a master white race to rule the world. The ridicule would have been too intense to endure. On p. 55 of Intrepid, this being Churchill's codename for Stephenson, we find from Ian Fleming, who was working under the Director of British Naval Intelligence, a memo which, one would think, would have been enough to convince the typical US Senator or Congressman that Isolationism would work better if America's enemies didn't have infinitely more firepower than did America. By the autumn of 1939, after the rape of Poland by both Hitler and Stalin, every simpleton in the West should have understood that the world's two most powerful totalitarian states were capable of working together in malevolent fashion. Our agents knew that the atom was split at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin months before Poland was invaded. Niels Bohr in Denmark had released huge amounts of energy from atomic fission in his laboratory, and Hitler could take Denmark and Bohr any time he wished. The Soviet Union had many great scientists, and she too was concentrating her efforts on building an atomic bomb. The laws of the USA forbade FDR to help England, but FDR broke the law, because, though he couldn't convince the American people that Nazi Germany was so dangerous that it had to be fought sooner rather than later, and though he couldn't convince the American people that they needed to get ready to send their young men off to fight in yet another World War, one which would bring yet another round of horrendous casualties and endless bereavement and heartache, he was nevertheless convinced that he had to break the American neutrality laws, so as to work to save both America and England from the Nazi menace. Lincoln once argued that in order to obey his inaugural oath to defend the Constitution, he first had to save the Union, and in order to save the Union he had to defeat the Confederacy, and in order to defeat the Confederacy he had to suspend the writ of habeus corpus. FDR might have made an analogous sort of argument - he had break the law to save the Union to obey his inaugural oath - if the Isolationists had ever learned that he was breaking the law by letting the British run an espionage ring in neutral USA. Even if Hitler had obtained the A-bomb first, one would think someone sometime in Germany would have launched a successful coup d'etat against the Nazis long before the Third Reich lasted 1,000 years.

§ 4. Delusions in Academia: The Chaos in the Mind of Norm Cantor.

It was the late Norm Cantor, a medievalist at NYU, who told us in `Inventing the Middle Ages' that simple creeds carry no sanction with educated people. Christianity claims to be the new covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Since Jeremiah 31. 31-34 says even the least of God's people will know God, and will have the Divine Law written on his or her heart, therefore, the Divine Law must be a fairly simple creed.

Everyone knows that Atheism is a simple creed, and everyone knows there are educated Atheists. Everyone knows there are educated Christians. Therefore, why did Cantor tell us that simple creeds carry no sanction with educated people? Can anything worthwhile be learned from studying the works of a befuddled academic? You can't know unless you give it a try.

The late Professor Cantor wrote in his `The Civilization of the Middle Ages', HarperCollins, 1993, p. 125,

`The Justinian code is perhaps the outstanding accomplishment in the history of jurisprudence...The Justinian code greatly favors absolutism: The emperor is considered the living law, and his will has the unchallenged force of law. "The emperor alone can make laws and it should also be the province of the imperial dignity alone to interpret them."'

Now in the first sentence the Jewish Cantor seems quite enthusiastic about the Catholic system of laws known as the Justinian code. But he then goes on to inform us about the absolutist nature of that code. Are we to infer that Cantor is enthusiastic about absolutist codes? The Justinian Code demanded death for any girl who eloped with her lover; it demanded that molten lead be poured down the throat of any chaperon who abetted the young couple. Why would Norn Cantor be enthusiastic about such a barbaric legal code? Gibbon, J. B. Bury, Durant etc., etc., all corroborate the evil nature of the Justinian code: it's use of torture and mutilation, it's savage reprisals meted out to homosexuals and sexual free spirits. Justinian was a Catholic who visited death or mutilation - cutting off breasts and testicles - upon fornicators. And this is one of the outstanding accomplishments in the history of jurisprudence? Is it wise or sane for a modern academic to champion a Dark Age legal code which say that the will of even evil emperors is the law? For those convicted of homosexuality Justinian prescribed prolonged torments prior to execution. The Justinian Code prescribed death for those who were baptized more than once. Why, then, was Cantor telling us that the Justinian code is perhaps the outstanding accomplishment in the history of jurisprudence? Had Cantor never heard of the enlightened jurisprudence advocated by Grotius, Beccaria, Voltaire, Gibbon and Wilberforce? It was Innocent III., not Justinian, who abolished the trial by ordeal. The enlightenment which holds that the accused is innocent until proven guilty did not shine forth from the Justinian code. Justinian abolished synagogues, prevented the Jews from going into caves to worship, made their testimony of no account in the courts of law, and ruthlessly punished the Jews when they revolted under Justinian's tyranny. Even if one doesn't believe Procopius - Procopius said Justinian was a real demon - one can read the Justinian code and well imagine it came from a real demon.

Gibbon:

`But the same emperor [Justinian] declared himself the implacable enemy of unmanly lust, and the cruelty of his persecution can scarcely be excused by the purity of his motives. In defiance of every principle of justice, he stretched to past as well as future offenses the operations of his edicts, with the previous allowance of a short respite for confession and pardon. A painful death was inflicted by the amputation of the sinful instrument, or the insertion of sharp reeds into the pores and tubes of most exquisite sensibility...In this state of disgrace and agony, two bishops, Isaiah of Rhodes and Alexander of Diospolis, were dragged through the streets of Constantinople...Perhaps these prelates were innocent. A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant...and pederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed...The reign of Justinian was a uniform yet various scene of persecution....At the end of four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia still breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy which they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, the special organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of the Catholic priests and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom; the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames.'

Bury writes in `History of the Later Roman Empire' (Macmillan and Co., 1923),

"Justinian took his responsibilities as head of the Church more seriously than any Emperor had hitherto done, and asserted his authority in its internal affairs more constantly...It was his object to identify the Church and State more intimately, to blend them, as it were, into a single organism, of which he was himself the controlling brain...He determined `to close all the roads which lead to error and to place religion on the firm foundations of a single faith,' and for this purpose he made orthodoxy a requisite condition of citizenship. He declared that he considered himself responsible for the welfare of his subjects, and therefore, above all, for securing the salvation of their souls; from this he deduced the necessity of intolerance toward heterodox opinions. It was the principle of the Inquisition...It has been observed that his legislation `became in the Byzantine Empire the true foundation of monastic institutions'...It is noteworthy that the sect of the Montanists in Phrygia was singled out for particularly severe treatment. But the penalty of death was inflicted only on two classes, the Manichaeans, whom the government had always regarded as the worst enemies of humanity, and heretics, who, having been converted to the true creed, relapsed into errors. Perhaps these severe laws were not executed thoroughly or consistently, but we have a contemporary account of a cruel persecution of Manichaeans, which occurred perhaps about A.D. 545. Many people adhered to the deadly error of the Manichaeans. They used to meet in houses and hear mysteries of that impure doctrine. When they were arrested, they were taken into the presence of the Emperor who hoped to convert them. He disputed with them but could not convince them. With Satanic obstinacy they cried fearlessly that they were ready to face the stake for the religion of Manes and to suffer every torture. The Emperor commanded that their desire should be accomplished. They were burned on the sea that they might be buried in the waves, and their property was confiscated. There were among them illustrious women, nobles, and senators. The most important of the heretical sects, the Monophysites, were hardly affected by the general laws against heretics. Their numbers and influence in Egypt and Syria would have rendered it impossible to inflict upon them the disabilities which the laws imposed on heretics generally, and they were protected by the favor of the Empress...The Jews and Samaritans were subject to the same disabilities as heretics. This severity was followed by the destruction of the Samaritan synagogues, and a dangerous revolt broke out in Samaria in the summer of A. D. 529. Christians were massacred; a brigand named Julian was proclaimed Emperor; and the rising was bloodily suppressed...The criminal law of the Empire, which was chiefly based on the legislation of Sulla, Pompey, and Augustus, had been little altered or developed under the Principate; and the Cornelian laws on murder and forgery, the Pompeian law on parricide, the Julian laws on treason, adultery, violence, and peculation, were still the foundation of the law which was in force in the reign of Justinian. Such minor changes as had been made before the reign of Constantine were generally in the direction of increased severity. This tendency became more pronounced under the Christian Emperors. Two fundamental changes were introduced by these rulers by the addition of two new items to the list of public crimes, seduction and heresy; but in those domains of crime which we would consider the gravest there were no important changes...In contrast with this conservatism, a new spirit animated Constantine and his successors in their legislation on sexual offenses, and the inhuman rigour of the laws by which they attempt to suppress sexual immorality amazes a modern reader of the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian...The savage legislator Theodosius I. prohibited the marriage of first cousins, and decreed that for those who were guilty of this or any other forbidden alliances, the penalty of being burned alive and the confiscation of their property...The abduction of a female for immoral purposes, if not accompanied by violence, was, under the Principate, regarded as a private injury which entitled the father or husband to bring an action. Constantine made the abduction of women a public crime of the most heinous kind, to be punished by death in a painful form. The woman, if she consented, was liable to the same penalty as her seducer; if she attempted to resist, the lenient lawgiver only disqualified her from inheriting. If the nurse who was in charge of the girl were proved to have encouraged her to yield to her seducer, molten lead was to be poured into her mouth and throat, to close the aperture through which the wicked suggestions had emanated...Unnatural vice was pursued by the Christian monarchs with the utmost severity. Constantius imposed the death penalty on both culprits, and Theodosius the Great condemned persons guilty of this enormity to death by fire. Justinian...was particularly active and cruel in dealing with this vice...It is recorded that senators and bishops who were found guilty were shamefully mutilated, or exquisitely tortured, and paraded through the streets of the capital before their execution. The disproportion and cruelty of the punishments, which mark the legislation of the autocracy in regard to sexual crimes, and are eminently unworthy of the legal reason of Rome, were due to ecclesiastical influence and the prevalence of extravagant ascetic ideals. That these bloodthirsty laws were in accord with ecclesiastical opinion is shown by the code which a Christian missionary, untrammelled by Roman law, is reported to have imposed on the unfortunate inhabitants of Southern Arabia...Fornication (in Safar) was punished by a hundred stripes, the amputation of the left ear, and confiscation of property. If the crime was committed with a woman who was in the potestas of a man, her left breast was cut off and the male sinner was emasculated. Similar but rather severer penalties were inflicted on adulterers. Procurers were liable to amputation of the tongue. Public singers, harp-players, actors, dancers, were suppressed, and anyone found practicing these acts was punished by a whipping and a year's hard labor...Severe penalties were imposed for failing to inform the public authorities of a neighbor's misconduct. On the ground of St. Paul's dictum that the man is the head of the woman, cruel punishments were meted out to women who ventured to deride men. Perhaps the greatest blot in Roman criminal law under the Empire, judged by modern ideas, was the distinction which it drew, in the apportionment of penalties, between different classes of freemen. There was one law for the rich, and another for the poor. A distinction between honourable and respectable, and the humble or plebian classes were legalised, and different treatment was meted out in punishing criminals according to the class to which they belonged...The general principle, indeed, of this disparity of treatment was the extension of servile punishments to the free proletariat, and it appears also in the use of torture for the extraction of evidence...Next to death, the severest penalty was servitude in the mines for life, or for a limited period. This horrible fate was never inflicted on the better classes. They were punished by deportation to an island, or an oasis in the desert. Mutilation does not appear to have been recognized as a legal penalty under the Principate, but it may sometimes have been resorted to as an extraordinary measure by the express sentence of an Emperor. It first appears in an enactment of Constantine ordaining that the tongue of an informer should be torn out by the root...In the sixth century, mutilation became more common, and Justinian recognises amputation of the hands as a legal punishment in some of his enactments. Tax-collectors who falsify their accounts and persons who copy the writings of Monophysites are threatened with this pain...Amputation of the nose or tongue was frequently practiced, and such penalties afterwards became a leading feature in Byzantine criminal law, and were often inflicted as a mitigation of the death penalty. When these punishments and that of blinding are pointed to as one of the barbarous and repulsive characters of Byzantine civilisation, it should not be forgotten that in the seventeenth century it was still the practice in England to lop off hands and ears."

And it should not be forgotten that if Justinian had adopted a more Christ-like legal code, England might not have been mutilating people in the seventeenth century. The Justinian Code enshrined the doctrine that Christian Emperors and Monarchs have a Divine Right to rule. This doctrine might have inflicted more evil on the world than any other doctrine.

Again, Professor Cantor writes in `The Civilization of the Middle Ages', HarperCollins 1993, p. 125,

`The Justinian code is perhaps the outstanding accomplishment in the history of jurisprudence...The Justinian code greatly favors absolutism: The emperor is considered the living law, and his will has the unchallenged force of law. "The emperor alone can make laws and it should also be the province of the imperial dignity alone to interpret them."'

Writers can suffer lapses in concentration from fatigue, from distractions - deaths in the family, divorces etc., can affect ones judgment - but we're entering another Dark Ages when the editors at a major publishing company can not recognize folly when it's obvious, and saying: `The Justinian code is perhaps the outstanding accomplishment in the history of jurisprudence' is wretched folly.

Professor Cantor, writes, p. 43 of his `The American Century', that in Strachey's `Eminent Victorians', Thomas Arnold appears as a snob and a bigot, Florence Nightingale appears as a petty tyrant and a busybody, Cardinal Manning is a vulgarian and a hypocrite, and General Gordon was a racist, and grotesquely incompetent as well. Cantor's characterizations lead one to conclude that he is grotesquely incompetent at paraphrasing the books he reads, or claims to read. He informs us that Eminent Victorians is a `savage prostration' of these four people.

Now if Cantor had actually read `Eminent Victorians', if he was not simply peddling hearsay, he would have known that though these people are depicted with their flaws, they nevertheless shine in Strachey's pages. Strachey was not being ironic or sarcastic when he used the word Eminent in his title. He sincerely meant that these people were eminent people. Dr. Thomas Arnold was beloved by his students, many of whom went on to achieve distinction. But he did whip unruly children, so we can see that as a black mark on Dr. Arnold's record. Florence Nightingale was drawn by Strachey as a Protestant saint. Unlike Cantor's assertion that General Gordon was a grotesque incompetent, Strachey shows that he was, though perhaps a little mad at times - the African heat and pestilence will do that to the best of men - a very courageous man. Cantor said that Cardinal Manning was drawn by Strachey as a vulgarian and a hypocrite. Perhaps I need to reread Strachey but I never got the impression from him that Cardinal Manning was a vulgarian. When told that he was hated by someone on account of his ambition, Cardinal Manning responded in a very civilized manner.

For a modern publishing company, with teams of editors, to accept Cantor's words that Strachey portrayed Florence Nightingale as a petty tyrant and a busybody, to let that stand, is inexcusable. Authors can make stupid mistakes; people have tragedies in their lives; writers can hit the bottle hard sometimes; it's difficult to keep thousands of notes straight; a thousand distractions or moments of fatigue can lead an author to make stupid slip ups. But a big publishing house, one with teams of professional editors, is supposed to catch and correct the really stupid mistakes. Florence Nightingale could be forceful but she was forceful with the Colonels and the fools who were killing the wounded British soldiers with their malevolent idiocy. She was one of the world's great administrators. She was slow to learn about Lister's work - she didn't know anything about germs and infections \- but she knew enough to comfort patients and to give them clean linen and fresh air. Strachey was using figurative language when he said she was a demon - what he meant was she worked with superhuman intensity to relieve the suffering of thousands of wounded soldiers, and worked with great intensity in confronting the entrenched Army officers who were criminally irresponsible in handling the lives of British soldiers. Strachey tells us the before she arrived the mortality rate at Scutari was 42%. After she arrived the mortality rate fell to 2.2%. She ruined her health from working so hard at Scutari that she remained an invalid for the rest of her life, but from her couch she was involved in constant efforts to reform the unsanitary conditions in the British army, to improve the food, housing and the health of the soldiers. Before Florence Nightingale, the Britannica (1963) says: `nurses frequently were drunken prostitutes.' She established the modern profession of nursing. The Britannica also says,

`NIGHTINGALE, FLORENCE (1820-1910) English nurse, generally accepted as the originator and founder of modern nursing...In 1837, at the age of 17, Miss Nightingale heard, as Joan of Arc had heard, the voice of God calling her to service. War with Russia had been declared in March 1854; by October England was ringing with the horrible state of British military hospitals by the special correspondent of the Times (London). Florence Nightingale sailed for the Crimea with 38 nurses on Oct. 21, 1854, and within a month found that she had more than 5,000 men in her charge. The so-called hospitals were vast dilapidated buildings, filthy, bare, not merely lacking medical equipment but destitute of every convenience for modern decency. By superhuman efforts she brought order out of chaos, working night and day, often on her feet for 20 hours at a stretch and hindered at every turn by official jealousy and intrigue. Every night she made a personal inspection of the vast wards. But she did more than make the hospitals sanitary; she revolutionized the treatment of the private soldier, and the army regarded her with something approaching worship.'

Florence Nightingale spent most of her life, not curing for the sick, but fighting the bureaucracy of the British War Office and all of the mountains of red tape which it used to keep conditions for the common British soldier primitive, unsanitary and deadly. She had the enthusiastic support of Queen Victoria and of the British people, so she might have simply made public the thick books she wrote exposing the malevolent incompetency of the Lords and Army officers. Instead she tried to reason with them through her surrogates, such as Sidney Herbert. She came from an aristocratic family and therefore the high and mighty Lords who ran the British army had to listen to her, though they were in no mood to take orders on how to run the British army from a lady.

What was up with the late Professor Cantor? Florence Nightingale hears the Divine voice, and goes on to do great work, and she gets slammed by Cantor. The Justinian Code, which might well have been compiled by a demon, is praised to the stars by Cantor. Gibbon is eye-opening in his description of the horrors of the Gothic War, which was started by Justinian. The abuse of the curiales, which began under Diocletian continued under the Christian Emperors including Justinian. The law made slaves out of tax-collectors and their descendants, and if a starving people could not pay their taxes, the curiales had to pay them. Why would a barbarous 6th century law code be praised to the stars by Cantor, a 20th century medievalist? The charitable answer is: medievalists are only human, but publishing companies are supposed to catch the really stupid mistakes before they publish them.

Cantor tells us in `The American Century' that New York Jewish neoconservatives and Christian evangelicals in Iowa share a hatred for each other. Cantor commences his work with the observation, attested by Thucydides and Tacitus, that good citizenship is dependent upon knowledge of the recent past. How is stating that Jewish Neoconservatives and Christian evangelicals hate each other, when everyone knows that they don't hate each other, exhibiting good citizenship? Christian evangelicals and Jewish NeoCons share common cause in their support of Israel. The example of the Christian Evangelicals and the Jewish Neo-Cons provides us with an example of people who, though they have profound religious disagreements, still agree on much, especially the defense of the nation of Israel. Thus it is rather irresponsible of Cantor to say that the Jewish NeoCons in New York and the Christian Evangelicals in Iowa hate each other.

Let us hear Professor Cantor on the subject of reading the right books. He states, in `Inventing the Middle Ages' (William Morrow, 1991, p. 44) that no book written on the Middle Ages before 1895 is still worth reading save for curiosity's sake. He mentions an inadequate data base of facts and obsolete Victorian assumptions. To say that Gibbon, Graetz, Gregorovius, Michelet, Sismondi, Lea, Lecky, Stubbs, Hallam, Milman, Bury etc., have been superseded by some 20th century databases, and are now obsolete, and are not worth reading save for curiosity's sake, is something a only a terrible Philistine would say, it's like saying there's no reason to look at any art from Rubens, because you can look at photos of modern girls on the internet who are a million times hotter than anyone Reubens ever painted. In `The America Century' Cantor gives us some photographs which he evidently considers to be great art; we find a picture of a naked woman, wearing a gas mask, being crucified.

Cantor writes,

`Their work [the work of the great modern medievalists: Maitland, Haskins, Southern, Strayer, Bloch, Knowles etc] superseded the interpretations of the Middle Ages previously offered by some fertile minds, such as Edward Gibbon in the eighteenth century and Jules Michelet and Henry C. Lea in the nineteenth century. No book written about the European Middle Ages before 1895 or so is still worth reading except for curiosity's sake because the data base of facts was inadequate and because the phantasmagoric screen of now obsolete Victorian assumptions shaped perceptions of the past that are too remote from the understanding of the late twentieth century to be worth bothering about.'

Michelet was a genius, and Michelet's translator, Walter K. Kelley, was also a genius. We simply don't have anything in English, in terms of artistry, which compares to the brilliance of the prose from Michelet and Kelley. Chapter XII is a long extract of their work. Three things came together perfectly: the geography and history of France, the genius and the erudition of Jules Michelet, and the genius Walter K. Kelley had with the English language, in translating French into English. Southern was working in English and he writes well enough but it's nothing special. To think that Southern supersedes Gibbon, Gregorovius, Milman, Michelet, Lea, Lecky etc., would be like thinking a community college sculpting instructor supersedes Michelangelo.

Why bother with Cantor? He was no literary artist. He had no analytical ability. He is only interesting because he makes either crazy comments or he gossips about modern medievalists. A rather narrow and uninspiring range of expertise! And even his gossip might be deceptive. Perhaps he's telling half-truths about people when he gossips about them. Florence Nightingale was described by Strachey as a petty tyrant and a busybody? The Justinian Code is perhaps the outstanding accomplishment in the history of jurisprudence? Simple creeds carry no sanction with educated persons? `The phantasmagoric screen of now obsolete Victorian assumptions shaped perceptions of the past that are too remote from the understanding of the late twentieth century to be worth bothering about'? New York Jewish neoconservatives and Christian evangelicals in Iowa hate each other? Gibbon, Gregorovius, Graets, Bury, Sismondi, Lea, Lecky, Milman, Michelet etc., have been superseded by some modern data bases? Gibbon writes in `History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire',

"That pope (Urban II) proclaimed a plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of the cross...At the voice of their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian brethren...If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of martyrdom; and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the delay and increase of their heavenly reward...The cloud and the pillar of Jehovah had marched before the Israelites into the promised land. Might not the Christians more reasonably hope that the rivers would open for their passage...that the sun would be arrested in his mid career, to allow them time for the destruction of the infidels?...The vulgar, both the great and the small, were taught to believe every wonder, of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines and treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper, and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense. In this earthly paradise, each warrior depended on his sword...the spoils of a Turkish emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and the flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, were temptations more adapted to the nature, than to the profession, of the champions of the cross...The cross, which was commonly sewed on the garment, in cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin: a hot iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark...the first and most easy warfare was against the Jews, the murderers of the Son of God...At Verdun, Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and massacred...In the dire necessity of famine, they (crusaders) sometimes roasted and devoured the flesh of their infant or adult captives...Among the Turks and Saracens, the idolaters of Europe were rendered more odious by the name and reputation of Cannibals...As Robert of Normandy rode against his antagonist, "I devote thy head," he piously exclaimed, "to the demons of hell"...the Virgin had obtained the pardon of their sins..."Let the Lord arise, and let his enemies be scattered!" was chanted by a procession of priests and monks...A bloody sacrifice was offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians: resistance might provoke, but neither age nor sex could mollify, their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three days in a promiscuous massacre...seventy thousand Moslems had been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burnt in their synagogue...The holy sepulchre was now free; and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish their vow. Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts, and in an humble posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary, amidst the loud anthems of the clergy; kissed the stone that covered the Saviour of the world; and bedewed with tears of joy and penitence the monument of their redemption.'

Compare Gibbon's literary style to Cantor's. We read on p. 413 of `Inventing the Middle Ages',

`The memory of the Middle Ages lingers like the air of a clear, windful day in the collective mind of the West. Beautiful and fresh in the morning, hot and placidly rich at high noon, expectant and menacing in the long afternoon reaching into dusk, reverent and brooding in the evening darkness, this is our medieval day.'

Do you ever get the impression that Modern Academia is a scam? Do you ever get the impression that Modern Academia likes to enrich professors and impoverish students and their pasrents? Academia says: don't bother reading those antiquated history books - inadequate database of facts you see, old chap - read instead these modern books by our modern Academics trained in the very latest news from the Middle Ages.

Cantor's best book, `Inventing the Middle Ages', is only readable because he gossips incessantly about some 20th century medievalists. His prose becomes dull whenever he actually writes about the Middle Ages. Cantor, like most people, seemed bored to death by the Middle Ages. But then Cantor advises university presidents, p. 412 of `Inventing the Middle Ages', to bury their dead academic departments, such as: anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, conventional history, semeiotics, linguistics etc. Putting some earth between oneself and the stench of rotting corpses is eminently sound advice, but Cantor then proceeds to advise the presidents to invest great sums in medieval studies. We are informed that this investment will reap dividends, but only if the whole of the Middle Ages is understood. This is more madness from Cantor. No one can comprehend the whole of the Middle Ages. Even a committee of thousands of scholars could never comprehend the whole of the Middle Ages. And even if they had a thousand years they couldn't cram their voluminous learning into the minds of individual students. Merely one collection of documents, the Secret Archives of the Vatican, requires twenty five miles of shelving. Suppose 10 miles of the 25 miles of books deal with the Middle ages. Do you know how many books you have to read to read 10 miles of stacked books? And if you are going to understand all of the Middle Ages you must read much more than merely 10 miles of shelved books. How are you ever going to understand all of the Middle Ages if you only read one collection of books dealing with the Middle Ages? Cantor tells of one collection of medieval books which contains 73,000 volumes on microfilm. If you really apply yourself and read 1,ooo volumes every year, starting at age 10, then when you turn 84 you can start on another collection of medieval books. It's very important to learn all of the Middle Ages - no less an authority than Professor Cantor has said so. Any professor who attempted to read 73,000 medieval volumes might soon find himself in need of an insane asylum, and this might explain a few things about Cantor. The best a student can do is comprehend the most important facts and works of art from the Middle Ages. Why did Cantor say we must comprehend the whole of the Middle Ages? Was he running a scam? Was he trying to get students to ignore literary masterpieces and, instead, hand over the money to buy his books and his cronies' books? Or was he simply making another one of his insane remarks? Imparting the significant details about the Middle Ages is precisely what historians have been doing for many centuries now. Cantor's cheerleading for of Medieval Studies won't win him any friends with those students and professors who despise books written by dead white guys, as there is no discipline quite like Medieval Studies which is so exclusively dominated by the foul creatures. The problem with learning many millions of medieval details is one runs the risk of stuffing ones brain so full of worthless facts that one drives oneself insane. To say that `The Justinian code is perhaps the outstanding accomplishment in the history of jurisprudence' is not a monument to sanity. The Justinian code demanded that homosexuals be put to death via slow torture. To say: executing homosexuals with slow agonizing tortures might be one of the outstanding achievements in the history of jurisprudence is not going to make you popular at NYU. Under the Justinian code 100 Jews could say they saw a Catholic murder a Jew, and the Catholic would still go free under the Justinian code, because the testimony of Jews against Catholics was invalid under that code.

Without feeling obligated to pass judgment on the Old and New Testaments, a modern medievalist ought to be able to give a reasonably accurate summary of these documents. One should at least know a little about: Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Debra, Ruth, Esther, David, Elijah, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Jesus, Peter and Paul are. Cantor writes in one of his books,

`Christianity was built as much on Plato as on the Judaic tradition, and for that matter, there has been a great deal of Platonism within Judaism since the first century A.D.

Christ's words about a new covenant at the Last Supper came from Jeremiah not Plato. Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6 are from David and Isaiah not from Plato. Zechariah 12. 10 is not from Plato. Isaiah 53 was not written by Plato. Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 were not written by Plato. On nearly every page of the New Testament there are references to the Old Testament. I'm not aware of one reference in the New Testament to Plato. When a person says: `Christianity was built as much on Plato as on the Judaic tradition' - then this person knows nothing about Christianity.

Acts 3. 23-25 is basically just a reprint of Deuteronomy 18. 15-19,

`Every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed'.

Tertullian said Plato drew his inspiration from Egyptians who were influenced by the Hebrew prophets. What did Plato ever say that found its way into the New Testament? Perhaps Cantor thought Plato was a fan of relic-worship. I'm not aware that Plato was fond of collecting and worshipping the bones of dead people. If he was, then, perhaps, he influenced the medieval version of Christianity. Southern tells us the main reason for the Roman Catholic conquest of Orthodox Constantinople in 1204 was due to the fact that Roman Catholics believed the Orthodox schismatics were unworthy to possess the `Holy Relics'. For every Roman Catholic who was interested in the intellectual heritage of the East, Southern asserts, there were one hundred other Roman Catholics who simply wanted get their hands on the powerful magic to be found in the Byzantine relics - the Holy Rood which went to Bromholm, the Holy Blood which went to Westminster, the Crown of Thorns which went to Paris. With Roman Catholics in possession of such powerful magic, who could doubt that Rome is the True Church? Paul Johnson writes in `A History of Christianity',

"Gregory IX, who became Pope in 1227, and persecuted heretics, antinomians and deviants with relentless ferocity, said that the moral law did not apply to his anti-imperial campaign...his methods...were subject only to God's estimation of their acceptability. To emphasize the point, in 1239 he produced the relics of the two unassailable guardians of the papal city: `the heads of the apostles Peter and Paul' were carried `in solemn procession' through Rome and in front of a huge crowd Gregory removed his tiara and placed it on the head of St. Peter. The Pope was acting on Peter's instructions - and how could Peter do wrong?"

Christianity derives its doctrine of immortality for the soul not from Plato but from the doctrine that Jesus is God the Son - and one can trust God the Son on the matter of immortality. There's also Job 19. 25. And we read in Daniel 12. 2,

`Many who rest in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame and contempt.'

Norm Cantor stated in `The Civilization of the Middle Ages' that Edward III. was a paragon of chivalric virtues. Barbara Tuchman, in `A Distant Mirror', said he brutally raped the Countess of Salisbury. Norm Cantor was the general editor of `The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages'. We read in this volume - not that anyone in his right mind would ever trust what Norm Cantor wrote in it - that Blanche of Castile executed the messengers who informed her that her son - who is known to the world as St. Louis \- had been captured by the Muslims. One may read many general surveys of the Middle Ages which inform the reader that Blanche was a pious Christian woman and a friend to Jews and to poor people. Perhaps she murdered some messengers bearing bad news. Perhaps she didn't. Who knows? We certainly know it would be madness to place any faith in any book written by Norm Cantor. Cantor's `Pimlico Encylcopedia of the Middle Ages' tells us that the Children's Crusade was a legend, or at least largely a legend. Williston Walker said the Children's Crusade was a fact of history in his `A History of Christianity'. Heer believed that thousands of children marched out of Germany and marched into Italy, and, in Italy, they at least tried to find ships to take them to the Holy Land. Heer says most of them were sold into slavery. Durant says in `The Age of Faith' that many children from the Children's Crusade were sold into slavery and that Innocent III. told many others to go home. Durant says Frederick II. hanged two ship captains for transporting crusading children over the Mediterranean when these captains should have told them to go home.

Consider R. W. Southern analyzing Gregory VII. in `The Making of the Middle Ages',

`Gregory VII was a man about whom many anecdotes circulated. Most of them were told by his enemies and are not to be trusted...All of them bear witness to the dramatic intensity of Gregory's character...He [Hildebrand, then a papal legate, the future Pope Gregory VII.] and Abbot Hugh were riding together in a large company. The abbot had fallen behind and was reflecting on the character of the legate, and on the strange command which this small man of obscure origin exercised in the world; mentally, he wrote him down as proud, and accused him of seeking his own glory. Suddenly the legate turned on him and broke out with - "It's a lie; I seek not my own glory, but that of the Holy Apostles." True or not - and there is no reason to doubt its substantial accuracy - the story reveals the man, explosive, filled with dynamic power which brought on him accusations of dark practices, eaten up with the burning passion to restore the glory of the Apostles. The Apostles he was thinking of were St. Peter and St. Paul.'

Southern begins by saying that we can't trust what Hildebrand's enemies said about him. The truth is one has to be circumspect, as it would be far-fetched to think that every one of his enemies was a liar. When he tells of these anecdotes, about Hildebrand, from his enemies, we need to see some examples, and we need to see how Southern analyses these examples, to see how he determined they were untrustworthy. Does one have to believe in mind reading, does one have to believe that a miracle was performed, to believe the above story is true? Why should we assume it is `substantially true' when it might be a terrible exaggeration to say Hildebrand read Hugh's mind? Hugh and Hildebrand might have had some previous discussions dealing with ambition; Hugh might have shot Hildebrand a suspicious look; Hildebrand might have made an educated guess about the meaning of this suspicious look. Southern's position - `and there is no reason to doubt its substantial accuracy' - implies that Hildebrand read Hugh's mind, it implies that a miracle was performed. Isn't that a little far-fetched?

In his Author's Note to his `A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age', William Manchester tells us, in so many words, that, compared to men like Gibbon, Burckhardt, Bury, Lecky, Lea, Milman, etc., he had very little knowledge of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. But he was a very accomplished biographer, and it took him only two and a half years to write a book about those centuries. He tells us that Henry Osborn Taylors choose to concentrate on the pageantry and romance of the Middle Ages. He choose to ignore the brutality, ignorance, and superstition of the Middle Ages. Manchester insisted one could not understand the Middle Ages if one ignored the brutality and ignorance in the Middle Ages. And this prevailed among both the laity and the high prelates. Manchester writes: `Christianity survived despite medieval Christians, not because of them. Fail to grasp that, and you will never understand their millennium.'

If you insist on hearing only positive views about the Middle Ages then you'll want to ignore the next extract. G. G. Coulton's article on Knighthood in the Encyclopedia Britannica (1963) includes:

`In its own age chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour;...Far too much has been made of the extent to which the knightly code, and the reverence paid to the Virgin Mary, raised the position of women. As Gautier himself admits, the feudal system made it difficult to separate the woman's person from her fief: lands and women were handed over together, as a business bargain, by parents or guardians. In theory, the knight was the defender of widows and orphans; but in practice wardships and marriages were bought and sold as a matter of everyday routine like stocks and shares in the modern market.'

Don't read the next extract either if you insist on hearing only positive news about people under the sign of the cross. J. C. L. de Sismondi writes of Guelphs and Ghibelines and Christendom in 13th century Italy in `History of the Italian Republics',

` In 1215, a Guelph noble of the upper Vale of the Arno, named Buondelmonte, who had been made a citizen of Florence, demanded in marriage a young person of the Ghibeline house of Amidei, and was accepted. While the nuptials were in preparation, a noble lady of the family Donati stopped Buondelmonte as he passed her door, and, bringing him into the room where her women were at work, raised the veil of her daughter, whose beauty was exquisite. "Here," said she, "is the wife I have reserved for thee. Like thee she is Guelph; whilst thou takest one from the enemies of thy church and race." Buondelmonte, dazzled and enamoured, instantly accepted the proffered hand. The Amidei looked upon this inconstancy as a deep affront. All the noble Ghibeline families of Florence, about twenty-four in number, met, and agreed that he should atone with his life for the offense. Buondelmonte was attacked on the morning of Easter Sunday, just as he passed the Ponte Vecchio, on horseback, and killed at the foot of the statue of Mars, which still stood there. Forty-two families of the Guelph party met and swore to avenge him; and blood did indeed atone for blood. Every day some new murder, some new battle, alarmed Florence during the space of thirty-three years. These two parties stood opposed to each other within the walls of the same city; and though often reconciled, every little accident renewed their animosity, and they again flew to arms to avenge ancient wrongs. The death of Innocent III., and, two years afterwards, of Otho IV., broke the unnatural alliance between a pope and the heir of a Ghibeline family. The Milanese, excommunicated by Innocent for having fought against Frederick II., did not the less persist in making war on his partisans; well convinced that the new pope, Honorius III., would soon thank them for it...Eccelino...fixing his suspicions upon all who rose to any distinction...did not wait for any expression of discontent, or symptom of resistance, in the nobles, merchants, priests or lawyers, who by their eminence alone became suspected, to throw them into prison, and there, by the most excruciating torture, extract confessions of crimes that might justify his suspicions. The names which escaped their lips in the agony of torture were carefully registered, in order to supply fresh victims to the tyrant. In the single town of Padua there were eight prisons always full, notwithstanding the incessant toil of the executioner to empty them...[Pope] Alexander IV., to destroy the monster that held in terror the Trevisan march, caused a crusade to be preached in that country. He promised those who combated the ferocious Eccelino all the indulgences usually reserved for the deliverers of the Holy Land...this tyrant, unequalled in Italy for bravery and military talent, always an enemy to luxury, and proof against the seductions of women, making the boldest tremble with a look, [preserved] in his diminutive person, at the age of sixty-five, all the vigour of a soldier...The defeat of Eccelino, and the destruction of the family of Romano, may be regarded as the last great effort of the Lombards against the establishment of tyranny in their country. About this time, the cities began to be accustomed to absolute power in a single person. In each republic, the nobles, always divided by hereditary feuds, regarded it as disgraceful to submit to the laws, rather than do themselves justice by force of arms; their quarrels, broils, and brigandage carried troubles and disorder into every street and public place...the satellites of the nobles were most commonly banditti, to whom they gave shelter in their palaces, and who took advantage of the tumult to plunder the shops.'

There was no sense in you reading the above words, because Sismondi was writing before 1895, and Norm Cantor said that no author writing about the Middle Ages before 1895 is worth reading. What's the use going on about Cantor? It's hardly newsworthy to announce that one has discovered that a crazy professor once wrote some insane books. I guess I'm hinting that we need to be vigilant, to always be on the look-out for any signs saying Modern Academia is becoming a scam. Is there any evidence which says Modern Academia is all about enriching professors and administrators while it impoverishes students and their parents?

Apropos of more negative information about the Middle Ages, Sismondi tells us that Louis of Bavaria was a psychopath and Frederick II. roasted people alive. Historians always say the latter was one of the more enlightened medieval Emperors, which means that a lot of medieval emperors roasted people alive, but Frederick II. had more good points to him than the typical medieval Emperor. Barbarossa, Frederick I., would suspend little children from his siege engines to try to dissuade the defenders of the cities he was attacking from hurling their javelins and missiles at his siege engines. They hurled them anyway. Sismondi told us this Christian emperor let little children be smashed, impaled, and forced to die in pain and terror because he believed he had a `Divine Right' to use such means to conquer those who rebelled against him. Milman writes of the Emperor Henry VI. in `History of Latin Christianity',

`[The] Emperor celebrated Christmas in Palermo A.D. 1194...At Christmas, the period of peace and festivity, Henry laid before a great assembly of the realm letters (it was said forged) but letters which even if they did not reveal, were declared to reveal, an extensive conspiracy against his power. Bishops, nobles, the royal family, were implicated in the charges. No further evidence was offered or required. Peter de Celano sat as supreme justiciary, a man dear to the hard and ruthless heart of Henry. A judicial massacre began. Archbishops and bishops, counts and nobles - among them three sons of the Chancellor Matthew, Margantone the great naval captain, the Archbishop of Salerno - were apprehended, condemned, executed, or mutilated with barbarous variety of torture. Some were hanged, some buried alive, some burned; blinding and castration were the mildest punishments...On the very day when these fatal disclosures were made, and the work of blood began, the Empress Constantia gave birth at Jesi to Frederick Roger, afterwards the Emperor Frederick II. The Nemesis of Grecian tragedy might be imagined as presiding over the birth.'

The truth of the matter is one would much rather be the enemy of Hitler than be the enemy of any number of medieval Christians. The Nazis were atrocious, but, for inflicting the most agonizing sorts of tortures on people - racks, iron maidens etc. - there's nothing like the medieval civilization under the sign of the cross. Popes and Emperors, people who claimed a `Divine Right' to rule - would torture their enemies, or enslave them, or cast them into dungeons filled with vermin, and, there, their victims might rot in fetid darkness for decades. Peter De Rosa, the author of `Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy' (Crown, 1988) said that Pope Paul IV. filled a house full of state-of-the-art instruments of torture. If a pope believes he has a Divine Right to rule, if he says the `Holy Office' is holy, then he might well fill a house with instruments of torture, and use these instruments on people who insist the popes do not have a Divine Right to rule.

§ 6. History: What's the Point of It? Why Learn about a Lot of Dead People?

The inclination to study history - and history includes everything worth knowing from the recent and not so recent past - emanates from different springs of inspiration, and we can enumerate the following fountains:

1) We're trying to educate ourselves for religious motives. We're trying to drag ourselves out of the gutter of superstition and wretched ignorance so that we can have the Divine Law written on our hearts, so that we can find the True Church, so that we can attain heaven and escape perdition. Is there any evidence to be found in history books, evidence which says that the `falling away' mentioned by St. Paul in 2 Thess 2 happened many centuries ago? The evils from Christendom are either reflected to some degree in the sign of the cross, rather as the evils of the Nazis are reflected in the swastika, or else the sign of the cross is pure and holy, because God exists and God says it is pure and holy.

2) Aside from finding the New Law and the True Church, aside from learning how to attain salvation and evade damnation, another reason to study history is the art for art's sake argument: the prose of Gibbon, Graetz, Grote, Gregorovius, Michelet, Macaulay, Lea, Lecky, Acton, Burckhardt, Buckle, Burke, Carlyle, Symonds, Ranke, Prescott, Pratt, Tocqueville etc. is elevated and refined: their words seem to be the distillations of millennia of human culture, the perfect encapsulations of historical art. Whatever else can be said about `History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', when you read it once, and then read it twice, you feel as if you've visited the Louvre of historical literature. When you spend an evening reading great historical literature you feel as if you have elevated yourself, or at least you feel that you have exercised the talents which God has given you more wisely by reading history than by watching TV. One might try Rev. James MacCaffrey's `History of the Catholic Church', which displays a virtuoso command of the English language, and his Ultramontane biases keep the reader from nodding off whenever his style becomes unexceptional. Herodotus' Histories is a great book from antiquity which the typical modern person would actually enjoy reading. There is power and simplicity in its narrative art. One can't say the average person would find the works of Thucydides and Plutarch to be either readable or enjoyable. The former drowns one in a sea of proper nouns, and the later, while interesting in its analytical comparison of historical figures, inundates readers with far too many details to allow it to be popular in the mass market. But Herodotus has enormous popular appeal even if the populace doesn't realize it. Plutarch gave us some epigrams which, modified slightly, seem terribly wise: By the exercise of fortitude and temperance one may attain the summit of human power and Love between a man and a woman is a provision from God for the protection of children, but epigrams of this quality are not frequently found in the pages of Plutarch. People are reluctant to read history books because they believe that, while it is good to know the key lessons of history, beyond a certain point it becomes a huge waste of time to cram ones head full of insignificant facts from the past, rather as it would be a huge waste of time to memorize the contents of phone books. The study of law, human and Divine, involves learning how to draw lines between justice and injustice, coherence and incoherence, and the study of law ought to make one more adept at knowing how to draw these lines. Some might argue that the study of American Constitutional Law drives some people into delusions, as we can find people who stumble in darkness, being lost souls who believe Roe and `Miranda' were wise rulings.

3) History books remind us how wretched conditions could be in the past. If one wants to be happy in life one can not be forever crying out in mournful tones of abject self-pity: `woe is me!' One must not dwell continuously on ones wretched misfortunes and unfair lot in life. One will not be happy if one is forever whining about the worthless cards one has been dealt by Cruel Fate. One has to count ones blessings. And to help one better count ones blessings it helps to remember how wretched conditions were for people unlucky enough to be born in former centuries. In The French Revolution the guillotine was an humane invention: quick and painless. The aristocrats would torture criminals - from petty thieves to murderers - for hours or days before they executed them. Under the Ancien Regime, common criminals were broken on the wheel - that means the executioner broke their bones with an iron bar, and tried to inflict as much pain as possible on them before the wretches died. The extracts from Hippolyte Taine and Frederic Harrison in this volume explain the justification for the overthrow the French monarchy, not that the French revolutionaries upheld Divine Law, and as we'll see below the French peasants knew how to be brutal, having been well-trained by the aristocrats.

Talleyrand announced that one had to live under the ancient regime to know the sweetness of life. That was the aristocratic perspective. J. M. Roberts said the average French peasant under the old regime lived to be 22. Michelet said women were the walking wounded of history. Balzac spoke of the seas of blood shed by Catholicism and that torture was the sport of sovereigns in the Renaissance. The Revolutionists who overthrew the French Monarchy in 1789 were humane in that they did not often use torture, or at least not as it was used under the ancient regime - again the guillotine is a painless method to execute someone. But not all of these Revolutionaries were humanitarians! We're informed in Desmond Seward's The Bourbon King's of France (Harper & Row, 1976) that there is no episode in French history which is more painful than the `reign' of Louis XVII., the son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. When the six-year-old and his mother left Versailles in October of 1798, amid mobs which were screaming threats and insults at the Queen, the little boy put his head outside the coach and begged them to forgive his mother. The Revolutionaries decided that `Capet's son' was to be taken away from his family. They dragged the boy away from his mother forever; they put a foul-mouthed sixty-year-old cobbler in charge of him, entrusting him with the duty of turning the little aristocrat into a democrat. The old cobbler would curse and beat the King of France. The boy's distraught mother, who was locked away in a nearby room, could hear her son sobbing under the blows the old cobbler gave him. Every effort was made to degrade and brutalize him, to turn him into an animal. A few weeks after he was dragged away from his mother, the little king was heard to say, referring to his mother and his other relatives: `Haven't those damned whores been guillotined yet?' The cobbler would get him drunk and then beat him and threaten to kill him if he didn't sing filthy, Revolutionary songs. The Committee of Public Safety decided to lock the boy, then eight-years-old, in a pitch-dark room. No visitors and no candles or lamps were allowed. For six months the boy's only companions and visitors were the rats. The one window in the room was nailed and shuttered tight so that no rays of light were allowed to enter. He had no means to wash himself. After six months a man named Barras was allowed to enter the room. He saw rats gnawing remains of rotting food. On the bed was a figure lying in excrement and urine and covered with bugs and lice. Barras thought the boy was asleep, but he looked again at the nightmarish figure with matted hair and long fingernails and saw that his eyes were open and staring at him. Louis XVII. died at the age of ten, in 1795.

4) The wonders of amazing anecdotes give one inspiration to read history. The Histories by Herodotus, a book which contains no end of food for thought on the themes of God and humanity, and which is packed with the most amazing anecdotes, begins with the following words,

`Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not be forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds - some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians - may not be without their glory.'

In the seventh book of the Histories by Herodotus we find arguments seeking to persuade Xerxes, the king of Persia, to invade Greece. One also finds arguments seeking to dissuade Xerxes from invading Greece. The arguments which favor invasion are essentially materialistic: the Persian army far exceeds in numbers and strength the Grecian forces: it would be cowardly if Persia failed to invade and punish Greece. The arguments against the Persian invasion held that, if God is offended by the arrogance to be found in a large army, then God might punish that large arrogant army by having a small army cut it to pieces. Herodotus tells us that Xerxes finally invaded Greece because a demon appeared to him in his dreams and forced him to invade. And of course the Greeks, after the heroic defeat at Thermopylae, halted the Persian advance at Salamis and Plataea.

It's interesting that everyone in Xerxes' entourage seems to have agreed that God punishes the arrogant, albeit there was disagreement as to who was more arrogant, the Greeks or the Persians. And it's interesting that today we see in nations such as France and Germany and Britain and Russia and England that belief in God is weak, and thus the belief that God will punish the arrogant is also weak. Many millions of Europeans are opposed to arrogance, but, as they don't believe in God, and as they don't believe in an afterlife, they don't believe that there is anything to fear in the afterlife if a nation pursues an arrogant policy in this life, albeit they'll assert that arrogance might well bring destruction via purely human means. Herodotus begins and ends his great history showing us that human happiness is fleeting; fortunes change; he shows that God punishes the arrogant. Romans i: 18 states the wrath of God is revealed against those who conceal the truth. Proverbs 1: 7 and Job 28: 28 tell us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A large part of America believes these scriptures are true. A large part of Europe believes that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of deadly fanaticism.

Guizot, in his `History of Civilization in Europe', argued that progress must exist for civilization to exist. To some, progress is seen when a society loses its fear of God. Others insist that a world which has lost its fear of God is decadent and doomed. Even the term `the fear of the Lord' is a little complicated, for some who exude religiosity and pious humbug, such as no end of medieval gangster-knights, no end of renaissance prelates and condottieres, and some modern church-goers, might have very little fear of God, whereas a modern Atheist might sense a mysterious force which makes him fear to brazenly steal, covet, kill, fornicate, cheat, swindle, seduce, exploit, cozen, suborn, perjure, usurp and extort, even if this mysterious force does not prevent him from declaring himself to be a godless free-thinker.

Apropos of more amazing anecdotes to be found in the pages of history, Buckle writes in `History of Civilization in England',

`The studies of this extraordinary man not only covered the whole field of political inquiry, but extended to an immense variety of subjects, which, though apparently unconnected with politics, do in reality bear upon them...his insight into the philosophy of jurisprudence has gained the applause of lawyers, his acquaintance with the whole range and theory of the fine arts has won the admiration of artists...he had paid great attention to the history and filiation of languages...when Adam Smith came to London full of those discoveries which have immortalized his name, he found to his amazement that Burke had anticipated conclusions the maturing of which cost Smith many years of anxious and unremitting labour...Burke added a considerable acquaintance with physical science...all this was so digested and worked into his mind, that it was ready on every occasion...He supported those just claims of the Catholics...He supported the petition of the Dissenters...He opposed the cruel laws against insolvents...He opposed the taxation of America...While Burke was consuming his life in great public services, labouring to reform our finances, improve our laws, and enlighten our commercial policy...the king regarded him with coldness and aversion. But when the great statesman degenerated into an angry brawler; when irritated by disease, he made it his sole aim of his declining years to kindle a deadly war between the two first countries of Europe [England and France]...then it was that a perception of his vast abilities began to dawn upon the mind of the king.'

In `National Review', 8.13.07 we find a book review from Michael Potemra of George Butler's Coincidentally. We're informed that Tamerlane's epitaph, which that conqueror composed himself circa 1405, prophesized that Russia would be overwhelmed by the most terrible of all wars should his bones be disturbed. Soviet scientists uncovered Tamerlane's remains at 5am on 6.22.1941, the same year, day and hour that the German Army invaded the Soviet Union, starting the most terrible war in the history of the world.

Oliver Sacks mentions in one of his books that while he was operating on a woman's brain he tweaked something and her memory was suddenly activated: she recalled an incident from her childhood, an incident which she had long forgotten. Her memory was so vivid that she remembered how to sing the words of a song she heard years before on her family's old Victrola. Everyone recalls that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day, July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the founding of the USA, and that Lincoln was shot in Ford Theatre and Ford was shot while riding in a Lincoln.

In `Reading from Scientific American: Scientific Genius and Creativity', 1982, we see that Carl Friedrich Gauss, the great mathematician, was a very amazing child prodigy. He could count before he could speak. Before he was three years old he had, somehow, taught himself arithmetic. His father was in charge of handling the payroll of a group of laborers, and this two-year-old, who no one had never been taught arithmetic, would correct his father's errors in doing the payroll.

Bill Bryson tells us in `Notes from a Small Island' that while he worked in the Holloway Sanatorium in England he met a patient named Harry. Harry was one of those people who could tell you, off the top of his head, in half a second, the exact date of the third Monday in May of 1903, or the day of the week that July 4, 1954 fell on. Beginning in 1950, and continuing every day until 1980, Harry would ask members of the sanatorium's staff, in a trembling voice, if the sanatorium would close in 1980. Much of Holloway Sanatorium was destroyed when it caught on fire after being struck by lightning in 1980.

Michelet informed us in `The Bible of Humanity' about a judicious traveler, a M. Fouché d'Obsonville, a sober man free from romantic flights of fancy, who saw in India an elephant which had been wounded in a battle, go daily to a hospital to have his wound attended to. In the tropics there is great danger from festering wounds, and to prevent infection wounds are seared with hot irons. Such was the treatment which the elephant voluntarily came to receive every day until he was cured. Though the pain was so great as to cause him to groan terribly, the elephant never showed any anger or frustration towards the surgeon; he understood that strong medicine was required to cure his ailment.

Peggy Noonan, speech writer for Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Elder, in her `The Case Against Hillary Clinton', p. 9, said that Secretary of State Clinton, when she lived in the White House, tried to conjure up the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt. Peggy doesn't tell us if Hillary was successful in her conjuring. Did Peggy give us the facts? William F. Buckley Jr., who was one of America's most influential intellectuals over the last 50 years because he was born with a genius that shone brightest in conversation and debate, wrote, in `Up From Liberalism', about a social dilemma which befuddles many of us. He wrote that Eleanor Roosevelt once announced that she would not have shaken hands with Hitler, but she would have shaken hands with a Soviet master of genocide named Vishinsky. Evidently she had to draw the line somewhere, and, as Chesterton said, morality, like art, consists of knowing where to draw the line. Recall that tell-all book written by the Republican Secret Service agent - `Unlimited Access' - in which we learn that the Clinton's would hang condoms as ornaments on the White House Christmas tree. Slander? Recall Kitty Kelley said that Nancy Reagan had a long affair with Frank Sinatra and that she flaunted it in front of the White House staff. Some people say that the macho J. Edgar Hoover liked to dress like a lady. We know we won't commit slander if we don't make accusations when we are unsure of the facts. And, rather than deal in idle gossip, we should concern ourselves with what people actually proclaim, with what they believe and teach. It's always good to get away from idle gossip and concentrate instead on higher things, on things which ennoble the human spirit. To ennoble a mind you first have to get that mind out of the gutter of idle gossip.

After one understands a few things about the Bible, Law and History, one probably takes ones next greatest intellectual step forward when one learns to write reasonably well. One must learn how to formulate cogent arguments in clear and concise prose. It helps immensely to have an instructor who points out in bright red ink ones misspellings and grammatical errors, ones non sequitors and abrupt transitions, ones flawed post hoc ergo propter hoc or ignoratio elenchi logic, ones baroque rationale and byzantine reasoning based on unsubstantiated claims or proofs founded upon dubious authorities etc., etc. The main reason that we have a Public Educational System is that a majority of the USA is convinced that Literacy is better than Illiteracy, and convinced that an Age of Enlightenment is better than a Dark Age. Throughout the Middle Ages the inhabitants of Western Europe had wonderful reasons to learn Latin. The scriptures were accessible in Latin and only in Latin. Much of the world's greatest literature was written in Latin. Latin was the language of Law and Theology, Science and Medicine. The surest way for the son of a peasant to advance in the world was to learn Latin, and then learn either civil law or canon law or both. Throughout the Middle Ages there was a discrepancy between the punishments imposed on laymen and clergymen. A layman convicted of petit larceny might have hand his hand chopped off, or be burned alive, or buried alive, or hung by the neck until he expired. A clerk - and a clerk was anyone who could read Latin - was immune to the justice of kings and barons, because, having Benefit of Clergy, he was subject only to Church Justice. Under Church Justice, clerical miscreants - which included murderers and brigands - often received either no punishment or slaps on the wrist. Even though Europeans in the Middle Ages insisted on trampling the New Law, they still had excellent reasons to learn Latin. And yet most Europeans in the Middle Ages did not learn Latin. Despite some excellent benefits, the people were not inspired by Latin grammar and Latin vocabulary. Similarly, today, the USA has excellent reasons to make sure school kids learn a little medical lore every day, as we need more doctors and nurses.

Are colleges over-rated at getting minds out of gutters? Political Correctness, which dominates the campi, which has Legal Abortion for its Holiest Sacrament, is perhaps it is no worse than those Bacchus-driven rites which once drove female votaries into homicidal rages. What save stark raving insanity could drive anyone to think that the Supreme Court did well when it freed the man who led the police to the body of Pamela Powers, the little girl he had murdered? Recall that the Supreme Court didn't like the fact that the police didn't get a lawyer to the murderer as swiftly as they might have. Many millions of college graduates think the majority decision in `Miranda' v. Arizona was an excellent ruling. Ernesto `Miranda' kidnapped a young woman, raped her, was arrested by the police, freely confessed his guilt after being interrogated where no violence or threat of violence was used against him, and yet he was set free by the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court didn't like the fact that the police neglected to inform the kidnapper-rapist of his rights under Amendment V. of the federal Constitution - the right to remain silent. Any idiot can see that Amendment V. says, more or less, that the police must not torture suspects to drag confessions out of them. But no part of the Constitution, and no part of Common Sense, and no part of any Sane Philosophy, says that kidnapper-rapists, who freely confess their guilt, must be set free should the police fail to quote Amendment V. to them.

Are colleges over-rated at forming the characters of young people? There is such a thing as normal youthful high-spiritedness, but college life often means staggering drunk through the streets, rioting, impregnating, plunging headlong into vice and degradation. One can make the case saying that colleges have to give young men and young women a good deal of freedom, because, if the colleges are too strict, people will simply have their wild years in middle age - recall Gary Hart chasing after the lovely Donna Rice. It's better to learn how to handle your whiskey at 21 rather than at 45, not that the rituals of Skull and Bones and various fraternities and sororities are consistent with the True Church, but, if you try to mold young people, if you try to infuse virtue into them, when kids usually just follow their peers, they might rebel against your discipline in a bad way, and so you have to be smart about how you go about trying to form people. If Puritans in the 19th century are tyrants and dictators - five hour sermons every Sunday - whipping kids for playing on the Sabbath - then college kids will rebel and will launch Hellenic societies which have pagan initiation rituals. There is a tradition - I won't call it a glorious tradition - but a colorful tradition - which dates back to riotous behavior from scholars at the University of Paris in the Middle Ages. One, perhaps, should not excuse all sorts of wild rioting, drunken tumult and licentious revelry as simply normal high-spiritedness from college kids. Mark Twain has some interesting words about German universities in the 19th century: you were basically expected to stay drunk for four years at these schools, and you had to fight other students with real swords in real sword fights to `prove' your courage. One would find prominent people in Germany - doctors, lawyers, industrialists - with all sorts of scars on their persons which they received from wounds from swordplay in their college years.

Professors and university administrators are making money off of the colleges and universities, so, of course, they would insist that the facts are very clear and conclusive to all honest citizens: colleges and universities are institutions which are unsurpassed at molding the characters of young people, at instilling virtue into young men and young women: universities do a bang-up job indeed at giving students the best education that money can buy. But money and the love of money have a way of distorting ones view of reality. Perhaps our professors and administrators are like that mayor in Jaws. Recall that the mayor in Jaws was trying to deny some gruesome facts. He was trying to help his re-election chances by striving to keep the local tourist-based economy thriving, by saying that there was certainly no huge man-eating shark devouring swimmers in the waters off the beaches of his fair city.
The five sons of Mayer Rothschild didn't spend much time reading books, but they had immense determination to succeed in business, and they had a plan for financial success which enabled them to succeed in a big financial way. The maxims laid down by Mayer Rothschild for the banking operations of the family were: conduct all operations in common, set definite limits on these operations, and never aim for exorbitant profits. But not every kid in the USA has the monumental drive, the family connections, and the right plan which will enable them to succeed like a Rothschild! You have to put a price tag on hope, and you have to sell expensive hope to people if you are a college administrator. Administrators do a fairly good job of keeping their promise when they tell kids: if you play by our rules, if you study hard and get good grades, we'll see that you get decent jobs, provided you're willing to work hard. All colleges and universities have to be vocational colleges to some degree because it's not a very strong sales pitch to tell parents: send your kid to our school, and give us many thousands of dollars, and after four years of studying with us we'll make your kid completely unfit for any sort of profession! W. E. B. Du Bois had issues with Booker T. Washington because the latter wanted blacks in the USA to raise themselves up from day laborers by learning skilled trades, and thus, by taking the quickest path to acquiring wealth, the blacks would win equality with whites in the quickest way. Du Bois pushed Art and Literature, History and Philosophy etc. - a Liberal Education - as he saw taking a path which led to material wealth, but which starved the soul, would have to be a destructive path. One might think one could pursue both Vocational education and Liberal education at the same time, but the nature of the world is one where people get married and have families, and if a man is not working hard to make money to raise his family's standard of living, if he is neglecting to supply lots of material goods to his family, if he is instead devoting a lot of his time to studying Philosophy, History, Theology, Economics etc., he's either going to either alienate his family, or he won't advance very far in his academic pursuits. Spinoza could grind lenses and philosophize at the same time, but he didn't have a wife and kids and in-laws constantly bitching in his face about he was spending too much time with his Liberal Studies and not enough time with his Vocational Labors, constantly whining about how he was a bad man and poor provider because his wife and kids lived like paupers when their friends lived the way good people are supposed to live.

As we saw in a previous chapter, Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, emeritus President of the University of Notre Dame, said he was astonished at the number of theologically illiterate freshmen who arrived at Notre Dame every autumn. Does Notre Dame do a good job making them any less theologically illiterate? Wikipedia tells us that Father Hesburgh holds the Guiness Book of World Records for the number of honorary degrees (150) and that he has a quote which slams our educational system - `Education is the one thing people are willing to pay for and not get.' Our unionized public school teachers, and the Consolidated Brotherhood of College Professors, hate that sort of union-busting talk.

Education is an attempt to think straighter, to acquire knowledge, to improve ones character, to make one a better artist and to improve ones appreciation and enjoyment of art, literature, music etc., etc. So much of higher education has nothing to do with professors and classrooms. Eventually, you have to sit down and read many, many books. One will always feel a little lost, as if one really doesn't quite understand Western Civilization, if one doesn't read some of the great 19th century historians: Michelet, Lea, Prescott, Pastor, Buckle, Ranke, Lecky, Acton, Burckhardt, Bancroft, Stubbs, Symonds, Graetz, Grote, Gregorovius, Taine, Tocqueville etc. And then you'll always feel out of sorts, in the USA at least, if you don't do two things, 1) closely study a 1,000 page book on American Constitutional Law, in which you finally learn what really happened in Marbury v. Madison, Baron v. Baltimore, Gitlow v. New York, Near v. Minnesota, `Miranda' v. Arizona, Roe v. Wade and 500 other Landmark cases, and 2) keep up with politics in the USA - and therefore you have to read National Review, The Nation, The New York Times etc. And if you feel too bogged down with too much minutiae from these, then you at least have to read books from time to time which deal with recent history. And of course to understand theology one will have to read the Bible and some other books.

We might subdivide knowledge into three classifications: Remedial, Intermediate and Advanced. Advanced Knowledge pertains to everything which requires inspiration and a long attention span to understand. So much of science requires years of study before one can understand this science. It doesn't actually take eight years of rigorous mental labor to learn eighth grade mathematics, but if you try to push kids too fast they will get frustrated and angry. One can't explain Buffon's Needle Problem to fifth-graders, though it doesn't involve terribly advanced mathematics. There's some beauty and artistry in it - it pertains to Probability, Trigonometry and Integral Calculus. One might try spending a few months in an accelerated program teaching the basics about these mathematical subjects to 10-year-olds, but the endeavor would no doubt crush the attention spans of most them.

Remedial Knowledge deals with words; it concerns itself with simple coherency, regardless if the message delivered is profound or superficial. With remedial knowledge there is no struggle to find truth amid a world of illusions, no agonizing over mountains of confusing or contradictory evidence, though it can still be a struggle to be coherent. To some the term `Government Budget Cut' does not mean `A Reduction in the Government's Budget,' but, rather, it means `Reducing the Rate at which the Government Increases its Budget, though, yes, the Government is still Increasing the Budget at a positive Rate.' To other people the term `Government Budget Cut' means `A Reduction in the Government's Budget.'

William F. Buckley, Jr. informed us that the adherents of the doctrine of laissez faire economics formed a revolutionary coterie in the 18th century, a respected liberal school in the 19th century, and a reactionary cabal in the 20th. The denotation of the term laissez faire economics has remained the same for four centuries, but the connotations of the term, at least in the eyes of popular opinion, have shifted considerably.

Recall the first of Pascal's epistles in his `Provincial Letters'. If one holds that all people have the proximate power to pray to God, then, to make oneself coherent, one must define the word `proximate'. Now if the Jesuits and the Dominicans concur that all people have the proximate power to pray to God, but, if they differ in the denotations they use to define the word `proximate', and, furthermore, if they conspire to keep confidential the fact that they don't mean the same thing when they use the word `proximate,' then the rest of the world will believe that the Jesuits and the Dominicans are in agreement when they both assert that all people have the proximate power to pray to God, when in fact the Jesuits and the Dominicans are not in agreement.

Sir Stewart Menzies was once the chief of the British Secret Service - these chiefs are known as `C.' During World War II the Nazi propagandist, William Joyce, a.k.a, Lord Haw-Haw made it known publically that Sir Stewart was C, then the current chief of the British Secret Service. British law in these matters is very strict, or at least it was, and one could go to jail if one broke a British secrecy law, even if the `secret' was already public knowledge. Sir Stewart spelled his last name `Menzies' but it was pronounced as `Mingiss'. Therefore if a British journalist wrote in newsprint that `Mingiss is C,' but if, on the radio, he pronounced `Menzies is C' then he could claim that he hadn't broken any British laws, and claim that he hadn't revealed the name of the chief of the British Secret service. The British courts might not have been in an indulgent mood for such legerdemain and they might have shipped the journalist to gaol.

Still on the theme of amazing anecdotes, there was a borough in England called Old Sarum where one citizen was represented in Parliament by two men, while, at the same time, the million citizens in London were represented by four men - `American Constitutional Law', Louis Fisher, 5th ed., p. 1044.

Dr. Lea's `History of Sacerdotal Celibacy' contains no end of information to arm those who are opposed to forbidding priests to have wives, or who merely have an axe to grind against organized religion. It also gives us colorful anecdotes, such as the young St. Benedict of Nursia, tempted by the Evil Spirit in the guise of a beautiful girl. When he was almost at the point of yielding to temptation, Benedict cast off his garment and threw himself into a thicket of brambles and nettles. He rolled around in the thorns until his naked body was lacerated from head to foot. But the experiment worked and he was never again troubled by sinful temptations. Benedict went on to found the great monastery of Monte Cassino and of course the Benedictine Order as well.

John Crow told us in his The Epic of Latin America, that, at least up until 1971, no one in the history of Latin America had ever gone to prison for failing to pay his income taxes. Many people in Latin America have gone to prison for trivial or nonexistent offenses, thus Crow's assertion tells us a good deal about the attitudes toward taxation in Latin America.

5) History is useful in advancing rationality. This polemical approach to history says that history books are excellent data mines to be worked and sifted to find the raw materials to be used to produce polemical tracts, treatises, tomes, manifestos, documentaries, and more history books. Scholars still debate whether or not Richard III. was a villain. Haven't they anything better to spend their time in debating? Some still maintain that Juan de Capistrano and Pius V., Loyola and Borromeo, Aquinas and Louis IX. are saints and that it is blasphemy, a mortal sin that leads souls straight to hell, to direct abusive language at one of these canonized men. There is some dispute over the droit du seigneur. Brutal rapes might have been rare but more subtle lords probably knew how to make life unpleasant for the family of a pretty peasant if she didn't submit. Charles Panati is extraordinarily vigorous in his denunciation of the medieval male oppressors; other historians write as if the droit du seigneur never existed, likening it to the Wandering Jew. Most educated Americans know at least a pittance about the Spanish Inquisition, but most educated Americans have never heard of the Papal, Episcopal, Venetian, Sicilian, Mexican or Roman Inquisitions. And both Lea and Manchester asserted the Roman Inquisition was crueler than the Spanish. Derek Wilson devoted several pages in his The Tower to Edward II. and that king's introduction of the Inquisition into England. Most surveys of the Middle Ages whitewash that event into oblivion sans a sentence on Edward's crimes. Robert Payne wrote a history of the crusades in which there was not one word written about the first victims of the crusades - the Jews in the Rhine Valley. Writing a history of the crusades without mentioning the slaughtering of the Jews in the Rhine Valley is like to writing a history of World War II and neglecting to mention the Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland. Poland grabbed a piece of Czechoslovakia when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, not that the actions of the Polish government gave the Nazis and the Soviets the right to invade Poland.

`The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe' (Oxford, 1988, Edited by George Holmes) commences its Editor's Forward with:

`WESTERN civilisation was created in medieval Europe.'

Now a writer is allowed his poetic license, he's allowed to exaggerate some, but readers should understand that Western Civilization was created on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, the Nile and the Jordan. From these locales it was elevated to loftier heights by Greece and Rome. It was the inhabitants of the ancient Near East, not the medieval Christians, who first used an alphabet and practiced the art of writing. Western Civilization was nourished through its infancy by the Romans and it derived further sustenance from the Arabs. Algebra was an Arab invention, Al-Gebra meaning The Book. Arabic numbers probably originated in India. These are a vast improvement over Roman numerals as the latter are almost worthless for computations. Abraham, honored 4,000 years after his birth as a man of God by over 2 billion Jews, Christians and Muslims, hailed from the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldees in ancient Mesopotamia. Jesus was born in a manger but not in medieval Europe. The Catholic Church teaches that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of the taint of original sin, but she was certainly not conceived in medieval Europe. Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Debra, Samuel, Elijah, David, Solomon, Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Peter, Paul, Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristotle, Plato, Euripides, Pericles, Caesar, Augustus, Tacitus Josephus, Eusebius and hundreds of other pillars of something other than Western Civilization never lived quite long enough to see the birth of Western Civilization in medieval Europe. Not only was Western Civilization not created in medieval Europe, it was barely nourished in medieval Europe, and was nearly strangled in the crib. The nobles of ancient Israel, Greece and Rome were literate. The Christian aristocracy of the Dark Ages (500 - 900 AD) were mostly illiterate. Most Christians in the Middle Ages (900 - 1400 AD) were illiterate. As we know, for centuries the medieval Popes would burn laymen who wanted to read the Bible. Galileo was either tortured or threatened with torture to force him to recant his `heresy.' I suppose an author is permitted to use hyperbole for literary affect \- WESTERN civilisation was created in medieval Europe, but perhaps it best to not use to too much hyperbole, as unsophisticated folk might accuse one of telling lies when one is merely employing hyperbole.

Electricity wasn't harnessed in medieval Europe. George Gamow wrote in `The Birth and Death of the Sun: Stellar Evolution and Subatomic Energy' (Mentor, 1952):

`The first practical use of electricity and electric current takes us back to the distant past. In recent excavations at Khujut-Rabua, not far from the city of Baghdad, a very strange type of vessel has been found among the relics that probably belong to the first century B.C. It consists of a vase, made of clay, inside of which is fastened a cylinder of pure copper. Through a thick asphalt cover on its top is driven a solid iron rod, the lower part of which has been eaten away, probably by the action of some acid. This assembly could hardly have been used for any other purpose than that of generating a weak electric current, and was most probably used by Arabian silversmiths, long before the reign of the fabulous Harun al Rashid, for electrogilding their wares. In the backs of little shops in colorful oriental bazaars, electric currents were depositing uniform layers of gold and silver on earrings and bracelets almost two thousand years before the phenomenon of electrolysis was rediscovered by the Italian Dottore Galvani and made widely known to humanity.'

Gibbon,

`Aristotle was indeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountainhead, his Latin votaries accepted a corrupt and remote version from the Jews and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades was savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine; and each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the establishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress of idolatry flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable.'

Henry Hallam informed us concerning the legends and miracles surrounding the saints:

`It must not be supposed that these absurdities were produced as well as nourished by ignorance. In most cases they were the work of deliberate imposture. Every cathedral or monastery had its tutelary saint, and every saint his legend, fabricated in order to enrich the churches under his protection, by exaggerating his virtues, his miracles, and consequently his power of serving those who paid liberally for his patronage.'

I don't know how one would know, 500 or 1,000, or 1,500 years removed from the time of the alleged miracle, whether the miracle actually occurred, or whether an honest mistake transpired, or whether a deliberate fraud had been perpetrated. Plutarch told us that Lycurgus heard a voice from heaven and that Numa lived in some sort of union with a goddess. St. Augustine claimed that a voice from heaven told him to pick up and read the New Testament. The close-minded materialist asserts that all such incidents as these are merely the by-products of hyperactive psyches, but the open-minded man and woman must admit the possible existence of a supernatural realm.

Daniel Boorstin asserted that Herodotus was sharper in his critical sense than Christian historians would be for two millennia. The entire Christian religion is based on miracles: the virgin birth, the raising of Lazarus, healing the lame and the blind, the resurrection of Christ, the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting etc. If Boorstin's assertion is that all of that is nonsense then he might indeed see Herodotus as sharper than Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Eusebius, Augustine, Procopius etc., and, of course, though Christians insist the writers of the gospel wrote non-fiction, they are not historians in the comprehensive sense that Herodotus was an historian. Nevertheless, the pages of Herodotus are filled with accounts of deities and miracles, with Delphic oracles and other instances of the supernatural. Herodotus makes quite a convincing case for supernatural intervention on behalf of the Greeks at Salamis and Plataea. Herodotus is remarkable for the numerous colorful anecdotes which he weaves in to his wonderfully readable narrative. But if one believes that miracles are impossible, if one does not believe the Laws of Nature can be circumvented by deities or other such supernatural beings, then one will be a critic of the critical thinking ability of Herodotus.

Scholars still debate if Richard III. was a villain or not. And we've seen some discourse on the mysterious demise if Vince Foster. The Casket Letters show Mary Queen of Scots to be a conspirator to murder. But are these letters forgeries? Everyone now knows the Donation of Constantine was a forgery used by the papacy, but for centuries this was not known. Will Durant said that Columbus' soldiers raped and enslaved gentle Indians. Others say the Caribs were cannibals and headhunters. Chaucer is called on the carpet by some historians for paying a woman to withdraw her rape suit against him. One can read the works of scholars who have devoted their lives to the Middle Ages and never learn anything negative about Chaucer from them.

An adequate epitome of the past must devote more than a few pages to the evils which pervaded Christendom. And it is misguided to think that when an author writes volumes which pertain to the darker side of Christendom he is ignoring the nobler side. When one is chronicling the aristocracy's oppression of the peasantry one is also chronicling the peasantry's invincible will to persevere. If one whitewashes the brutality of the priests who burned Joan of Arc, one conceals the heroism of Joan of Arc. At any sermo generalis, or an auto-da-fe, we see not only the cruel inhumanity of those doing the igniting but also the heroic resolve of those being ignited. Bernard O'Donnel informs us of the great altruism of Elizabeth Fry in her efforts to reform matters at Newgate; one can hardly celebrate the great benevolence of Elizabeth Fry by stating that Newgate didn't stand in need of any reforms. Manfred Barthell writes of the Jesuits in India. To appreciate the humility of the low-caste converts to Catholicism one should be aware of the corruption of the high-caste converts, who would share the communion bread with the pariahs and the untouchables only if they received the bread at the end of a stick. Lecky, in History of European Morals, informed us of the excellent works of the monk, Joffre. He founded an humane insane asylum in 16th century Spain. One can't do justice to Joffre by saying Christendom's treatment of the insane was enlightened. Otto Friedrich called the Franciscan Bernard Dalicieux, a victim of the Inquisition, "the most heroic figure of the early fourteenth century." If one restricts oneself to reading only those books which brandish imprimaturs and nihil obstats on their flyleaves, one might have difficulty seeing Friedrich's logic in selecting Dalicieux as the most heroic figure of the early fourteenth century. As for the more luminous aspects of Catholicism, The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963) reports on Domenico Barberi. He was styled DOMINIC OF THE MOTHER OF GOD, 1792-1849, missionary to England. He received Newman into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845, and was very adept at making other converts to Catholicism due to his apostolic zeal. `He incurred constant insults and even violence with undaunted patience.'

A century before Barberi there lived another Italian by the name of Beccaria, who wrote a volume entitled On Crimes and Punishments. It was immediately recognized by his contemporaries as a masterpiece and was translated into 22 languages, for it exposed the abysmal state of European jurisprudence. A century before Beccaria a German poet and Jesuit by the name of Friedrich von Spee wrote Cautio criminalis. In it he censured witch-hunting and torture used to extract confessions and implicate the innocent, evils which had the blessing of Popes and Protestants. One can't assess the significance of von Spee if one is unmindful of the prevailing malevolence of von Spee's epoch, as exemplified by the malevolence of Sprenger's Malleus mallificarum.

Still on the theme of polemics, one might argue that it has become rare in modern times - though certainly we can find exceptions to this general rule - to find generals and commanders-in-chief who are also good or great statesman. We read in Buckle's `History of Civilization in England',

`In perfectly barbarous countries, there are no intellectual acquisitions; and the mind being a blank and dreary waste, the only resource is external activity, the only merit personal courage. No account is made of any man, unless he has killed an enemy; and the more he has killed, the greater the reputation he enjoys...Among the Dyaks of Borneo...a man cannot marry until he has procured a human head; and he that has several may be distinguished by his proud and lofty bearing, for it constitutes his patent of nobility...This is the purely savage state; and it is the state in which military glory is most esteemed, and military men most respected. From this frightful debasement, even up to the summit of civilization, there is a long series of consecutive steps; gradations, at each of which something is taken from the dominion of force, and something given to the authority of thought. Slowly, and one by one, the intellectual and pacific classes begin to arise; at first held in great contempt by warriors, but nevertheless gradually gaining ground...Trade, commerce, manufactures, law, diplomacy, literature, science, philosophy - all these things, originally unknown, become organized into separate studies, each study having a separate class...as civilization advances, an equipoise is established, and military ardour is balanced by motives which none but a cultivated people can feel...In a backward state of society, men of distinguished talents crowd to the army, and are proud to enroll themselves in its ranks. But as society advances, new sources of activity are opened...in England it nearly always happens that if a father has a son whose faculties are remarkable, he brings him up to one of the lay professions, where intellect, when accompanied by industry, is sure to be rewarded. If, however, the inferiority of the boy is obvious, a suitable remedy is at hand: he is made either a soldier or a clergyman; he is sent into the army, or hidden in the church. And this, as we shall hereafter see, is one of the reasons why, as society advances, the ecclesiastical spirit and the military spirit never fail to decline. As soon as eminent men grow unwilling to enter any profession, the lustre of that profession will be tarnished: first its reputation will be lessened, and then its power will be abridged...In the ancient world, the leading warriors were not only possessed of considerable accomplishments, but were comprehensive thinkers in politics as well as in war, and were in every respect the first characters of their age...the three most successful statesmen Greece ever produced were Solon, Themistocles, and Epaminondas, - all of whom were distinguished military commanders...Among the most eminent orators, Pericles, Alcibiades, Andocides, Demosthenes, and Æschines, were all members of the military profession...The most philosophic of all the Greek historians was certainly Thucydides; but he, as well as Xenophon and Polybius, held high military appointments, and on more than one occasion succeeded in changing the fortunes of war. In the midst of the hurry and turmoil of camps, these eminent men cultivated their minds to the highest point that the knowledge of that age would allow: and so wide is the range of their thoughts, and such the beauty and dignity of their style, that their works are read by thousands who care nothing about the sieges and battles in which they were engaged [before leaving the ancients Buckle might have mentioned Julius Caesar, perhaps the greatest general-statesman-man-of-letters to have ever lived]...These were the ornaments of the military profession in the ancient world...Descartes is an instance of an European soldier combining the two qualities..the exquisite beauty of his style...the depth and originality of his inquiries...This, however, is a solitary case; and there is, I believe, no second one of a modern military writer thus excelling in both departments. Certainly, the English army, during the last two hundred and fifty years, affords no example of it, and has, in fact, only possessed two authors, Raleigh and Napier, whose works...are studied merely for their intrinsic merit...Gustavus Adolphus and Frederick the Great failed ignominiously in their domestic policy, and showed themselves as short-sighted in the arts of peace as they were sagacious in the arts of war. Cromwell, Washington, and Napoleon, are, perhaps, the only first-rate modern warriors of whom it can be fairly said, that they were equally competent to govern a kingdom and command an army...Marlborough was a man not only of the most idle and frivolous pursuits, but was so miserably ignorant that his deficiencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries; and of politics he had no other idea to gain the favour of the sovereign by flattering his mistress...As to our other great warrior it is true that the name of Wellington should never be pronounced by an Englishman without gratitude and respect: these feelings are, however, due solely to his vast military services, the importance of which it would ill become us to forget. But whoever has studied the civil history of England...knows full well that this military chief...was...utterly unequal to the complicated exigencies of political life. It is notorious, that in his views of the most important legislative measures he was always in the wrong. It is notorious, and the evidence of it stands in our Parliamentary Debates, that every great measure which was carried, every great improvement, every great step in reform, every concession to the popular wishes, was strenuously opposed by the Duke of Wellington...Yet there is now hardly a forward schoolboy who does not know that to these very measures the present stability of our country is mainly owing...That policy of resisting the popular will which he constantly advised, is presently the policy which has been pursued, since the congress of Vienna, in every monarchy except our own. The result of that policy is written for our instruction: it is written in the great explosion of popular passion, which in the moment of its wrath upset the proudest thrones, destroyed princely families, ruined noble houses, desolated beautiful cities. And if the counsel of our great general had been followed, if the just demands of the people had been refused, - this same lesson would have been written in the annals of our own land; and we should most assuredly have been unable to escape the consequences of that terrible catastrophe, in which the ignorance and selfishness of rulers did, only a few years ago, involve a large part of the civilized world.'

Buckle writes elsewhere,

`If we look only at the characters of the rulers, and of their foreign policy, we must pronounce the reign of Charles II. to be the worst that has ever been seen in England. If, on the other hand, we confine our observations to the laws which were passed, and to the principles which were established, we shall be obliged to confess that this same reign forms one of the brightest epochs in our national annals. Politically and morally, there were to be found in the government all the elements of confusion, of weakness, and of crime. The King himself was a mean and spiritless voluptuary, without the morals of a Christian, and almost without the feelings of a man. His ministers, with the exception of Clarendon, whom he hated for his virtues, had not one of the attributes of statesmen, and nearly all of them were pensioned by the crown of France. The weight of taxation was increased, while the security of the kingdom was diminished. By the forced surrender of the charters of the towns, our municipal rights were endangered. Though immense sums were spent in maintaining our naval and military power, we were left so defenseless, that when a war broke out, which had long been preparing, we seemed suddenly to be taken by surprise. Such was the miserable incapacity of the government, that the fleets of Holland were able, not only to ride triumphant round our coasts, but to sail up the Thames, attack our arsenals, burn our ships, and insult the metropolis of England. Yet, notwithstanding all these things, it is an undoubted fact, that in the same reign of Charles II. more steps were taken in the right direction than had been taken in any period of equal length, during the twelve centuries we had occupied the soil of Britain. By mere force of that intellectual movement, which was unwittingly supported by the crown, there were effected, in the course of a few years, reforms which changed the face of society. The two great obstacles by which the nation had long been embarrassed, consisted of spiritual tyranny, and a territorial tyranny: the tyranny of the church and the tyranny of the nobles. An attempt was made to remedy these evils...by striking at the power of the classes who did the mischief. For now it was that a law was placed on the statute-book, taking away that celebrated writ, which enabled the bishops or their delegates to cause those men to be burned whose religion was different to their own...In regard to the nobles, it was also during the reign of Charles II. that the House of Lords, after a sharp struggle, was obliged to abandon its pretensions to an original jurisdiction in civil suits; and thus lost forever an important resource for extending its own influence. It was in the same reign that there was settled the right of the people to be taxed entirely by their representatives; the House of commons having ever since retained the sole power of proposing money bills, and regulating the amount of imposts, merely leaving to the Peers the form of consenting to what had already been determined. These were the attempts which were made to bridle the clergy and the nobles. But there were also effected other things of equal importance. By the destruction of the scandalous prerogatives of Purveyance and Pre-emption, a limit was set to the power of the sovereign to vex his refractory subjects. By the Habeus Corpus Act, the liberty of every Englishman was made as certain as law could make it; it being guaranteed to him, that if accused of a crime, he, instead of languishing in prison, as had often been the case, should be brought to a fair and speedy trial. By the Statute of Frauds and Perjuries, a security hitherto unknown was conferred upon private property. By the abolition of general impeachments, an end was put to a great engine of tyranny, with which powerful and unscrupulous men had frequently ruined their political adversaries. By the cessation of those laws which restricted the liberty of printing, there was laid the foundation of that great Public Press, which, more than any other single cause, has diffused among the people a knowledge of their own power, and has thus, to an almost incredible extent, aided the progress of English civilization. And to complete this noble picture, there were finally destroyed those feudal incidents which our Norman conquerors had imposed, -the military tenures; the court of wards; the fines for alienation; the right of forfeiture for marriage by reason of tenure; the aids, the homages, the escuages, the primer seisins; and all of those mischievous subtleties, of which the mere names sound in modern ears as a wild and barbarous jargon, but which pressed upon our ancestors as real and serious evils. These were the things which were done in the reign of Charles II.; and if we consider the miserable incompetence of the king, the idle profligacy of his court, the unblushing venality of his ministers, the constant conspiracies to which the country was exposed from within, and the unprecedented insults to which it was subjected from without; if we, moreover, consider that, to all this there was added two natural calamities of the most grievous description, a Great Plague, which thinned society in all its ranks, and scattered confusion through the kingdom; and a Great Fire, which, besides increasing the mortality from the pestilence, destroyed in a moment those accumulations of industry by which industry itself is nourished...How could so wonderful a progress be made in the face of these unparalleled disasters?...the history of every civilized country is the history of its intellectual development, which kings, statesmen, and legislators are more likely to retard than to hasten...These important improvements were the result of that bold, skeptical, inquiring, and reforming spirit, which had now seized the three great departments of Theology, of Science, and of Politics. The old principles of tradition, of authority, and of dogma, were gradually becoming weaker...so far from being made in spite of the vices of the sovereign, they were actually aided by them. With the exception of the needy profligates who thronged his court, all classes of men soon learned to despise a king who was a drunkard, a libertine, and a hypocrite; who had neither shame nor sensibility...Mr. Hallam [ Constitutional History of England] has a noble passage on the services rendered to English civilization by the vices of the English court: "We are, however, much indebted to the memory of Barbara duchess of Cleveland, Louisa duchess of Portsmouth, and Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn. We owe a tribute of gratitude to the Mays, the Killigrews, the Chiffinches, and the Grammonts. They played a serviceable part in ridding the kingdom of its besotted loyalty. They saved our forefathers from the Star-chamber and the High-commission court; they laboured in their vocation against standing armies and corruption; they pressed forward the great ultimate security of English freedom - the expulsion of the house of Stuart."

Lord Acton, the supremely learned Catholic historian - a Cafeteria Catholic as he rejected the Dogma of Papal Infallibility - was never excommunicated, though his mentor Johann Josef Ignaz von Döllinger was; this mentor was a hyper-erudite German historian who wrote under the pseudonym of Janus. As we saw earlier, Lord Acton informed us,

`The main thing to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood and certainty from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude of erudition, that the study of history strengthens, and straightens, and extends the mind.'

This sounds very good, though of course one will need to be erudite in order to intelligently criticize works of erudition. Lord Acton said Henry Charles Lea was the equal of Henry Thomas Buckle in learning, and surpassed Buckle in the art of knowing what to study. This tells us that Lea was immensely learned indeed, because Henry Thomas Buckle, the Protestant author of History of Civilization in England, had, before he died at the age of 40, carefully digested 11,000 volumes, and had read, albeit less carefully, 10,000 others. Acton slammed Buckle for various sins but one can find worse sins from Acton, such as, he supported the slave empire of the American South, and he led his friend William Gladstone to do the same. With people of immense erudition such as Acton, Lea and Buckle one has to make allowances for their mistakes. Most people would go insane if they tried to cram a small fraction of the knowledge that they crammed into their heads. Aside from his native English, Buckle could read, write and speak: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch. He read with fluency and full comprehension: Danish, Walloon, Flemish, Swedish, Icelandic, Frisiac, Maorian, Russian, Anglo-Saxon, Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

Still ignoring Norm Cantor's frenzied pleas to have students study all of the Middle Ages, we might instead consider the words of Lord Acton, not to conduct an experiment to see if we will be driven into madness if we dive headlong into a mountain of medieval information, but, rather, to see if we can learn anything worth learning from Lord Acton and Dr. Lea. The former writes in his `Review of Dr. Lea's "History of the Medieval Inquisition"',

`The work which has been awaited so long has come over at last, and will assuredly be accepted as the most important contribution of the new world to the religious history of the old...It is little to say, now, that he equals Buckle in the extent, and surpasses him in the intelligent choice and regulation, of his reading. He is armed at all points...The book begins with a survey of all that led to the growth of heresy, and to the creation, in the thirteenth century, of exceptional tribunals for its suppression...It is followed by a singularly careful account of the steps, legislative and administrative, by which Church and State combined to organise the intermediate institution...Nothing in European literature can compete with this, the centre and substance of Mr. Lea's great history...The spirit and practice of centuries were renounced for the opposite extreme; and between the mercy of 1230 and the severity of 1231 there was no intervening stage of graduated rigour...Professor Ficker signals Guala as the real contriver of the régime of terror...The Histoire Général de Languedoc in its new shape has supplied Mr. Lea with so good a basis...Compared with Bouquet and Vissète, he is unfamiliar with Böhmer and Pertz. For Matthew Paris he gets little or no help from Coxe, or Madden, or Luard, or Liebermann, or Huillard. In France few things of importance have escaped him. His account of Marguerite Porrette differs from that given by Hauréau in Histoire Littéraire, and the difference is left unexplained. No man can write of Joan of Arc without suspicion who discards the publications of Quicherat, and even of Wallon, Beaucourt, and Luce. Etienne de Bourbon was an inquisitor of long experience, who knew the original comrade and assistant of Waldus. Fragments of him scattered up and down in the works of learned men have caught the author's eye; but it is uncertain how much he knows of the fifty pages from Stephanus printed in Echard's book on Saint Thomas, or of the volume in which Lecoy de la Marche has collected all, and more than all, that deserves to live of his writings...He justly makes ample use of the Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, which he takes apparently from the papal volume of Muratori. These biographies were edited by Baluze, with notes and documents of such value that Avignon without him is like Athenaeus without Casaubon, or the Theodosian Code without Godefroy...Together with Guidonis and Eymerici, the leading authority of the fourteenth century is Zanchini, who became an inquisitor at Rimini in 1300, and died in 1340. His book was published with a commentary by Campeggio, one of the Tridentine fathers...One of the most interesting directions for inquisitors, and one of the earliest, was written by Cardinal Fulcodius, better known as Clement IV. Mr. Lea cites him a dozen times...The treatise of Fulcodius occupies a few pages in Carena, De Officio S.S. Inquisitionis, in which, besides other valuable matter, there are notes by Carena himself, and a tract by Pegna, the perpetual commentator of the Inquisition. This is one of the first eight or ten books which occur to anyone whose duty it is to lay in an inquisitor's library...Like most things attributed to Abbot Joachim, the Vaticinia Pontificum is a volume not in common use, and decent people may be found who never saw a copy. Mr. Lea says: "I have met with editions of Venice issued in 1589, 1600, 1605, and 1646, of Ferrara in 1591, of Frankfurt in 1608, of Padua in 1625, and of Naples in 1660, and there are doubtless numerous others." This is the general level throughout; the rare failures disappear in the imposing superogation of knowledge...If Mr. Lea stands aloft, in his own domain, as an accumulator, his credit as a judge of testimony is nearly as high. The deciding test of his critical sagacity is the masterly treatment of the case against the Templars. They were condemned without mercy, by Church and State, by priest and jurist, and down to the present day cautious examiners of evidence, like Prutz and Lavocat, give a faltering verdict. In the face of many credulous forerunners and of much concurrent testimony Mr. Lea pronounces positively that the monster trial was a conspiracy to murder, and every adverse proof a lie. His immediate predecessor, Schottmüller, the first writer who ever knew the facts, has made this conclusion easy...Either Appiani's defense of Cecco d'Ascoli has escaped Mr. Lea, who nowhere mentions Bernino's Historia di tutte l'Heresie where it is printed; or he may distrust Bernino for calling Dante a schismatic...But he does not disdain the legendary narrative of the execution: "Tradition relates that he learned by his art that he should die between Africa and Campo Fiore, and so sure of this was he that on the way to the stake he mocked and ridiculed his guards; but when the pile was about to be lighted he asked whether there was any place named Africa in the vicinage, and was told that that was the name of a neighboring brook flowing from Fiesole to the Arno. Then he recognized that Florence was the Field of Flowers, and that he had been miserably deceived."...The feudal custom which supplied Beaumarchais with the argument of his play recruits a stout believer in the historian of the Inquisition...Sir Henry Maine, having looked into the matter in his quick, decisive way, declared that an instance of the droit du seigneur was as rare as the Wandering Jew...An instance of too facile use of authorities occurs at the siege of Béziers. "A fervent Cistercian contemporary informs us that when Arnaud was asked whether the Catholics should be spared, he feared the heretics would escape by feigning orthodoxy, and fiercely replied, `Kill them all, for God knows his own.'" Caesarius, to who we owe the locus classicus, was a Cistercian and a contemporary, but he was not so fervent as that, for he tells it as a report, not as a fact, with a caution which ought not to have evaporated...The Catholic defenders had been summoned to separate from the Cathari, and had replied that they were determined to share their fate. It was then resolved to make an example, which we are assured bore fruit afterwards. The hasty zeal of Citeaux adopted the speech of the abbot and gave it currency. But its rejection by the French scholars, Tamizey de Larroque and Auguste Molinier, was a warning against presenting it with a smooth surface, as a thing tested and ascertained. Mr. Lea, in other passages, has shown his disbelief in Caesarius of Heisterbach, and knows that history written in reliance upon him would be a history fit for the moon. Words as ferocious are recorded of another legate at a different siege (Langlois, Règne de Philippe le Hardi, p. 156)...As a philosophy of religious persecution the book is inadequate...But the vital parts are protected by a panoply of mail. From the Albingensian crusade to the fall of the Templars and to that Franciscan movement wherein the key to Dante lies, the design and organisation, the activity and decline of the Inquisition constitute a sound and solid structure that will survive the censure of all critics. Apart from surprises still in store at Rome, and the manifest abundance of Philadelphia, the knowledge which is common property, within reach of men who seriously invoke history as the final remedy for untruth and the sovereign arbiter of opinion, can add little to the searching labours of the American.'

Historians with great erudition present problems to readers because ignorant minds can be easily misled by authors who possess great but not infallible learning. One might be inclined to accept all of Lord Acton's judgments as accurate, reasoning that, since he exudes erudition, as he hurls the names of no end of modern authorities at his readers, as he was conversant with esoteric works written in Greek, Latin, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and as he mentions no end of volumes of forgotten lore from ancient sages, one might be tempted to assume that he can never be too far wrong, even if he is mistaken from time to time. Acton wrote, in 1862, that it was certain that the Union (by Union he meant both the North and the South in America) would never be reunited. It is understandable why one might think it probable, in 1862, that the North and the South would never be re-unified, but, nevertheless, matters were far from decided or certain in 1862.

Acton slams Burke and Macaulay in his `The History of Freedom in Christianity':

`The greatest writers of the Whig Party, Burke and Macaulay, constantly represented the statesmen of the Revolution [English Revolution of 1688] as the legitimate ancestors of modern liberty. It is humiliating to trace a political lineage to Algernon Sidney, who was the paid agent of the French king; to Lord Russell, who opposed religious toleration at least as much as absolute monarchy; to Shaftsbury, who dipped his hands in the innocent blood shed by the perjury of Titus Oates; to Halifax, who insisted that the plot must be supported even if untrue; to Marlborough, who sent his comrades to perish on an expedition which he had betrayed to the French; to Locke, whose notion of liberty involves nothing more spiritual than the security of property, and is consistent with slavery and persecution; or even to Addison, who conceived that the right of voting taxes belong to no country but his own. Defoe affirms that from the time of Charles II to that of George I he never knew a politician who truly held the faith of either party; and the perversity of the statesmen who led the assault against the later Stuarts threw back the cause of progress for a century.'

In his review of Sir Erskine May's `Democracy in Europe', Lord Acton writes:

`But the greater part of the political ideas of Milton, Locke, and Rousseau, may be found in the ponderous Latin of Jesuits who were the subjects of the Spanish Crown, of Lessius, Molina, Mariana, and Suarez.

The only way to evaluate this assertion is to, 1) brush up on your Latin, 2) brush up on Milton, Locke and Rousseau, and 3) brush up on some Spanish Jesuits: Lessius, Molina, Mariana and Suarez.

Lord Acton writes elsewhere in his review of Sir Erskin `May's Democracy in Europe',

`Lilburne was among the first to understand the real conditions of democracy, and the obstacle to its success in England. Equality of power could not be preserved, except by violence, together with an extreme inequality of possessions. There would always be danger, if power was not made to wait on property, that property would go to those who had power. This idea of the necessary balance of property, developed by Harrington, and adopted by Milton in his later pamphlets, appeared to Toland, and even to John Adams, as important as the invention of printing, or the discovery of the circulation of blood. At least it indicates the true explanation of the strange completeness with which the Republican party had vanished, a dozen years after the trial and execution of the King. When the treason of Charles II against the constitution was divulged, and the Whigs plotted to expel the incorrigible dynasty, their aspirations went no further than a Venetian oligarchy, with Monmouth as Doge. The Revolution of 1688 confined power to the aristocracy of freeholders. The conservatism of the age was unconquerable...In 1769 when Paoli fled from Corsica, it seemed that, in Europe at least, democracy was dead. It had, indeed, lately been defended in books by a man of bad reputation, whom the leaders of public opinion treated with contumely, and whose declarations excited so little alarm that George III offered him a pension. What gave Rousseau a power far exceeding that which any political writer had ever attained was the progress of events in America. The Stuarts had been willing that the colonies should serve as a refuge from their system of church and State, and of all their colonies the one most favored was the territory granted to William Penn. By the principles of the Society to which he belonged, it was necessary that the new State should be founded on liberty and equality. But Penn was further noted among Quakers as a follower of the new doctrine of Toleration. Thus it came to pass that Pennsylvania enjoyed the most democratic constitution in the world...It was principally through Franklin and the Quaker State that America influenced political opinion in Europe...Whilst America was making itself independent, the spirit of reform had been abroad in Europe. Intelligent ministers, like Campomanes and Struensee...were trying what could be done to make men happy by command...Turgot...attempted to employ royal power for the good of the people, at the expense of the higher classes...The deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality. Liberty was the watchword of the middle class, equality of the lower. It was the lower class that won the battles of the third estate; that took the Bastile, and made France a constitutional monarchy; that took the Tuileries, and made France a Republic. They claimed their reward. The middle class, having cast down the upper orders with the aid of the lower, instituted a new inequality and a privilege for itself. By means of a taxpaying qualification it deprived its confederates of their vote...Marat drew his sanguinary conclusions. He told the famished people that the conditions on which they had consented to bear their evil lot, and had refrained from violence, had not been kept to them. It was suicide, it was murder, to submit to starve and to see ones children starve, by the fault of the rich. The bonds of society were dissolved by the wrong it inflicted...The time had come for the rich to make way for the poor. With this theory of equality, liberty was quenched in blood, and Frenchmen became ready to sacrifice all other things to save life and fortune. Twenty years after the splendid opportunity that opened in 1789, the reaction had triumphed everywhere in Europe.

William Penn, who spent a few months late in his life in a debtor's prison, when he was short of funds after an encounter with swindlers, probably understood how a lack of possessions was linked to a lack of political power.

In his `Review of Macknight's Life and Times of Edmund Burke', Acton writes:

`Mr. Macknight, who is himself chiefly known as a pamphleteer, has given most prominence to Burke's political writings, and has scarcely done justice to his most remarkable literary production, the Abridgement of English History. The most learned of all the writers on the same subject, Lappenberg, says, speaking of this book, that if Burke had devoted himself continuously to historical pursuits, England might have possessed a history worthy to rank with the masterpieces of the Attic and Tuscan historians...We should certainly have had a much better History of England [than Hume's]; for there is little doubt that as Burke was our greatest statesman, so he would have been the first of our historians. In that part of the work which he completed, he speaks of mediavel institutions with an intelligence and appreciation which in his time were almost equally rare among Catholics, Protestants, and infidels. The great ecclesiastical writers of the preceding age, such as Bossuet and Fleury, had about as little sympathy with the middle ages as Mosheim or Voltaire. Leibniz alone had written about them in a tone which would not now be contemptible. The vast compilations of great scholars, of Ducange, Mabillon and Muratori, had not yet borne fruit on the Continent...Several generations of men were still to follow, who were to derive their knowledge of the middle ages from the Introduction to Robertson's Charles V, to study ecclesiastical history in the pages of Gibbon, and to admire Hume as the prince of historians. At the age of thirty, Burke proved himself superior to that system of prejudice and ignorance which was then universal...It is remarkable that so many of our public men should have written history. Our historians are more often great historical actors than great historical writers. Their works are generally remarkable for every quality excepting learning...In the most essential qualities our professional historians cannot compete with those of other countries; and we have nobody who will bear a comparison with Nieburhr, or Hunter, or Ranke, any more than with Thucydides or Tacitus. Gibbon, Lingard, Grote are not equal to the moderns in learning: Hume and Macaulay are inferior in art to the ancients...'

Lord Acton writes in `The Study of History',

`When Hallam wrote his chapter on James II, France was the only power whose reports were available. Rome followed, and the Hague; and then came the stores of the Italian states, and at last the Prussian and Austrian papers, and partly those of Spain. Where Hallam and Lingard were dependant on Barillon, their successors consult the diplomacy of ten governments...Every part of it [modern history] is weighty with inestimable lessons that we must learn by experience and at great price, if we know not how to profit by the example and teaching of those who have gone before us..Its study fulfills its purpose even if it only makes us wiser, without producing books, and gives us the gift of historical thinking, which is better than historical learning. It is a most powerful ingredient in the formation of character and the training of talent, and our historical judgments have as much to do with hopes of heaven as public or private conduct...The first of human concerns is religion...The strongest and most impressive personalities, it is true, like Macaulay, Thiers, and the two greatest of living writers, Mommsen and Treitschke, project their own broad shadows upon their pages. This is a practice proper to great men, and a great man may be worth several immaculate historians. Otherwise there is virtue in the saying that a historian is seen at his best when he does not appear...a famous philosopher [Leibniz] said...history is the true demonstration of religion...The Conservative line of writers, under the name of the Romantic or Historical School, had its seat in Germany...The Liberal School, whose home was France, explained and justified the Revolution...the innovators were not superior to the men of old. Muratori was as widely read, Tillemont as accurate, Leibniz as able, Freret as acute, Gibbon as masterly in the craft of composite construction. Nevertheless, in the second quarter of this century, a new era began for historians. I would point to three things in particular, out of many, which constitute the amended order. Of the incessant deluge of new and unsuspected matter I need say little. For some years, the secret archives of the papacy were accessible at Paris; but the time was not ripe, and almost the only man they availed was the archivist himself. Towards 1830 the documentary studies began on a grand scale, Austria leading the way. Michelet, who claims, towards 1836, to have been the pioneer, was preceded by such rivals as Mackintosh, Bucholtz, and Mignet. Every country in succession has now allowed the exploration of its records, and there is more fear of drowning than of drought. The result has been that a lifetime spent in the largest collection of printed books would not suffice to train a real master of modern history. After he has turned from literature to sources, from Burnet to Popcock, from Macaulay to Madame Campana, from Thiers to the interminable correspondence of the Bonapartes, he would still feel instant need of inquiry at Venice or Naples, in the Ossuna library or at the Hermitage. These matters do not concern us. For our purpose, the main thing to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood and certainty from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude of erudition, that the study of history strengthens, and straightens, and extends the mind...Ranke is the representative of the age which instituted the modern study of history...I saw him last in 1877, when he was feeble, sunken, and almost blind, and scarcely able to read and write. He uttered his farewell with kindly emotion, and I feared the next that I should hear of him was the news of his death. Two years later he began a Universal History, which is not without traces of weakness, but which, composed after the age of eighty-three, and carried, in seventeen volumes, far into the Middle Ages, brings to a close the most astonishing career in literature.'

Lord Acton offered some encouragement to those historians who prefer to draw their inspiration from published literature and not from musty archives. He writes in `The Borgias and Their Latest Historian',

`Burckhardt's Kultur der Renaissance in Italien' is the most penetrating and subtle treatise on the history of civilization that exists in literature; but its merit lies in the originality with which the author uses common books, rather than in actually new investigations.'

Lord Acton wrote in `Review of Bright's History of England',

`General Garfield wrote in his diary: "No country has made nobler progress against greater obstacles than this heroic England in the last hundred years." At the same time, Gratry described the admirable spectacle of a nation turning from its sordid carnal ways to make reparation for centuries of profitable wrong. Just then, too, Prévost Paradol, with the same scene before him, said that we all know at what stage of existence people begin to feel remorse, settle their affairs, and try to atone for their misdeeds. Dr. Bright has seen these things, and has found in them the keynote of the reign of the queen...Gneist pleasantly describes us as floundering in a transit of socialism. What he calls "Uebergang in das Jahrhundert der Socialreformen und der Socialbills," Dr. Bright designates as the democratic age. To call it the liberal age would be to court a party triumph; and we should have to define liberty, which resembles the camel, and enjoys more definitions than any other object in nature...If he is a little strict with Mr. Disraeli...he speaks of him with respect after the time of his attacks on Peel. Having spoken of Lord George Bentinck, he adds: "The fire, the venom, and the acute parliamentary tactics were supplied by his less distinguished henchmen." Hard words towards a statesman who, if he left few friends on one side of politics, was honoured with a public monument on the other, and who had a higher right than the Duke of Abrantes to say that it is better to be an ancestor than a descendant...The actual mistakes are few and trivial...Earl Fortescue did not become lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1841, but the lord-lieutenant became Earl Fortescue; Mr. Bayne is Sir Edward Baines; the Duke d'Aumale was the fourth son, not the eldest; there are no archdukes in Russia; the Duke de Gramont was not war minister, unless figuratively; the elector of Hesse, in 1850, did not take flight before an insurgent chamber; "Paulo's younger son" should be "Francisco de Paula's younger son"; the treaty of 1866 was signed at Berlin on 8th April, not on 27th March. It is confusing to read that in 1871 "Grévy was elected president, and Thiers put at the head of the Ministry. One was president of the assembly, the other head of the government. The imprecations of Sir John Hay do not fitly represent a large section of opinion towards Lord Palmerston; for the indignant orator had personal motives of a kind that compelled respect. That the reform debate of 1859 was memorable for the speeches of Bulwer and Cairns is well said, by virtue of the prerogative, to mark the force of arguments that are none the worse because they did not persuade, and the rights of a cause that failed; but it is out of proportion. Bulwer far surpassed himself on 26th April in the following year, when he so impressed opponents that Ayrton turned in astonishment to Bernal Osborne, saying that it was the finest speech on the representation of the people he had ever heard. Sir Hugh Cairns never acquired in the commons anything like the reputation and authority which his splendid gift of intellectual speech brought him in the other House, where some say that the great tradition which comes down from Mansfield and Chatham ended at his death and, by the law of supply and demand, is likely not to revive...He says that Prussia, by the treaty of Prague, obtained all that it desired; thereby rejecting the story that the king desired more, by several millions of souls, and was restrained by the moderation of his son. It was supposed that Lord Russell, to screen the convention of Plombières, obtained false assurances from Turin, and conveyed them to Parliament. Clearly, Dr. Bright does not believe it. Nor does he admit that Lord Russell, when asserting our neutrality and resisting the confederate proclivity of Napoleon III, spoke without conviction, as the mouth-piece of an over-ruling Cabinet led, while he lived, by Lewis...The candidate for the crown of Spain was a Prussian officer. He had been recognised as a prince of the Prussian house. His father had been quite lately prime minister to the King of Prussia, and had contributed, as a trusted advisor, to the elevation of Bismarck. The French argued that with such a man on the Spanish frontier they would have to guard the Pyrenees in the event of war on the Rhine. They required that he should withdraw, and expressed a hope that he would, by his own act, prevent a conflict. When the French Government had declared that a voluntary withdrawal was all they demanded, the prince, by the advice of Prussia, refused the proffered crown. Émile Ollivier at once proclaimed that all ground of quarrel was removed. The constitutional empire had won a great diplomatic triumph, after the absolute empire for ten years had endured the humiliation of failure. The success of the liberal and pacific statesmen was a check to the imperial tradition and to the men who desired that the power of Napoleon should be transmitted to his son undiminished by conditions of popular debate. Whilst Ollivier declared himself satisfied, Gramont asked for more...They had carried Europe with them in protesting against his election, even when, knowing what they knew of German opinion and preparation, for their agents served them well, the words of Molé to Baron Werther were repeated, forty years later, to his son, "La guerre est au bout des mes paroles." But until that despatch was written to Benedetti France had not resolved to go to war. Prussia had taken no irrevocably hostile part. While the confidential reports of French officers found their way to the Wilhelstrasse in the original, the Government could not be ignorant that France was discussing with Austria the place where their armies were to unite...He thinks that we lost ground by our conduct during the war in France, and lost it unjustly. If we were censured for having failed to prevent or to abridge hostility, and for having made no friends by our neutrality, this judgment would be correct...Even in the age of experimental science, the area which reason commands is not excessive...The cool reception of Thiers, or the sale of arms to the French, is the declamation, not the real complaint. But we had not taken note of the double train of gunpowder laid after the plébiscite, and our agents did not ascertain what the mysterious travellers, Lebrun, Bernhardi, and Salazar, carried with them. Therefore, when the crisis came, we had forfeited somewhat of our weight and competence in advance, and were like watchers of a game whose eyes have strayed from the board. The decisive moment was when the emperor demanded security against the reappearance of Hohenzollern. Four days earlier Gramont assured us that France would be content with the voluntary renunciation which he asked our aid in obtaining; and when it was obtained he pronounced it worthless, and gave an opening for effective remonstrance. Lord Lyons only informed him that, although we might be disappointed, deceived, and even slighted, it would make no difference, so that he might strike for the Rhine without risking the loss of our friendship. Again, after Ferr, when a good deal depended on coolness and temper, and accuracy, and the government of defense was in need of a judicious bottle-holder, our ambassador was away...We begin to see daylight in the Cromwellian era when we know what a Calvinist meant and an Arminian, a Presbyterian and an Independent, a Baptist and a Socinian. It would be a luminous moment if, for the perpetual round of violence and weakness, folly and crime, somebody would display the operation of the original materials that supplied the French Revolution, the distinct systems that divided the three assemblies and governed the several constitutions; the eighteenth-century law of nature, the American rights of man, English parliamentary institutions, the abstract constitutionalism of Montesquieu, Voltaire's humanitarian code, Protestant toleration, Jansenist theories of Church and State, the perfectibility of the encyclopedists, the whiggism of Holbach, the Helvetian doctrine of equality, Rousseau's democracy, the socialism of Mably, Turgot's political economy, the unguarded sentence in the Wealth of Nations which gave to the Provençal priest the fulcrum to overturn the monarchy of Lewis XIV, the conditional contract which Marat transmuted into a theory of massacre, the policy of the four Genevese who worked Mirabeau; and our times might be clearer if, instead of our own devices, the historian explained what it is really all about, wherein a Conservative differs from Whig and Tory, where a Liberal draws the line against Whig and Radical, how you distinguish a philosophic from an economic Radical, or Manchester from Birmingham, at what point democracy begins, how it combines with socialism...Theology differentiates towards exclusiveness, while politics develop in the direction of comprehension and affinity. Men who move along plain lines, like Seward and Castelar, are not often the most efficacious; and the alchemy that could condense Thiers or Bismarck or Frere Orban into a formula, as Bulwer's French cook put the Prize Durham into a pomatum-pot, is a lost art. History does not work with bottled essences, but with active combinations; compromise is the soul, if not the whole of politics...Nevertheless, the avoidance of a keen political edge is a risk to even the most dispassionate and conscientious of writers. He does not see that in 1874 it would have been better not to dissolve before the budget; he looks on the ballot as a medicine for corruption, not for the graver evil of pressure which makes men vote against their conviction, and always involves a lie...The danger to the student is that moral indifference in political thinking which Leroy Beaulieu homeopathically declares to be a very good thing as well as a very bad one: "Cette sorte de scepticisme, d'athéisme politique, est le grand péril, la grande difficulté de tous gouvernements, et en même temps c'en est le principal point d'appui: c'est à la fois le mal et le remède du mal."

Yes, compromise is the soul of politics. Here in the USA our politicians know only too well how dangerous it is to stray from the mainstream: it is best to be guided by consensus. And everyone recalls that Jesus said that when the blind are leading the blind both will fall into the pit.

There are no end of human interest stories to be found in history books, stories which leave one breathless with admiration for the human spirit, with the invincible will of human beings to survive amid terrible trials. Everyone should read The Gulag Archipelago.

In Whittacker Chamber's classic autobiography `Witness', there's a moving account of a girl who was teased and mocked by her schoolmates. They called her `Stewguts' and tried everyday to make her miserable; but she persevered and didn't turn sullen or mean; she was especially patient in helping the little kids learn to read and write. Emerson said that what lies behind us and what lies before us are nothing compared to what lies within us. It is certainly the business of history to present the facts about those people who had a lot inside them. Charles Dickens tells about one such person in `A Child's History of England,

`Once upon a time, a worthy merchant of London, named Gilbert...made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was taken prisoner by a Saracen lord. This lord, who treated him kindly and not like a slave, had one fair daughter, who fell in love with the merchant; and who told him that she wanted to become a Christian, and was willing to marry him if they could fly to a Christian country. The merchant returned her love, until he found an opportunity to escape, when he did not trouble himself about the Saracen lady, but escaped with his servant Richard, who had been taken prisoner with him, and forgot her. The Saracen lady, who was more loving than the merchant, left her father's house in disguise to follow him, and made her way, under many hardships, to the sea-shore. The merchant taught her only two English words...of which London was one, and his own name, Gilbert, the other. She went among the ships, saying "London!" "London!" over and over again, until the sailors understood that she wanted to find an English vessel that would carry her there; so, they showed her such a ship, and she paid for her passage with some of her jewels, and sailed away. Well! The merchant was sitting in his counting-house in London one day, when he heard a great noise in the street; and presently Richard came running in from the warehouse, with his eyes wide open and his breath almost gone, saying, "Master, master, here is the Saracen lady!" The merchant thought Richard was mad; but Richard said, "No, master! As I live, the Saracen lady is going up and down the city, calling `Gilbert! Gilbert!'" Then he took the merchant by the sleeve and pointed out at the window; and there they saw her among the gables and waterspouts of the dark, dirty street, in her foreign dress, so forlorn, surrounded by a wondering crowd, and passing slowly along, calling "Gilbert!" Gilbert!" When the merchant saw her, and thought of the tenderness she had shown him in his captivity, and of her constancy, his heart was moved, and he ran down into the street...They were married without loss of time...and lived happy ever afterwards. This merchant and his Saracen lady had one son, Thomas à Becket.'

The Britannica (1963) says Becket's mother was a native of Caen. One might assume Dickens confused a fable for solid history, but, with Charles Dickens, some might want to be generous and extend him the benefit of the doubt. The Britannica is very authoritative, and most likely Dickens simply made an honest mistake. Still, the study of History was very advanced in 19th century England. It's not as if Dickens was writing in the Dark Ages. Many would insist that the biography of Becket's mother is rather insignificant. They would insist that we have far more pressing matters to attend to, such as our insane tax laws, our insane drug laws, the incessant greed of our special interest groups, the need for tort reform etc. Who cares where Becket's mother was from? It certainly makes a better story if she was from an exotic Islamic land rather than prosaic Normandy. Perhaps the reader can find it in his heart to forgive a great novelist for writing a little fiction when he wrote a little non-fiction.

Chapter 9 - The Church of England

A conspicuous problem with the Church of England is that it has Henry VIII. for its Founding Father. Charles Dickens denominated him `Old Grease Stain.' Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. That is the mnemonic British school children use to recall the fates of the six wives of Henry VIII., namely: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Bolyne, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catharine Howard and Catharine Parr. Katharine was the mother of the Catholic Queen Mary I. Jane Seymour was the mother of the Protestant King Edward VI. And Anne Bolyne was the mother of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I.

Henry VIII., who sought to burn William Tyndale, the Bible translator, also sought to burn all who attempted to bring Tyndale's English Bible into England. In Charles Panati's `Extraordinary Endings' (Harper & Row, 1989) we learn that England has Henry VIII. to thank for executing approximately 72,000 subjects. Not only was Henry fond of having malefactors crushed to death, but he was also especially partial to boiling people to death. The latter painful procedure was enacted into law in 1531. Death by boiling endured for sixteen years in England, until Edward VI. ended the practice in favor of hanging, a very humane improvement save for the fact that women convicted of capital crimes were still to be burned alive, not hanged as were the men. The learned 18th century jurist Sir William Blackstone wrote a defense of this new twist on the old double standard. This defense of burning ladies may be found in his four-volume legal textbook, Commentaries on the Laws of England, the work which every lawyer in Colonial America was reared on. It should be recalled that during the time of Henry, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth etc. capital crimes in England included larceny, poaching, vandalism and other minor offenses.

The Church of Rome had bestowed upon Henry the title of Defender of the Faith. If the Church of Rome is the True Faith, Henry wasn't much of a Defender when he betrayed Rome. And if Rome is not the True Faith, then the title she bestowed upon Henry is not a terribly august title. Again, the concept that there is only one True Christian Church is derived from such scriptures as Matthew 16. 18, which has Jesus saying,

`And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.'

We also have the words of St. Paul in Ephesians 4. 4-6

`There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'

In St. Paul's terminology this phrase - `there is one body' - means there is one True Church. Note Ephesians 5. 30, where St. Paul says of the Church and Christ,

`For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.'

Matthew 7. 13-16 is another scripture which indicates there is only one True Church,

`Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits...'

George Burton Adams writes in `Constitutional History of England':

`The head of the church took the leading part in the coronation of the king, anointing him with holy oil after the manner of the Old Testament and receiving from him his coronation oath. At the end of the tenth century this oath is recorded as follows: In the name of the Holy Trinity, three things do I promise to this Christian people my subjects: first, that God's Church and all the Christian people of my realm hold true peace; secondly, that I forbid all rapine and injustice to men of all conditions; thirdly, that I promise and enjoin justice and mercy in all judgments, that the just and merciful God of his everlasting mercy may forgive us all.'

We know that Henry VIII. wasn't being very just or merciful when he was boiling and burning people to death. And it was not pious thirsting for the purity of the True Faith which inspired Henry to sunder ties with Rome. Henry's desire for a divorce from Katherine of Aragon, who was having a terrible time producing a man child who could survive in this world, led Henry to divorce the Church of England from the Church of Rome. Pope Clement VII. was reluctant to grant Henry an annulment because Katherine was the aunt of Charles V., and Charles V. was the most powerful monarch in Europe. Indeed it was Charles V.'s army which sacked Rome and imprisoned Pope Clement VII. In any event, Henry did indeed break with Katherine and with Rome, and the Act of Supremacy, 1534, declared the English King, not the Bishop of Rome, to be head of the Church in England.

A main problem with the Church of England has nothing to do with its name, though it sounds terribly provincial. A Church does not have to produce documentary proof which proves it can trace an unbroken line of bishops and laymen back to first century Israel and Pentecost to be the True Church. The main problem with the Church of England, and the Church of Rome, and Eastern Orthodoxy etc., etc., is that they perpetrated evil for century after century. We've been through the logic which says the Holy Spirit guides the True Church but the Holy Spirit does not guide churches which perpetrate evil for century after century. Therefore, since Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy and the Church of England all perpetrated evil for centuries, none of them can be the True Church.

The Church of England claims Apostolic roots, but what of that? Does it teach what the apostles taught? Does it practice what the apostles practiced? Henry's motives for defying Rome were not the motives of Wycliffe and Tyndale, not that this would be an issue if the Church of England which Henry created and which Elizabeth perpetuated was the True Church.

Charles Dickens wrote in his `A Child's History of England',

`Three hundred people burnt alive...including sixty women and forty little children...Bloody [Roman Catholic] Queen Mary, she will ever be justly remembered with horror and detestation in Great Britain...The stake and the fire were the fruits of this reign, and you will judge this Queen by nothing else...To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in this merry reign [Charles II's], would occupy a hundred pages. Because the people would not have bishops, and were resolved to stand by their solemn League and Covenant, such cruelties were inflicted upon them as make the blood run cold. Ferocious dragoons galloped through the country to punish peasants for deserting the churches; sons were hanged up at their fathers' doors for refusing to disclose where their fathers were concealed; wives were tortured to death for not betraying their husbands; people were taken out of their fields and gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial; lighted matches were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a most horrible torment called the Boot was invented, and constantly applied, which ground and mashed the victims' legs with iron wedges. Witnesses were tortured as well as prisoners...'

We can see from the above why one would think both Rome and the Church of England had both fallen away. The only sane reasons for breaking with Rome would be: Rome is not the True Church: Rome leads souls to hell. And yet the Church of England under Henry, Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., Charles II. etc., might not have been an improvement over Rome. If one rejects Rome because Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, then one has to make sure that one doesn't join a new Church which has also fallen away.

Sir Winston Churchill writes of England's King Edward II. in `The Birth of Britain':

`In 1324 Charles IV of France took advantage of a dispute in Gascony to seize the duchy, except for a costal strip. Edward's wife, Isabella, "the she-wolf of France," who was disgusted by his passion for Hugh Despenser, suggested that she go over to France to negotiate with her brother Charles about the restoration of Gascony. There she became the lover and confederate of the exiled Mortimer. She now hit on the stroke of having her son, Prince Edward, sent over from England to do homage for Gascony. As soon as the fourteen-year-old prince, who as heir to the throne could be used to legitimize opposition to King Edward, was in her possession she and Mortimer staged an invasion of England at the head of a large ban of exiles. So unpopular and precarious was Edward's Government that Isabella's triumph was swift and complete...The end was a holocaust...the Dispenders were seized and hanged. For the King a more terrible death was reserved. He was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle, and there by hideous methods, which left no mark upon his skin, was slaughtered. His screams as his bowels were burnt out by red-hot irons passed into his body were heard outside the prison walls, and awoke grim echoes which were long unstilled.'

Apropos of the reasons for Edward II.'s unpopularity in England, and possible reasons for his gruesome death, see Derek Wilson's `The Tower.' Edward, capitulating to pressure from the pope, brought the Inquisition into England.

Anyone who understands the true history of the Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor and Stuart dynasties understands that the idea that these monarchs were good Christians is a preposterous idea. Michelet told us that William's son, Beauclerc, Henry I., tore out the eyes of his brother Robert, and turned his grand-daughters over to a noblemen who would tear their eyes out. `From the devil we sprang and to the devil we shall go,' was Richard I.'s assessment of his Plantagenet family. The amount of blood and gore that William the Conqueror poured out upon the earth, with the blessing of the Pope, to conquer and subdue England is of Nazi proportions. King John made himself obnoxious by torturing Jews to extort money from them, by selling England to the papacy to subdue his rebellious nobles, by raping high-born daughters of the realm etc., etc. He is said to have `bathed once a year whether he needed to or not.' English Christians were very wise to renounce Rome if Rome leads souls to perdition, if rome is not the church which Christ founded on a rock. But is the Church founded by the vile Henry VIII. the Church which Christ founded on a rock? Does the Church of England lead souls to heaven and lead no one to perdition?

Apropos of later dynasties, the `Encyclopedia Britannica' (1963) informs us in its article on William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, that as late as 1884 no fewer than 600 of Booth's followers were sent to prison in England for the crime of preaching the gospel.

We read in the Encyclopedia Britannica (1963), in its article ENGLAND, CHURCH of,

`12. Canon Law Revision. In the mid-20th century the convocations undertook a revision of canon law, a task which arouses little enthusiasm. It is however important that the church should have an up-to-date set of laws to regulate its life and practice, provided they are reasonably flexible without permitting chaos.'

Yes, it's always good to try to keep chaos out of a set of laws which aspire to be the Divine Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34! The Britannica states,

`Members of the Church of England at the Reformation...have usually held the fundamentals of Reformation doctrine, such as the proposition that "all things necessary for salvation" are in the Bible...The papal jurisdiction was abolished by Henry VIII and his parliament in the Act of Restraint of Appeals (1533) and the Supremacy act (1534)...When Elizabeth I became queen in 1558 many English Protestants who had sought refuge upon the continent came flooding back; and the fight against Catholic Spain which culminated in the Spanish Armada of 1588, the knowledge that Catholic plotters were conspiring against the queen's life, and the excommunication of the queen by Pope Pius V in 1570 finally identified Protestantism with patriotism in the minds of many Englishmen. John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, first published in England in 1563, was chained to the desks of parish churches and kept alive the memory of Protestant courage and Catholic persecution. It is impossible to understand the Church of England without recognizing the importance of this epoch in which England's survival seemed to depend upon resistance to Roman Catholicism...Edward VI's second Prayer Book of 1552, of which Cranmer had been the architect, was restored in 1559...and this was the book which, with a few more alterations...was re-established in 1662 and remains the only lawful Prayer Book of the Church of England...there were formally approved, by both parliament and convocation, the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571. These are a revision of earlier articles first published in 1533, and, with the addition of a preface by Charles I in 1628, remains the only formal dogmatic statement approved by the Church of England. All ordained clergy are required to subscribe to them. The most important of the doctrines they seek to impose is the doctrine of justification by faith...They also declare that all things necessary for salvation are to be found in the Scriptures. The official formularies of the Church of England are thus to be found (1) in the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571, and (2) in the book of Common Prayer, 1662.'

If Rome fell away, perhaps the Church of England did also, and for similar reasons. Lord Acton told us in his essay `Human Sacrifice',

`And yet, long after the last victim had fallen in honour of the sun-god of the Aztecs, the civilised nations of Christian Europe continued to wage wholesale destruction...Protestants and Catholics, clergy and laity, vied with each other for two hundred years to provide victims, and every refinement of legal ingenuity and torture was used in order to increase their number. In 1591, at Nördligen, a girl was tortured twenty-three times before she confessed...Three years later, in the same town, a woman suffered torture fifty-six times without confessing she was a witch...In the north of Italy, the great jurist Alciatus saw 100 witches burnt on one day...In England alone, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, the victims of this superstition amounted to 30,000. Yet, from the appearance of Spee's Cautio in 1631 to the burning of the last witch in 1783, all sensible men were persuaded that the victims were innocent of the crime for which they suffered intolerable torments and an agonizing death. But those who hunted them out with cunning perseverance, and the inflexible judges who never spared their lives, firmly believed that their execution was pleasing in the sight of God, and that their sin could not be forgiven by men.

Bernard O'Donnel writes in `The Old Bailey and its Trials', (Clerke & Cockeran, 1950)

`The Old Bailey! What visions its name conjures up of famous trials; of great figures who have moved across the pages of history...it is difficult to realise that only some eighty years ago (1868) people were publicly hanged in the street on a spot almost immediately outside the present main entrance. As late as 1833, a boy of nine was sentenced to death in the old Sessions House for stealing twopennyworth of hard paint. The commutation of this youthful felon's sentence to one of being sent to a penitentiary was looked upon as an act of clemency...high officials of the gaol gave "hanging breakfasts" to their friends and City officers. One Governor, who gave these feasts regularly, used to have his young daughter to act as hostess for him...After the execution, the "breakfast" was served in the special dining hall of the prison...the felons dangled at the ends of their respective ropes, awaiting the pleasure of the Governor and his guests. During this wait they would be stoned, and pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables, by the surging mob who rioted in the street of Old Bailey..some of the onlookers were crushed to death in their sensation-seeking quest...Even as late as 1807 twenty-eight people met such a fate within a few yards of the gallows...Mr W. Eden Hooper, in his book History of Newgate and the Old Bailey, relates how "it was no uncommon thing for judges to return to the bench and pass sentence of death while under the influence of wine, the chaplain or "ordinary" as he was then called, standing by in the same condition..."...As late as 1829 prisoners were transported for life for stealing an apron or a piece of bacon...The use of torture to secure a confession ceased in 1640. At least, this is the year of the last recorded instance in England. But long after that date there was a painful and sometimes fatal practice applied to persuade prisoners to plead to the indictment against them. This was the Peine Forte et Dure, more commonly known as pressing to death. The statuary basis of the punishment is to be found in an Act of Edward I, dated 1275, and this Act continued in force until the end of Queen Anne's reign, and probably a little later. In 1293 a certain bailiff of one of the "hundreds', who had refused to "put himself upon the inquest" (in other words, plead) in connection with the over hasty hanging of thirteen persons for the murder of some Dutch sailors, was sentenced to prison...he was to lie upon the naked ground, and be loaded with iron...until he should make his submission...Pressing to death for refusing to plead was abandoned some time during the 18th century...Under the Tudors and Stuarts it was the custom to make jurors answer for their verdict before the King's Council, and at one time they were liable to fine or imprisonment by the Star Chamber. Even after the abolition of the Star Chamber the Crown made use of the judges to intimidate juries...Drunkenness, gaming, profligacy of the vilest sort went forward in the prison...Children were born in this cesspool of vice, if one died, the stinking rags were torn from his body to cover another yet living. A condemned woman would be haled off to the gallows with perhaps a child at her breast and two or three others clinging to her skirt. The Keeper would charge a fee for supplying water. Prisoners were manacled night and day - unless they could afford to pay the regular fee to the Keeper to have their irons struck off. Prisoners acquitted in open court were dragged back into prison because they were unable to pay the Keeper's illegal fees. All sorts of levies were made by the officers of the prison from the Keeper down to the lowest hireling...Then there was the "cellarman", one of the privileged prisoners - most likely a toady of the Keeper - who was allowed to sell candles at his own price. And woe betide the prisoner who, awaiting trial or serving his first sentence, did not take advantage of these opportunities to hand over as much money as he could...Lunatics raved up and down the wards, the butt of callous wretches...Men and women condemned to be hanged mixed freely with the other prisoners...There was a more profligate side to old Newgate Gaol known as the Press Yard or Castle, where felons and prisoners of state who were rich enough to pay for more luxurious accommodation...Major John Bernhardi, for example, who was imprisoned in Newgate for forty years without trial, was married in Newgate to a woman who bore him ten children...It is not until we come to the 16th century that we have a more or less continuous record of the savage punishments meted out with lavish hand to wrongdoers. Nearly every form of theft carried the death penalty. If a man dared to suggest that a person holding an official post had been guilty of some judicial error or of speaking other than the truth, he was punished with the pillory or the whipping post, and possibly branded with a hot iron for good measure...It is estimated that during the reign of Henry VIII no fewer than 72,000 of his subjects were executed up and down the country. As for the refinements of cruelty in Henry's reign, it is only necessary to recall that in 1530 began the practice of boiling convicted prisoners to death...Henry VIII, as fickle in his religion as in love, kept the gallows at Tyburn busy and the fires of Smithfield continually ablaze with the victims of his religious persecution. In 1533 he had no fewer than 27 "heretics" burnt to death...One cannot pass from this age without reference to a trial at the Old Bailey in connection with the conspiracy to murder Queen Elizabeth and place Mary Queen of Scots on the Throne. Many were the victims of this conspiracy. Men of wealth and position were charged with plotting to assassinate Elizabeth, attempting to deliver Mary Stuart out of custody, procuring foreign enemies to invade the realm, and inciting an insurrection to join the enemy...Seven of the unhappy victims were cut down before they were dead. "Their Bowels were taken out with unusual Cruelty," says Camden. On the morrow, when six other conspirators were taken to St. Giles Fields, Elizabeth ordered that "These shall have more mercy shewed them," and accordingly they were suffered to hang till they were dead before being disembowelled...Jack Ketch's callous brutality in the exercise of his office earned him such opprobrium that for years after his death succeeding hangmen were nicknamed "Jack Ketch". Perhaps it was too much to expect a man to be good at hanging as well as beheading, not to mention the minor accomplishments of drawing and quartering, and impaling traitors' heads upon poles. There were other duties, such as branding with a hot iron, ear-cropping, nose-slitting, whipping at the cart-tail..."Hangman, I charge you pay particular attention to this lady. Scourge her soundly man; scourge her till the blood runs down. It is Christmas \- a cold time for a madam to strip. See that you warm her shoulders thoroughly." Those words were uttered by Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, the handsome but sadistic judge of the "Bloody Assizes"...Mary Jones was her name - no relation to the Mary Jones in the Brownrigg case. She was a good wife and mother, nor was there anything base about her previous history. She was happily married, the proud mother of two children...But her enjoyment of life was short-lived; one day the press-gang rounded up her husband and carried him off as an unwilling recruit for the navy. Mary found herself in sore straits, having to fend for her two infants. The furniture of her home went to buy food for them; they had no bed on which to lie, and on a cold October day in 1771, with her children ill-clad against the weather, Mary fell to temptation and stole. Had she been a regular thief she might have escaped detection. But Mary was unlucky. She was caught, and appeared before judges and jury at the Old Bailey. She did not try to mislead the jury, but told them the plain facts of her crime. "I have been a very honest woman in my lifetime," she told the Court in a quiet, proud voice. "I have two children, and I have worked hard to maintain them since my husband was pressed."...The jury found her Guilty. There was no recommendation to mercy, nor any sign of that quality in the heart of the Recorder who sentenced her to death. It seems extraordinary that the jury could have remained unmoved by the story of Mary Jones and that the two judges who presided at her trial failed to exercise their discretion by awarding an adequate sentence without sending this young mother to her doom. Small wonder that, in the frenzy of agony which seized her as she realised that she was to be torn from her children, Mary gave vent to her feelings and cursed both jury and judges as a lot of "old fogrums". Her neighbours, from Red Lion Street, Whitechapel, signed a petition beseeching the authorities to grant her a reprieve so that she should not be parted from her two babes. But no. She had behaved with "indecency". Had called the court "old fogrums", so she must die at Tyburn. When she entered the cart for her last earthly journey she carried her youngest child at her breast. The other poor mite was handed over to the authorities...Mary Jones met her death with amazing fortitude....The unholy processions from Newgate to Tyburn, of those unhappy souls doomed to perish at the hands of the hangman, were stopped. For some 600 years these processions, had been a feature of our city life, and there is no question of their popularity, but on the morning of November 7, 1783, the last hanging at Tyburn took place...Lest it be thought that the transfer of executions from Tyburn to Newgate was due to any humanitarian scruples - such as shortening the journey for the doomed - let me hasten to explain that the change was for other reasons. The homes of the "quality" were beginning to spread out from the City confines toward Tyburn; and the occupants were anxious that their seclusion and exclusiveness should not be trespassed upon by hordes of drunken revellers embarked on their all-night wait for the morning's execution, nor their sight offended by the spectacle of gibbets on their doorstep. There were those who decried the shifting of the scene, so to speak; among them none other than the redoubtable Dr. Johnson, who complained: "The age is running mad after innovation. All the business of the world is to be done away with. Tyburn itself is not safe from the fury of innovation. No, Sir! It is not an improvement; they object that the old method drew a number of spectators. Sir, executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw spectators, they don't answer their purposes."...in 1807, it was the throng of drink-maddened onlookers who suffered death and disaster at an execution...a crowd of some 80,000 surged into Old Bailey, and even before the prisoners appeared on the scaffold several women were trampled to death. There followed scenes of unparalleled pandemonium; the people were wild with rage and fear; some clambered on to a cart which broke down beneath their weight...In all, twenty-eight people were killed in the scrimmage, and over seventy suffered grave injuries...In 1810...debtors were prohibited from having their wives and families to live with them in Newgate; but there was still no restraint on the number of visitors who could enter the prison...I have mentioned Elizabeth Fry, the great woman reformer who devoted her life to penal reform..She has left her records of what she saw when she visited Newgate in 1816. She found the inner yard, which abutted on to the street, filled with a struggling mass of half-nude women whose clothes had either fallen off them, or been torn from their skinny bodies in the fight to get near the railings. Here they held out long sticks with spoons attached to the ends, beseeching passers-by to give them money. W. Eden Hooper, in his work on Newgate, describes in graphic detail these hopeless human derelicts: "Many of them were mad drunk, others sat about the stones, squalid and ferocious. They all dragged heavy leg-irons about with them, riveted to the knees and again to their ankles, being unable to pay for `easement'. In the wards they slept on the floor, many nearly naked; weak from want of food, savage from drink, unsexed and useless." Those where the women whom Elizabeth Fry sought to succour, and succour them she did. As Hooper says, "Steadily persisting in the task she had set out to perform, this humane woman quickly brought about an entire change in the habits and persons of her fallen sisters...She wooed the women through their innocent offspring...In 1817 she formed a school for the children and the younger criminals." She and her band of fellow-workers almost lived among the prisoners...When Mrs Fry approached members of the City Corporation to have the prison cleaned up, she was told that it was "useless to attempt to reform such untamed and turbulent spirits except by punishment."...Dickens was horrified at what he saw during that long night. In a letter to the Times written the next day, he said: `I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the crowd collected at the execution this morning, could be imagined by no man, and could be presented in no heathen land under the sun...When I came upon the scene at midnight, the shrilling of the cries and howls which were raised from time to time, denoting that they came from boys and girls assembled in the best places, made my blood run cold...When the day dawned, thieves, low prostitutes, ruffians and vagabonds of every kind, flocked to the ground with every variety of offensive and foul behavior...When the two miserable creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight about them were turned quivering into the air, there was no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, no more restraint of any of the previous obscenities, than if the name of Christ had never been heard in this world, and there were no belief among men but that they perished like beasts...I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compass of time, could work such ruin as one public execution, and I stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits."

Notice how odd, and contradictory, are these 39 Articles of the Church of England. Article 4 says that Jesus took His body, with flesh and bones to heaven. Article 1 says `God is without body, parts, or passions,' and yet it says that the Son is part of the Trinity. The Son is God, as is the Father and Holy Spirit. Article 4 says Jesus (God) took His body, with flesh and bones to heaven. Article 1 says God is without body, parts, or passions.

And what does this mean that God is without passions? Malachi 1. 2-3: `I have loved you, saith the LORD...yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau...' How does the Church of England define the word `passions?'

`Article 23. Of Ministering in the Congregation.

It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's vineyard.'

This would seem to say - it's not terribly clear - that the Church of England says that it is unlawful for anyone outside of the Church of England to preach the gospel. If the Church of England is the True Church, the Church that Christ founded upon a rock, then everyone must obey Article 23. But if the Church of England is not the True Church...

Recall that it is anti-Christian to reject John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Matthew 16. 13-19, Ephesians 4. 4, Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, 2 Thess 1. 8, 2 Thess 2 etc. There scriptures tell us there is a True Church and a True Faith. Therefore it is anti-Christian to say there is no True Church and no True Faith.

Under Article 37 of the Church of England's 39 Articles we see that the Civil Magistrate has supreme authority in waging war, in wielding the temporal sword.

If indeed the Church of England is the True Church, if she leads souls to heaven and never leads anyone to perdition, then, should the British Monarch, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister determine that they want to rebuild the British Empire, and should the British Monarch, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister decide to go re-conquer former Crown possessions in France, Canada, the USA, India etc., then these nations must surrender to the British. If the Church of England is God's True Church, how could it ever be rational to rebel against God's True Church? Of course if the Church of England is not God's True Church then this changes things.

If Rome had fallen away from the True Faith, then one might believe the slave-trading, bear-baiting, Irish-killing, Scot-tormenting, Puritan-persecuting, Quaker-hunting Church of England also fell away from the True Faith. If there was justification for breaking with Rome, because she was indeed too far damned to be redeemed, then it was right to break with Rome, but it was all wrong to follow after Old Grease Stain when one decamped from Rome.

Apropos of more evidence saying Rome had fallen away from the True Faith, G. A. Williamson writes in his compendium of `Foxe's Book of Martyrs' (Little, Brown and Company, 1965),

"It is hard for our generation to imagine a time when men, and women too, could be tortured and burnt at the stake for denying the metaphysical doctrine of transubstantiation, for possessing a New Testament, for saying the Lord's Prayer in English, for inscribing a text on a tavern wall, for inattendance at church, for eating flesh on a Friday...In those days Papists and Protestants were bitterly opposed...Simon Fish has some pungent things to say about `strong, puissant, and counterfeit holy and idle beggars'. "They are", he said, "ravenous wolves going in sheep's clothing, devouring the flock: bishops, abbots, priors, deacons, archdeacons, suffragans, priests, monks, friars, pardoners, and sumners. Who is able to number this idle, ravenous sort, that setting all labour aside have begged so importunately that they have gotten into their hands more than the third part of all your realm? The goodliest lordships, manors, lands, and territories are theirs. They have the tenth part of all corn, meadows, pasture, grass, woods, colts, calves, lambs, pigs, geese, and chickens. Over and besides, the tenth part of every servant's wages, the tenth part of wool, milk, honey, wax, cheese, and butter; yea, the poor wives must be countable to them of every tenth egg, or else she shall be taken as an heretic. What money they pull in by probates of testaments, privy-tithes, and by men's offerings to their pilgrimages and at their first masses! Every man and child that is buried must pay for masses and dirges to be sung for him, or else they will accuse the executors of heresy. What money they get by mortuaries, by hearing of confessions, by hallowing of churches, altars, superaltars, chapels, and bells, by cursing men and absolving them again for money"....As Henry IV, the deposer of King Richard, was the first of the English kings that began the unmerciful burning of Christ's saints for standing against the Pope; so was William Sautre, the faithful martyr of Christ, the first to be burned in the reign of the foresaid king, which was the year of our Lord 1400...The king after shedding so much blood seeing himself so hardly beloved of subjects, thought to keep in with the clergy and with the Bishop of Rome; and therefore was compelled in all things to serve their humour...John Badby, still persevering in his constancy unto the death...was bound with iron chains fastened to the stake, having dry wood put about him...Thus the poor Christians were oppressed in every place, but especially here in England, because the king went whole with the Pope against the Gospellers......for the queen would have Cranmer a Catholic or no Cranmer at all...Then Cranmer being pulled down from the stage was led to the fire, accompanied with those friars, vexing and threatening him most cruelly. "What madness," say they, "hath brought thee again into this error, by which thou wilt draw innumerable souls with thee into hell?"...Then was an iron chain tied about Cranmer...When the wood was kindled and the fire began to burn near him, stretching out his arm he put his right hand into the flame, which he held so immoveable (saving that once with the same hand he wiped his face) that all men might see his hand burned before his body was touched. His body did so abide the burning of the flame with such constance that, standing always in the same place without moving his body, he seemed to move no more than the stake to which he was bound...and using often the words of Steven, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," in the greatness of the flame he gave up the ghost...Amongst all and singular histories touched in this book before, as there be many pitiful, divers lamentable, some horrible and tragical, so there is none either in cruelty to be compared, or so far off from all compassion and humanity, as this merciless fact of the Papists done in the Isle of Garnsey upon three women and an infant, whose names be these - Katherine Cawches, the mother; Guillemine Gilbert, the daughter; Perrotine Massey, the other daughter; an infant, son of Perrotine...The time being come when the innocent mother with her two daughters should suffer, in the place where they should consummate their martyrdom were three stakes set up...Perrotine, who was great with child, did fall on her side, where happened a rueful sight, not only to the eyes of all that stood, but also to the ears of true-hearted Christians that shall read this history. For as the belly of the woman brast asunder by the vehemence of the flame, the infant, a fair man child, fell into the fire, and being taken out of the fire by one W. House was laid on the grass. Then was the child had to the provost, and from him to the baliff, who gave censure that it should be carried back again and cast into the fire. And so the infant baptised in his own blood, to fill up the number of God's innocent saints was both born and died a martyr, leaving behind to the world, which it never saw, a spectacle wherein the whole world may see the Herodian cruelty of this graceless generation of Catholic tormentors, ad perpetuam rei infamiam.'

Chapter 10 - Eastern Orthodoxy

In R. W. Southern's `The Making of the Middle Ages' (Yale, 1953, p. 180) we find an epitome of Aristotle's philosophy of categories, a philosophy which had enormous influence upon the intelligentsia of the Middle Ages. The medieval philosopher subdued the wilderness of confusion by striving for clarity, coherence and compartmentalization. The logician learned to put objects into categories; he pigeon-holed things according to their genus, species, differentia, property and accident. He learned to categorize an object's properties according to its Quality, Quantity, Relation to other objects, Position, Place, Time, State, Action and Affection.

If we apply Jeremiah and Aristotle to the Greek Church - also known as Eastern Orthodoxy - we see that we must make every attempt to try to classify Eastern Orthodoxy as a simple creed, something concise enough to be inscribed on a human heart, to recall Jeremiah 31. 31-34. What does Eastern Orthodoxy teach? Are there Cafeteria Eastern Orthodox believers, people who mustn't be lumped into the same category with Orthodox Eastern Orthodox believers? Are there any people who remain in the Eastern Orthodox Church though they reject one or more official doctrines of the Eastern Orthodox Church?

The canons from the seven Ecumenical Councils are asserted by the Eastern Orthodox Church to be infallible and irrevocable. Bishop Kallistos Ware, in his volume `The Orthodox Church' (New Edition, pp., 202, 252, Penguin, 1997), is quite clear on this matter.

Bishop Ware states the Orthodox Bishops are the authority of the Church, p. 250, orthodoxy being defined as acceptance of the Ecumenical Councils.

He states, p. 251, that non-Ecumenical Councils can err, as can bishops.

On p. 251 he states that the guardian of the faith is comprised of the people of God - the bishops, clergy, and laity together.
On p. 247 he states that one must be in the Church to be saved.

And who is in the Church? We are informed, pp. 247-8, that there is the visible Church and there is the invisible Church. By no means is everyone in the visible Church actually in the Church. Bishop Ware quotes St. Augustine: `so many sheep outside, so many wolves within!' As to who is in the invisible Church - the True Church - only Gods knows for sure, p. 248.

Canon iii of I Constantinople (381) informs us that the Bishop of Constantinople is second in honor only to the Bishop of Rome. Canon xxviii from the Council of Chalcedon (451) asserts that the Bishop of Constantinople has the same religious authority as the Bishop of Rome, holding second place in other matters.

Roman Catholics have always had some difficulty explaining canon xxviii of Chalcedon, but Rome like Eastern Orthodoxy enshrines the canons of the Councils in Divine Law. The Eastern Orthodox, evidently, believe it is the Eastern Orthodox Bishop of Rome, certainly not the Roman Catholic Bishop of Rome, who holds this exalted office described in canon xxviii of Chalcedon. And Rome, evidently, believes it is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Constantinople who is the second most exalted Bishop in the world. Would most Eastern Orthodox believers know the name of the man who currently holds the office of Eastern Orthodox Bishop of Rome? Wikipedia tells us there is an Eastern Orthodox Archbishop of Italy. And it tells us that Gabriel of Komana is the Eastern Orthodox Archbishop of Western Europe. I'm not finding an Eastern Orthodox Bishop of Rome. Has Gabriel of Komana inherited St. Peter's authority to bind and loose? Is he the supreme leader on earth of the Church which Christ founded upon a rock? If we were to assume that the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then the governments of Russia, Serbia, Greece (and every other government on earth) are merely the servants of the Patriarch. Modern people have become confused in thinking politics and religion are divorced from each other. When Jesus said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, or when John the Baptist called some people a brood of vipers because they had two tunics and they didn't give one to the poor, or when Paul said that one who does not work should not eat either, they were making both religious and political pronouncements. It is all very simple: if the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then God wants everyone on earth to obey this Church - such as when she makes pronouncement on matters pertaining to religion and politics. And who is the supreme leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church? It would be the Emperor in Constantinople, but there doesn't seem to be one of these anymore. Who's next in line? That would be the Eastern Orthodox Bishop of Rome. But there doesn't seem to be one of these either. Who's next? Who's the supreme leader on earth of the Eastern Orthodox Church? That would be the Patriarch, unless the Eastern Orthodox Bishop of Italy, or the Eastern Orthodox Bishop of Western Europe wanted to assert that he has inherited the authority given to the Bishop of Rome mentioned in Canon iii of I Constantinople and Canon xxviii from the Council of Chalcedon, all of which might require another Council to sort out.

When we speak of Catholics we generally mean Roman Catholics, and a Roman Catholic is a person who believes the Roman Catholic Bishop of Rome, the Pope, and the Bishops who are in communion with the Pope, are the true leaders on earth of the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. For centuries Christians in Antioch, Rome, Jerusalem, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Germany, Britain, Asia etc. simply called themselves Catholics. But the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church had a divorce in 1054 AD, and, then, the dominant Christian religion in Asia Minor, Russia, Greece and Serbia became Eastern Orthodoxy.

Has Eastern Orthodoxy fallen away from the True Faith? As we saw earlier, apropos of 2 Thess 2 and the falling away, J. B. Bury states in History of the Later Roman Empire (vol. i. p. 12) that the Catholic emperors in Constantinople, following the example of the pagan Emperors, took the epithets `sacred' and `divine' and insisted that these be applied to themselves. Bury writes, p. 15:

`The oriental conception of divine royalty is now formally expressed in the diadem; and it affects all that pertains to the Emperor. His person is divine; all that belongs to him is "sacred." Those who come into his presence perform the act of adoration; they kneel down and kiss the purple.'

So you can see why Protestants would say that a church which worships human beings can never be the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. This judgment applies to both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy, or at least it applied when the blasphemy was being committed, because both of these churches, at the time they were worshipping human beings, were united and were simply called `The Catholic Church'.

Aside from worshipping human beings, and aside from bowing down before ikons, the strongest evidence saying the Eastern Orthodox Church fell away from the True Faith is the evidence saying the Eastern Orthodox Church gave her blessing to evil laws for century after century. Recall the cruel punishments under the Justinian Code: there were prolonged tortures given to homosexuals along with torture and death given to those who disagreed with Justinian's religious beliefs; the Justinian Code includes punishments where people's eyes are gouged out, where hands are chopped off for writing religious ideas which conflict with the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Justinian Code established one set of laws for the rich and another set for the poor. The testimony of Jews was disregarded under the Justinian Code. The clergy of the Eastern Orthodox Church gave her blessing to these evil laws for century after century, and laymen in the Eastern Orthodox Church inflicted the evil laws on people for century after century.

The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church went their separate ways in the 11th century in large measure because of the Filoque controversy. The Roman Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; the Eastern Orthodox believe the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father. Scripture is clearly on the Roman Catholic side. We read in John 20. 22,

`And when He [Jesus] had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them; "Receive the Holy Spirit..."'

The Canons of the Ecumenical Councils make for difficult reading. They begin lively enough - the first canon tells us that if you castrate yourself then you have also disqualified yourself from the clergy, which of course has no basis in Christ's sayings. One might find a precedent for it in the Old Testament but not everything in the Old Law conforms to the New Law! And not all of the other canons are as fascinating as the first canon. From the Second Council of Constantinople (553 AD) we find very lively prose in the Sentence against the "Three Chapters." The New Law is supposed to be something which even the least of God's people can understand, recall Jeremiah 31. 34, but in the 4th anathema against the "Three Chapters" of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret and Ibas, the prose becomes a little difficult to follow,

`If anyone declares that it was only in respect of grace, or of principle of action, or of dignity or in respect of equality of honour, or in respect of authority, or of some relation, or of some affection or power that there was a unity made between the Word of God and the man, or if anyone alleges that it is in respect of good will, as if God the Word was pleased with the man, because he was well and properly disposed to God, as Theodore claims in his madness; or if anyone says that this union is only a sort of synonymity, as the Nestorians allege, who call the Word of God Jesus and Christ, and even designate the human separately by the names "Christ" and "Son", discussing quite obviously two different persons, and only pretending to speak of one person and one Christ when the reference is to its title, honour, dignity or adoration; finally if anyone does not accept the teaching of the holy fathers that the union occurred of the Word of God with human flesh which is possessed by a rational and intellectual soul, and that this union is by synthesis or by person, and that therefore there is only one person, namely the lord Jesus Christ, one member of the holy Trinity: let him be anathema. The notion of "union" can be understood in many different ways. The supporters of the wickedness of Apollinarius and Eutyches have asserted that the union is produced by a confusing of the uniting elements, as they advocate the disappearance of the elements that unite. Those who follow Theodore and Nestorius, rejoicing in the division, have brought in a union which is only by affection. The holy church of God, rejecting the wickedness of both sorts of heresy, states her belief in a union between the Word of God and human flesh which is by synthesis, that is by a union of subsistence. In the mystery of Christ the union of synthesis not only conserves without confusing the elements that come together but also allows no division.'

One might imagine a conclave of Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants, a Council between clergymen who agreed that, 1) God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, 2) the sign of the cross is sacred, and 3) there is a True Church and a New Law. The Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox would walk out of that meeting if Rome was to insist that Rome and only Rome is the True Church: all others are of Satan. And one can imagine the Protestants becoming a little disgruntled when both Rome and Eastern Orthodox insist that those who reject the 4th anathema against the "Three Chapters" of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret and Ibas are anathema. To this day it is still recognized by both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy as Divine Law.

In the Dark Ages, Catholic priests and bishops asserted that God punished the unbaptized infants and toddlers, because, though God is merciful, God is also just, and justice demands that all of the unbaptized suffer in hell. And of course those people who worship a God who tortures the souls of little children do not worship the same God as the people who worship a God who does not torture the souls of little children.

As with such as Capistrano, Borromeo, Lious IX. and Pius V., Eastern Orthodoxy has some controversial saints, such as Irene, Constantine and Justinian. The Empress Irene had the eyes of her own son stabbed out so that she could retain the throne of Constantinople. The reign of Justinian was filled with torture and death inflicted on people for the crime of disagreeing with Justinian's doctrines. Again, Bury writes in `History of the Later Roman Empire' (Macmillan and Co., 1923),

"Justinian took his responsibilities as head of the Church more seriously than any Emperor had hitherto done, and asserted his authority in its internal affairs more constantly...It was his object to identify the Church and State more intimately, to blend them, as it were, into a single organism, of which he was himself the controlling brain...He determined `to close all the roads which lead to error and to place religion on the firm foundations of a single faith,' and for this purpose he made orthodoxy a requisite condition of citizenship. He declared that he considered himself responsible for the welfare of his subjects, and therefore, above all, for securing the salvation of their souls; from this he deduced the necessity of intolerance toward heterodox opinions. It was the principle of the Inquisition...It has been observed that his legislation `became in the Byzantine Empire the true foundation of monastic institutions'...It is noteworthy that the sect of the Montanists in Phrygia was singled out for particularly severe treatment. But the penalty of death was inflicted only on two classes, the Manichaeans, whom the government had always regarded as the worst enemies of humanity, and heretics, who, having been converted to the true creed, relapsed into errors. Perhaps these severe laws were not executed thoroughly or consistently, but we have a contemporary account of a cruel persecution of Manichaeans, which occurred perhaps about A.D. 545. Many people adhered to the deadly error of the Manichaeans. They used to meet in houses and hear mysteries of that impure doctrine. When they were arrested, they were taken into the presence of the Emperor who hoped to convert them. He disputed with them but could not convince them. With Satanic obstinacy they cried fearlessly that they were ready to face the stake for the religion of Manes and to suffer every torture. The Emperor commanded that their desire should be accomplished. They were burned on the sea that they might be buried in the waves, and their property was confiscated. There were among them illustrious women, nobles, and senators. The most important of the heretical sects, the Monophysites, were hardly affected by the general laws against heretics. Their numbers and influence in Egypt and Syria would have rendered it impossible to inflict upon them the disabilities which the laws imposed on heretics generally, and they were protected by the favor of the Empress...The Jews and Samaritans were subject to the same disabilities as heretics. This severity was followed by the destruction of the Samaritan synagogues, and a dangerous revolt broke out in Samaria in the summer of A. D. 529. Christians were massacred; a brigand named Julian was proclaimed Emperor; and the rising was bloodily suppressed...The criminal law of the Empire, which was chiefly based on the legislation of Sulla, Pompey, and Augustus, had been little altered or developed under the Principate; and the Cornelian laws on murder and forgery, the Pompeian law on parricide, the Julian laws on treason, adultery, violence, and peculation, were still the foundation of the law which was in force in the reign of Justinian. Such minor changes as had been made before the reign of Constantine were generally in the direction of increased severity. This tendency became more pronounced under the Christian Emperors. Two fundamental changes were introduced by these rulers by the addition of two new items to the list of public crimes, seduction and heresy; but in those domains of crime which we would consider the gravest there were no important changes...In contrast with this conservatism, a new spirit animated Constantine and his successors in their legislation on sexual offenses, and the inhuman rigour of the laws by which they attempt to suppress sexual immorality amazes a modern reader of the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian...The savage legislator Theodosius I. prohibited the marriage of first cousins, and decreed that for those who were guilty of this or any other forbidden alliances, the penalty of being burned alive and the confiscation of their property...The abduction of a female for immoral purposes, if not accompanied by violence, was, under the Principate, regarded as a private injury which entitled the father or husband to bring an action. Constantine made the abduction of women a public crime of the most heinous kind, to be punished by death in a painful form. The woman, if she consented, was liable to the same penalty as her seducer; if she attempted to resist, the lenient lawgiver only disqualified her from inheriting. If the nurse who was in charge of the girl were proved to have encouraged her to yield to her seducer, molten lead was to be poured into her mouth and throat, to close the aperture through which the wicked suggestions had emanated...Unnatural vice was pursued by the Christian monarchs with the utmost severity. Constantius imposed the death penalty on both culprits, and Theodosius the Great condemned persons guilty of this enormity to death by fire. Justinian...was particularly active and cruel in dealing with this vice...It is recorded that senators and bishops who were found guilty were shamefully mutilated, or exquisitely tortured, and paraded through the streets of the capital before their execution. The disproportion and cruelty of the punishments, which mark the legislation of the autocracy in regard to sexual crimes, and are eminently unworthy of the legal reason of Rome, were due to ecclesiastical influence and the prevalence of extravagant ascetic ideals. That these bloodthirsty laws were in accord with ecclesiastical opinion is shown by the code which a Christian missionary, untrammelled by Roman law, is reported to have imposed on the unfortunate inhabitants of Southern Arabia...Fornication (in Safar) was punished by a hundred stripes, the amputation of the left ear, and confiscation of property. If the crime was committed with a woman who was in the potestas of a man, her left breast was cut off and the male sinner was emasculated. Similar but rather severer penalties were inflicted on adulterers. Procurers were liable to amputation of the tongue. Public singers, harp-players, actors, dancers, were suppressed, and anyone found practicing these acts was punished by a whipping and a year's hard labor...Severe penalties were imposed for failing to inform the public authorities of a neighbor's misconduct. On the ground of St. Paul's dictum that the man is the head of the woman, cruel punishments were meted out to women who ventured to deride men. Perhaps the greatest blot in Roman criminal law under the Empire, judged by modern ideas, was the distinction which it drew, in the apportionment of penalties, between different classes of freemen. There was one law for the rich, and another for the poor. A distinction between honourable and respectable, and the humble or plebian classes were legalised, and different treatment was meted out in punishing criminals according to the class to which they belonged...The general principle, indeed, of this disparity of treatment was the extension of servile punishments to the free proletariat, and it appears also in the use of torture for the extraction of evidence...Next to death, the severest penalty was servitude in the mines for life, or for a limited period. This horrible fate was never inflicted on the better classes. They were punished by deportation to an island, or an oasis in the desert. Mutilation does not appear to have been recognized as a legal penalty under the Principate, but it may sometimes have been resorted to as an extraordinary measure by the express sentence of an Emperor. It first appears in an enactment of Constantine ordaining that the tongue of an informer should be torn out by the root...In the sixth century, mutilation became more common, and Justinian recognises amputation of the hands as a legal punishment in some of his enactments. Tax-collectors who falsify their accounts and persons who copy the writings of Monophysites are threatened with this pain...Amputation of the nose or tongue was frequently practiced, and such penalties afterwards became a leading feature in Byzantine criminal law, and were often inflicted as a mitigation of the death penalty. When these punishments and that of blinding are pointed to as one of the barbarous and repulsive characters of Byzantine civilisation, it should not be forgotten that in the seventeenth century it was still the practice in England to lop off hands and ears."

Constantine, though far more attractive to fair-minded folk than such as Nero, Decius and Galerius, was guilty of multiple murders, and, needless to say, this creates a problem for his canonization, as Christian saints are generally not guilty of multiple murders. His Edict of Milan, which ended the persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire, might be seen by many as being sufficiently momentous and benevolent to justify his canonization, but there are other opinions.

The reader will recall that it was Constantine who, prior the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, saw the vision of the cross in the sky with the words: conquer in this sign. Constantine was converted to Christianity early on but he was baptized very late in his life, and he worshipped both Christ and the Sun before his baptism and perhaps after his baptism as well, thus he is indeed problematical.

Recall Gibbon's words about Constantine,

`The laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since the description of that crime was applied not only to brutal violence which compelled, but even to gentle seduction which might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of her parents. The successful ravisher was punished with death; and as if simple death was inadequate to the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin's declaration that she had been carried away with her own consent, instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves, whether male or female, who were convicted of having been accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity of melted lead.'

Bury writes of Constantine in the `Latter Roman Empire' (vol i., p. 74),

`In the center of the Old Forum, which he laid out on the Second Hill just outside the wall of old Byzantium, he erected a high column with porphyry drums, on top of which he placed a statue of Apollo, the work of an old Greek master, but the head of the god was replaced by his own. It was crowned with a halo of seven rays, and looked towards the rising sun. The column, blackened by time and fire, and injured by earthquakes, still stands, the one monument of the founder which has survived.'

James Harvey Robinson writes in `Medieval and Modern Times' (Ginn & Co, 1931, p. 13) that Constantine, though long before his baptism, on two occasions ordered several thousand German prisoners to be thrown to the wild beasts in the amphithreatre at Treves.

Jacob Burckhardt wrote of Constantine in his `The Age of Constantine the Great' (Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1949 translated from the German by Moses Hadas):

`To pass for a Christian would, indeed, have been a great presumption on his part. Not long after the Council of Nicaea he suddenly had Crispus, his excellent son by his first marriage and a pupil of Lactantius, put to death at Pola in Istria (326), and soon thereafter he had his wife Fausta, daughter of Maximian, drowned in her bath. The eleven-year-old Licinianus was also murdered, apparently at the same time as Crispus. Whether Fausta played Phaedra to her stepson, or by what device she maligned him to his father, or whether she was merely concerned for the elevation of her own sons, or whether it were the representations of the aged Helena who bewailed her grandson, that moved Constantine to murder his wife - all these questions may be mooted. But that the horror was not merely a family affair but possessed political implications can be deduced from the fact that Licinianus was included among the victims. In connection with this tale is often made of Philip II and of Peter the Great; but the true parallel is by Suleiman the Magnificent and his noble son Mustafa, who succumbed to the plots of Roxalana. With hereditary rule it was inevitable that sultanism should enter in as its compliment, that is, that rulers should never for an instant feel safe in the midst of brothers, sons, uncles, nephews, and cousins who might one day be in line of succession, unless they were at any moment ready to resort to convenient throttlings and the like. Constantine took the lead; we shall see how his sons followed. These sons, Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans had meanwhile been advanced to the dignity of Caesar. The breed of the Herculians was multiplying claimants for the throne after the father had done away with the mother, the maternal grandfather, the uncle Maxentius, and the stepbrother. The seed of so abundant a curse was destined to grow rank.'

A. H. M. Jones writes in the Britannica (1963) of Constantine,

`Constantine hardly deserves the title of "the Great"....His temper was violent...Still less does he deserve the title of saint, which he holds in the Orthodox Church. His dominating passion was ambition, and he was unscrupulous and ruthless to his rivals...for some years after his conversion he continued to issue coins in honour of "the Unconquered Sun"'.

As Constantine was baptized very late in his life one might say his pre-baptismal sins are the sins of a pagan not a Christian, and, therefore, they are about as relevant to the question of his sainthood as St. Paul's pre-baptismal sins are to his sainthood. Obviously Christians will be more comfortable with those who exhibit an immediate change of behavior after their conversion, such as by no longer worshipping the Sun, but the active life of a Roman emperor is hardly one conducive to contemplation and profound studies in the scriptures, thus some leniency which stops short of condoning murder might be granted to Constantine. Everyone knows that Constantine had supreme authority at the first Ecumenical Council - I. Nicaea, in 325. This is interesting as he wasn't even baptized at the time. No doubt Christians were so relieved that he ended the horrors of the pagan persecutors that they were willing to overlook a few discrepancies. Constantine also championed the doctrine - a doctrine in accordance with scripture - which says the Son is equal to the Father, this being the principle articulation of I. Nicaea.

Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy both teach that one strays into heresy if one denies the doctrine of Dyothelitis, which is a doctrine which was made an article of faith by the Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople (680-681), and which asserts that in Jesus Christ there are two wills, one human and one divine. And one strays into heresy in the eyes of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy if one asserts the doctrine of Monothelitism (Jesus has only one will and this will is divine), and one strays into heresy in the eyes of these creeds if one asserts the doctrine of Monophysitism (Jesus has one nature and this nature is divine).

In `A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church' (Eerdmans, Second Series, XIV.), Schaff and Wace reprinted Gibbon's words on the Seventh Ecumenical Council,

`The decrees were...ratified by...three hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced that the worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the Fathers and councils of the Church...Of this second Nicene Council the acts are still extant; a curious monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly.

Schaff and Wace confirm (p. 551) that the Seventh Ecumenical Council authorized prostration before images of Christ, Mary and the saints.

Is the act of prostrating oneself before the image of a saint the same as worshipping that saint? And what is the denotation of `worship?' If one scrutinizes ones heart it is not easy to discern any difference between love, adoration, and worship. Thus, one might argue, worship is any action which involves prostration, or bending of the knees, before something which one loves or adores. Scripture tells us the devil tempted Jesus by taking Him to the top of the temple, offering Jesus everything He saw if He would worship him, the devil. Jesus refused to worship the devil by refusing to bow before the devil, and of course by refusing to adore him. Protestants generally insist that bowing before an image of a saint, a saint one honors and loves in ones heart, is worship of that saint, in other words, it is idolatry - a transgression of the First Commandment. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors so there's nothing wrong with the love part of the formula - it's the bending of the knees and the prostration part which is the problem. One can search the scriptures from beginning to end and never find an instance of anyone doing right in the sight of the Lord by prostrating himself before an image made by human hands. And yet the Seventh Ecumenical Council, recognized to this day as infallible by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and held to be of the highest authority by the Roman Catholic Church, authorized such idolatry. Canon I. of II. Niceae makes reference to Galatians i: 8 (even an angel from heaven is accursed if he corrupts the gospel of St. Paul). Canon I. also reaffirms all the canons of the six earlier Ecumenical Councils. St. Paul never taught the doctrine that one should pray to saints or pray to the Virgin Mary. He never taught the doctrine that one should or must make images of these people, and bow before these images, and venerate the people they represent. One was to adore only God. One was not to make any images which were to be worshipped or adored: one was to exercise ones abstract faculties and worship the unseen Creator of the universe. St. Paul never taught anything resembling Canon xx of I. Niceae, which forbids Christians to kneel while praying on Sundays or during the days of Pentecost. St. Paul did teach some doctrines which are almost universally ignored even in Fundamentalist Churches, for example, he is clear in stating that many are sick because they partake of the Eucharist in an unworthy manner, and he leads one to think that women who have their heads uncovered when they partake of the Eucharist would be an example of partaking of the Eucharist in an unworthy manner.

Canon ii. of II. Nice states:

`When we recite the psalter, we promise God: "I will meditate upon thy statutes, and will not forget thy words." It is a salutary thing for all Christians to observe this, but it is especially incumbent upon those who have received the sacerdotal dignity. Therefore we decree, that every one who is raised to the rank of the episcopate shall know the psalter by heart...And if his mind be not set, and even glad, so to do and teach, let him not be ordained. For says God by the prophet, "Thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me."

Schaff and Wace gave us the Ancient Epitome of Canon ii.

`Whoever is to be a bishop must know the Psalter by heart: he must thoroughly understand what he reads...the Sacred Canons, the Holy Gospel, the book of the Apostle, and the whole of the Divine Scripture. And should he not have such knowledge, he is not to be ordained.'

A Protestant might argue that ones understanding of scripture is very far from adequate if one believes God wants people to prostrate themselves before images.

Consider Gibbon's sentiments on Eastern Orthodoxy's embrace of Hesychasm, or Quietude, in `History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire':

`The fakirs of India, and the monks of the Oriental church, were alike persuaded, that in total abstraction of the faculties of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice of the monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented in the words of an abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. "When thou art alone in thy cell," says the ascetic teacher, "shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner: raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and thy thought towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel; and search the place of thy heart, the seat of the soul. At first, all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light." This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly was confined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not inquisitive how the divine essence could be a material substance, or how an immaterial substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body...Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in the midst of an uncreated and eternal light; and this beatific vision of the saints had been manifested to the disciples on Mount Thabor, in the transfiguration of Christ.'

Apropos of the falling away of Catholicism / Eastern Orthodoxy from the True Faith, and as we saw earlier, Gibbon wrote about the evil jurisprudence of the Catholic Roman Empire,

`They protected all persons of illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards the prince or republic, all privileges were suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of malicious information, which might select them as accomplices, or even as witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.'

Benson Bobrick wrote a biography of Ivan the Terrible which gives us a portrait of a Christian-Homicidal-Maniac-Emperor. Ivan would torture prisoners one moment, then run off to say his prayers the next. He would commit murders directly after attending divine services. The Orthodox bishops of Ivan's day would have had to summon the courage to excommunicate Ivan - which of course would lead to a cruel martyrdom - but all good Christians ought to be able to understand that their salvation and their damnation hang in the balance, and if one wishes to attain salvation and avoid damnation one must separate oneself from evil and one must not celebrate the Eucharist with homicidal maniacs. Ivan the Terrible was just one of many evil tyrants the Eastern Orthodox Church failed to excommunicate.

The classic condemnation of Byzantine society comes from the pen of William Lecky, who wrote in his `History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne',

`Of that Byzantine empire the universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, with scarcely an exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilisation has yet assumed. Though very cruel and very sensual, there have been times where cruelty assumed more ruthless, and sensuality more extravagant, aspects; but there has been no enduring civilisation so absolutely destitute of all the forms and elements of greatness...The Byzantine empire was pre-eminently the age of treachery...The history of the Empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs, and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude, of perpetual fratricides...'

Gibbon wrote of the Muslim conquest of Constantinople in 1453,

`While they expected the descent of the tardy angel, the doors were broken with axes; and as the Turks encountered no resistance, their bloodless hands were employed in selecting and securing the multitude of their prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the appearance of wealth, attracted their choice...In the space of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the females with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with their slaves; the prelates, with the porters of the church; and young men of the plebian class, with noble maids, whose faces had been invisible to the sun and their nearest kindred. In this common captivity, the ranks of society were confounded; the ties of nature were cut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was careless of the father's groans, the tears of the mother, and the lamentations of the children. The loudest in their wailings were the nuns, who were torn from the altar with naked bosoms, outstretched hands, and disheveled hair; and we should piously believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigils of the harem to those of the monastery...these unfortunate Greeks...At the same hour, a similar rapine was exercised in all the churches and monasteries, in all the palaces and habitations, of the capital...Above sixty thousand of this devoted people were transported to the camp and fleet; exchanged or sold according to the caprice or interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitude through the provinces of the Ottoman empire...his two children, in the flower of youth and beauty, had been seized for the use of Mahomet himself. The daughter of Phranza died in the seraglio, perhaps a virgin: his son, in the fifteenth year of his age, preferred death to infamy, and was stabbed by the hand of the royal lover...In the fall and the sack of great cities, an historian is condemned to repeat the tale of uniform calamity; the same effects must be produced by the same passions; and when those passions may be indulged without control, small, alas! Is the difference between civilized and savage man...The profanation and plunder of the monasteries and churches excited the most tragic complaints. The dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly heaven, the second firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of the glory of God, was despoiled of the oblations of ages; and the gold and silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal ornaments, were most wickedly converted to the service of mankind...Constantinople had been left naked and desolate.'

Chapter 11 - The Falling Away from the Faith under the Sign of the Cross

Apropos of 2 Thess 2 and the falling away, we have some evidence which says that Christians under the sign of the cross fell away from the True Faith. Regarding the Eastern Orthodox persecution of the Jews for century after century, we might look again at Joseph Boyarsky's `The Life and Suffering of the Jew in Russia' (Los Angeles, 1912),

`In the year 987 A. D. the Russians were a wild and savage tribe, settled along the River Dnieper; the main camp being where the city of Kieff now stands. They were idolaters; in some cases offering up human sacrifice. They worshipped an idol, "Peroon."...Vladimir ordered the idol...cast down. Then Vladimir ordered all the population, men, women and children, to go and bathe in the Dnieper, waist deep, and all were baptised. Thenceforth the Russians became Christians...There was no preaching nor converting; the Russians were ordered to become Christians, and they obeyed...Tartars...In the year 1533 Ivan the Fourth, "The Terrible," became Czar of Russia...At the conquest of Polotsk, Ivan the Fourth ordered that all Jews who declined to adopt Christianity should be drowned in the River Duna...Ivan the Fourth amused himself by letting bears loose outside the gate of his palace, and watching the killing and maiming of pedestrians...Maliuta Skuratov was Ivan's evil genius...Ivan the Terrible...as a result of all his crimes, began to see the ghosts of the men he had ordered to be executed...all the household would be awakened by his screams. He would rush to the church...where he would pray very earnestly...knocking his forehead on the stony floor...The next day more executions - then more prayers...It must be remembered that the Russian Church is more progressive now than it was up to the time of Peter the Great, and Nikkon, the Archbishop, who reformed and elevated the service. Peter the Great was marked for assassination by the Russians that adhered to the old views. Those opposed to Nikkon's teachings are called to the present day "Starobriadzi"...I shall never forget an experience I had with one of these fanatics in Southern Russia. When I was a boy about eight years old, I was sent on an errand by my father to deliver a message to a Starobriadetz. Arriving at the Russian's house, I found the door ajar; I shouted, calling his name, but as there was no response, I waited. It was a sultry summer day and I was thirsty. On the table inside of the room I could see a pitcher filled with water, and a glass at its side. Being too thirsty to wait for a response to my knock, I crossed the threshold into the room, filled the glass with water, and drank. I had no sooner tasted the water than I was seized from behind by the collar, the glass was snatched from me, and I heard it fall and break in the yard. The pitcher followed it, with the same result; then I was wheeled about and looked with fear into the savage face of a big bearded Russian who hissed at me, "Thou anti-Christ! Thou Christ-killer! Thou Christ-seller! Thou accursed Jew." And the next thing I knew I was sent sprawling at length into the yard. My offense, from the Russian's standpoint was this: I had not removed my hat when entering the room where in the right corner, were the ikons (images). As a Jew, I had, according to his religious beliefs, defiled his house by entering therein; had defiled the water, the pitcher and the glass; neither he nor his family could use them any more. He had to burn incense to drive out the evil spirit that I had brought into the house. The very spot where I stood had to be scrubbed with hot water...Ivan the Terrible died in 1584, leaving heir to the throne of Russia his son, Feodor, a half-witted young man, who was married to Borys Godunov's sister. This Borys Godunov was a son-in-law of Maliuta Skuratov, executioner during Ivan the Terrible's reign...Because Feodor was half-witted, his wife was supposed to be the ruler, but, in truth, her brother, Borys Godunov, held the reins of government in his hands. Realizing that at the death of his brother-in-law, the half-wit, the boy Dmitri would succeed to the Throne, Borys Godunov set about making his plans to usurp the Throne. To make himself popular with the people, he caused his minions to set fire to Moscow, selecting a windy day. Then riding out to the sufferers, he shed crocodile tears, telling them that he would give money and timber to them to rebuild their homes. One day the boy Dmitri, with his nurse, was taken from the monastery; two men approached them, and while one was speaking to the nurse, the other cut the boy's throat from ear to ear, and fled; the nurse screamed and fainted. Passers-by saw the terrible deed...some chased the murderers...The murderers were overtaken and brought back to the place where the crime was committed. They confessed, but claimed that they had done this deed by order of Borys Godunov. The murderers were torn limb from limb by the populace. The news of the murder of Dmitri reached Moscow, and the confession of the murderers was commented upon. Borys Godunov...to vindicate himself before the Russian people...sent one of his friends, a courtier, whose name was Vasili Shiski, to Uglich to investigate the case. The investigation was conducted with the aid of torture. The witnesses were made to testify that the boy Dmitri, while playing with a sharp knife, was overcome with a fit, had fallen upon the knife and killed himself. The result was that some of the inhabitants were executed for the murder of the two assassins, many more were exiled to Siberia...Godunov reigned in Russia....Nicolas was a man of great determination...In his reign the first railroad was built in Russia, between St. Petersburg and Moscow; it bears his name "Nicolas Road."...."Show me on the map where St. Petersburg is!" ordered Nicolas. They complied. "Now," continued Nicolas, "Show me where Moscow is!" He was obeyed again. Nicolas drew a straight pencil mark from the spot indicating St. Petersburg to that indicating Moscow, and said, "Make the road thus!" The engineers obeyed, but it cost the Russian government an enormous amount of money. Private residences had to be demolished, a number of bridges built, tunnels dug, but "Nicolas Road" is the straightest in Russia...Jewish parents were always in dread for their boys' safety. A child would be sent to a Jewish school in the morning, - an hour later the teacher would come running to the child's home, informing the parents that their Abe or Aaron had been seized by the "catchers" and hurried away from the town to a military post. The child was lost to his parents forever...Nicolas the First died in March, 1855....Alexander the Second...the serfs were emancipated in 1861...the Russian Jews did not forget the suffering and injustice their forefathers had endured in Poland. They had suffered from the Polish clergy, who accused them of using Christian blood for ritual purposes...the Jew had to bow and to flatter the Polish nobleman...A Polish nobleman, while walking in the street, heard the Russians coming, and in order to hide himself, he entered a Jew's house...The Jew suggested the best place for concealment would be inside a large brick oven. The Russians would not look into the oven for a Polish nobleman. The nobleman crawled into the oven and entered the furthest corner. A few minutes later the Jew heard the Pole calling out "Zydzie Zdym Chapke Bo to jest Pan." (Jew take off your hat, because a nobleman is present.) While crouching in the corner of the oven, with the noise of the Russian soldiers ringing in the Pole's ears, trembling for his life, he still insisted upon his honors as a Polish nobleman. The above...happened in 1863, sixty-eight years after the final partition of Poland...In "Nijni Novgorod," a city on the Volga, a Christian child, a girl of about six years, tried to cross a muddy street in the early Spring, just before the Jewish Passover and Easter Sunday. The child stuck in the mire. The more the little girl tried to extricate herself, the deeper she sank. She cried. A Jewish woman passing by at the time pulled the child out and took her to a nearby Jewish house to wash and clean the dirt from her garments. The child's mother missed her little one, and became alarmed. She inquired of her Christian neighbors if anyone had seen her child. One Russian woman remembered seeing the Jewish woman leading the little girl away. An alarm was raised, the Jews being accused of kidnapping the child with the intention of killing her for ritual purposes. The ignorant and superstitious Russians fell upon the Jewish inhabitants and killed and crippled many of them before the child was restored to its mother, safe and clean. The Metropolitan of Nijni Novgorod delivered a sermon against the outrage of the Christians. His sermon is printed and can be found in many synagogues of Russia...In 1885, I was employed as salesman in a dry goods store in the city of "Rostov on the Don." A few weeks before Easter Sunday and the Jewish Passover two women entered the store, a mother and daughter, leading a child about three years of age by the hand; they were Polish women; they spent considerable time selecting goods; there were a large number of Russian men and women in the store; the two Polish women missed the child and both of them became alarmed; all the clerks, a few Russians among them, and the customers, all Russians, made a thorough search in the store - but of no avail; the child could not be found. Naturally the mother was frantic, running back and forth, and wringing her hands in despair. A terrible suspicion entered her mind. "Oh, the Jews have stolen my child!" she screamed. Some of the Russian customers present became sullen; their jaws set; all the Jewish clerks, myself included, were more dead than alive from fright. The terrible blood accusations loomed up before me. I already imagined the Jewish population being massacred...The mother of the child ran outside into the street, screaming; a crowd gathered in front of the store. At the crucial moment a Russian appeared carrying the tot in his arms; he had picked her up a block away, where he had found her lying on the sidewalk crying and sobbing...That Russian never realized what a calamity to the Jews of that city he had prevented. In the reign of Nicolas the first, in the city of Saratov, there was a small Jewish community. Before the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter Sunday, a Jew was selling small pamphlets for the reading of the Jews during the holidays, in which was described the well known Biblical story of Pharoah's order that all the new-born male Jewish babes be thrown into the Nile. On the cover of the pamphlet was a picture representing the Egyptians taking away a boy baby from his mother, and preparing to throw him into the Nile. Some of the ignorant Russians, seeing this picture, took it to be a representation of a Jew stealing a Christian child for ritual purposes. The Russians fell upon the Jews and began butchering them...When Nicolas the First heard of this he exclaimed, "Nevertie Etomoo Eto Lozsch Ieverie nie Liudoieda!" (Don't you believe it! This is a lie! The Jews are not cannibals)...He, in company with several other Jews, residents of K---, was coming home from the city of Kharkoff, where all of them had purchased a quantity of merchandise. Passing in the wagon through a village, in the province of Kharkoff in the night time, the whole company was halted by a few peasants, wearing badges on their breasts, which indicated that they were the village police. They demanded passports from the travellers, who, unfortunately, had forgotten to bring them along. They were in a predicament. They were over fifty versts from K--- and in a province where Jews were not allowed to reside permanently. It meant arrest and a march of over fifty miles to the county seat of that village, where they would be chained like criminals and another march of a hundred miles afoot to K---, where all of them would have to be identified. In the meantime spending a few weeks in filthy Russian jails. Umelsky realized the danger at once. Knowing that the village police are a lot of ignorant and illiterate peasants, he produced one of the many bills issued to him from the merchants of Kharkoff, from whom he bought merchandise, and handed it to the leader of the police, with the words: "Here is my passport." That official examined the document, holding it upside down, pretending to read it. "Chorosho," said he. The rest of the Jews followed Umelsky's example, and the travelers went on their way. This joke became known in K--- by Jews and Russians alike, who laughed at the stupidity of the peasants, and nicknamed Umelsky "Philosopher."...Greenburg was assigned to Company 2, and with about twenty more men was placed under the command of a Diadko, and marched towards the quarters of the company. A Diadko, in Russian, means Uncle, whose duties in the army consist of taking charge of the recruits entrusted to him. He must instruct them in the first and minor rules of discipline...In the evening, the Diadko instructed them in Sloviestnost. This word can only be described in English. It means that every Russian soldier must memorize the names and titles of the whole royal family, from the Tzar and Tzarina down, including every child, uncle, aunt, duke or duchess; not merely their first names but the name of their fathers, as well. For instance, the Tzar's name was Alexander, who was the son of Nicolas the First, so his title was, His Imperial Majesty Gosudar Imperator Alexander Nicolaievich, Tzar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., etc. And so in the case of every individual member of the Romanov's family, Nicolai Nicolaievich, Peter Constantinovich, and so on. Besides, some of the titles were of German origin, and could be traced to the time of Elizabeth, and were a positive impossibility for the Russian peasants to pronounce...The first man...was asked all the names of the immediate family of the Tzar and Tzarina. That was easy, but when it came to the more distant members of the Royal family, ªthat was different. If the first man answered the question properly, he would be told to sit down, and called a Molodietz, (good boy). Should he fail to answer correctly, the next man to him was told to hit him in the jaw, and knock him down. Should the second man in line fail in his answer, then, the first man who was knocked down...would be told to knock the second one down...and so it was kept up a whole evening...A. Greenburg had heard enough of the Russian army life from his father to be prepared for just such emergencies. The Sloviestnost had been repeated to him by his father so often that he knew it by heart...There are two classes of Russians that will figure during the ensuing pages, that it will be necessary to describe. The first was the Bosiak. This word is derived from the Russian word, "Bosoi," which means bare-foot, and was applied to this class of people for the reason that they walked the muddy, dusty streets of Rostov in their bare feet. They were drunkards, filthy, ignorant, brutal, lazy, dishonest; in short, they were the scum of the ignorant, illiterate Russian people. This class of people made a living by petty-larceny, begging, or picking the pockets of drunken Russians lying in the streets until picked up by the police...whatever money was obtained, legally or illegally, was promptly spent for vodka...These people had no homes; their only habitations were large wooden dry goods boxes...or they reposed in the gutters while drunk. With the approach of winter, the Bosiak, having no clothes, succeeded in getting into jail for a period of six months; he made a study, and knew just what the value of a stolen article should be, to be entitled to that sentence. He knew that in jail, food, clothing and shelter would be provided for him, and he could play cards to his hearts content with the other prisoners...while honest folks, fools, in his estimation, had to work hard during the cold winter to earn just what he was getting without work...The other class of Russians in Rostov-on-the-Don, - the "Katzap," ...was just as ignorant, superstitious and brutal as the Bosiak, but in justice to the Katzap...he generally worked at a trade...the Katzap...Coming from the Northern provinces where Jews are not allowed to live...had no idea what a Jew was until he arrived in Southern Russia, part of which is within the Pale. All he knew about the Jews was that they were Christ-killers, and at home in his village church, when he heard the priest mention the name of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he thought that these three were Russians. He also thought that to abstain from meat for three successive Fridays would redeem him from the sin of Killing a Jew...a Bosiak entered a saloon kept by a Jew and ordered a drink of vodka...he was served. He swallowed the contents, and ordered another drink. The saloonkeeper reminded him that he had not paid for the first; the Bosiak claimed that he had paid, and hit the Jew...the Jew resented it, and hit him; the Bosiak fell onto the floor and lay still, pretending that he was dead. A number of the Bosiaks and Katzaps were standing inside and outside of the saloon...they raised the cry that a Jew had killed a Christian...The Jews tried to defend themselves...but were overpowered and beaten by the mob...armed with clubs and some with iron bars...The Jews fled for their lives. The Russian women and children appeared as if by magic, with a supply of empty sacks, and a systematic looting began...That this looting was premeditated was proven by the fact that the women and children who gathered so quickly were the poorest class of Russians that lived on the far outskirts of the city, and it would ordinarily have taken them a long time to reach the New Market...The riot was at an end. The rioters were bound hand and foot with ropes...The riot was over, but the effects of it had just begun for the Jews. Many of them that were well-to-do less than eight hours before were reduced to beggary. Hundreds of families were left penniless, without a home, food or clothing. The word "Pogrom" means in Russian, an ordinary disorder. The name was substituted for that of "robbery," so as to make it easier for the rioters when arrested. Had the charge been robbery, if convicted, they would have been sent to Siberia, but, convicted of participating in a Pogrom, meant a few months of life in jail without having to work...Solomon was taken by surprise by Skuratov's proposition. "Your Noble Birth," said Solomon, "I thank you for your kindness, but I would rather not serve longer." "Why not?" inquired Shuratov..."Your Noble Birth," answered Solomon, "You forgot that I am a Jew, and that I cannot be promoted. It is against the law." "I forgot nothing!" exclaimed Skuratov. "This is just the reason I am offering thee a great opportunity. Thou art an intelligent man. Thou mayest become a Dvorianin, (a nobleman). Why dost thou not become a Christian? You Jews are an obstinate people; first, you have crucified Christ, and after nearly nineteen hundred years, the Christians are teaching, and preaching to you about our Savior, you still continue to deny Him. The Jewish religion is a cruel one. It teaches an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But our holy religion, the Pravo Slavnaia, is teaching to love even our enemies; to be just and merciful; the Jews are but a handful; they are not civilized as we Christians are. The most civilized nations have accepted Jesus as their Savior, but your people refuse. You Jews were always an ignorant lot." Solomon listened to Captain Skuratov without interrupting him; in fact, he did not dare to say anything, because he still wore the uniform of a soldier. His discharge was on the table in front of Captain Skuratov, unsigned. Skuratov was still his captain; if Solomon's thoughts were expressed aloud, surely a court-martial would follow, and a severe punishment, perhaps years of imprisonment for Solomon would result. So he set his teeth tight and determined not to enter into any argument...Captain Skuratov exhausted all his supply of knowledge concerning the Jews, and when he had nothing else to say, he picked up Solomon's discharge, which was in book form, signed it, affixed the seal, and threw it on the floor at Solomon's feet. Solomon picked up his honorable discharge, faced about, and walked out of the office...In the autumn of 1887, a Jewish merchant of Rostov-on-the-Don was convicted by a jury on a felony charge, and sentenced by the court to be exiled to Siberia; it meant instant imprisonment, and to be sent chained with other criminals to the city of Moscow, and in the Spring to be taken by train to Nijni Novgorod, placed in a steamer on the River Volga, packed with other convicts in the hold, and shipped to Irkutsk and turned loose. But it also meant more: the business, a dry goods store owned by the merchant had to be closed, and the merchandise sold at a loss, and having a wife and eight children to have them brought at the expense of the Government to Siberia as prisoners, or their passage to be paid by the merchant himself...It meant ruin...The room to which the jurymen retired to deliberate adjoined a hall where many people passed by; some of them...stood and listened at the door...The foreman, a well-known lumber-dealer, also a well-known Jew-hater, in casting his deciding vote in the jury-room, remarked that it gave him much pleasure to get rid of one Jew by sending him to Siberia. As stated before, the listeners had heard this remark which was reported to the attorneys for this merchant, who appealed to St. Petersburg, asking for a new trial on the ground of prejudice on the part of the foreman. It was very necessary that the decision for the granting of a new trial should come from St. Petersburg before the month of May, because convicts are sent to Siberia that month from Moscow; otherwise, if the decision for a new trial should come after the month of May, the merchant would have to stay, in case of another conviction, another year in the prison, and wait for another party of convicts to be sent with them to Siberia. In order to hasten the decision of the higher authorities at St. Petersburg it was decided to send the merchant's eldest daughter to the capital with a supply of money for presents to some high officials to push the case in the senate so that it should be taken up without delay. This eighteen-year-old girl, daughter of the convicted man, arrived at St. Petersburg, - that is, two stations beyond St. Petersburg, where she alighted from the train and took the next train back to St. Petersburg. The reason for this action is here explained: Whenever the police at the railroad station notice any Jew or Jewess arriving from the south by train, they immediately ask them for passports. If they are not mechanics, merchants of the first gild, physicians or lawyers, they immediately deport them from the city, but the police are not watching those coming from the north, where Jews are not allowed to reside, so it is very easy to enter the city from the other side. Arriving at the station she hired an Izvoschik (a one-horse sleigh), and in the bitter cold of a December night was driven to a hotel. Arriving at the place, her valises were taken inside and she was shown to a room. She made herself comfortable at the fireplace before unpacking her things. Someone knocked at the door..."Your passport, Mademoiselle, please." "Certainly," answered the girl..."Excuse me, you will have to go to some other place. We cannot keep you here." "Why not?" inquired the girl. "You are a Jewess; you have no right to live in St. Petersburg; you will be given notice by the police to leave the city tomorrow; we do not care to let our rooms for one night's lodging." The manager turned on his heel, and in another moment her grips were being carried out by two boys and left on the sidewalk, the girl following them with tears in her eyes...She engaged another Izvoschik and visited about a half dozen other hotels. She received the same treatment...at about 11:30 p.m. she was standing on the sidewalk, half frozen, with her belongings and not knowing what to do next...A man approached her from behind..."What is the matter with this hotel?" inquired the man, pointing at the entrance. "I am a Jewess, and they will not let me it in," answered the girl, sobbing..."Just jump into my sleigh. I will take you to one of my country women. She keeps a lodging house...'...The Pole spoke with such earnestness that she could not distrust him any more...in about a half hour she was sitting at the fireplace where a kind-hearted Polish woman was busying herself to make the poor half-frozen girl comfortable...The girl lived in St. Petersburg for several weeks unmolested; her passport was never presented to the police. The convicted man and all his children are at present loyal and patriotic citizens of the United States of America...The reader has now listened to many facts concerning the persecution of the Jews in Russia, all horrifying in nature, - and it is true that as many more heinous crimes have not been recorded here at all...but it must be known and realized as God's truth that the evils committed in Russia at the present day loom hideously against the background of yesterday's monstrous crimes...Twenty years ago there were what the Russian Government calls: "Pogroms," which are now replaced by massacres. Twenty years ago the name Hooligan, or Black Hundred, was unknown; today these organized bands of murderers and robbers swoop down at certain periods on inoffensive Jews, rob and butcher them and subject the Jewish women to unspeakable and indescribable indignities...Twenty years ago, as described above, a Jew could not name his child with a Russian name, because the authorities would not register the name in the book of births. Today, any Jew or Jewess, whose name is recorded as Abraham or Sarah, if they would dare to call themselves Ivan or Mary, would be imprisoned, or a heavy fine imposed upon them...During the Russo-Japanese War, wives and children of Physicians, who answered their country's call, and were performing their duty on the battlefields in Manchuria, were expelled from the Holy City of Kieff. The police interpreted the law, that wives and children of physicians have a right of residence in Kieff, only when their husbands or fathers are present, but as the physicians were away from Kieff, their families were subjected to deportation. The fact that the physicians were endangering their lives for Russia had no weight...The great power that the Christian clergy, Catholic and Protestant alike, possess, is of far greater force and magnitude than the combined forces of all Nations as represented in their armies and navies. A bloodless battle can be fought, no armies or navies, cannons or bayonets are needed, and it requires very little money as compared with the cost of sending an expedition...Let the pulpit of the Christian churches be the battlefield; the Word of God, of Truth, of Mercy and Righteousness be the ammunition...let the voice of Christendom thunder forth the condemnation of the Russian Government until it rings at the palace on the Neva; let the Russian Government be given to understand by all Christian Nations, that Russia must mend its evil ways if she wishes to be recognized as Christian and civilized. No doubt, if such a crusade should be set afoot against the Russian Government, there would be no more Pogroms and massacres, where men who call themselves Christians drive nails into the skulls of Jewish men, and dishonor daughters in the presence of their mothers before murdering them. Then the Christian people of all nations could point out with pride to their accomplishment and bring about the deliverance and salvation of the Russian Jew.'

The Thirty Years Wars which incarnadined the first half of the seventeenth century brought no end of horrors. Charles Blitzer and the Editors of Time-Life Books write of Life under the Sign of the Cross, and of Christians slaughtering Christians, in The Age of Kings:

`Customarily an army was given the right to assess the peasants of a prince's territory for its food and provisions, but famine and greed turned this practice into wholesale plunder. With or without their officers' approval, roving bands of soldiers terrorized the countryside. They robbed peasants of their household goods, attacked their women, carried off their livestock, burned their homes and barns. Anyone suspected of having hidden money or jewelry was subjected to the most hideous kind of torture. By the end of the war, peasants had become so demoralized by the constant passage and repassage of armies across their lands that they did not bother to reap or sow - and the appearance of any army, whether its colors meant friend or foe, was catastrophe. "We have had blue-coats and red-coats and now come the yellow-coats," lamented the citizens of one Alsatian town. "God have pity on us."

C. V. Wedgwood wrote in `The Thirty Years War' (Doubleday &
`From Wurttemburg to Lorraine, there raged the worst famine for many years. At Calw the pastor saw a woman gnawing the raw flesh of a dead horse on which a hungry dog and some ravens were also feeding. In Alsace the bodies of criminals were torn from the gallows and devoured; in the whole Rhineland they watched the graveyards against marauders who sold the flesh of the newly buried for food; at Zweibrucken a woman confessed to having eaten her child...cats, dogs, and rats were sold in the market at Worms. Near Worms hands and feet were found half cooked in a gypsies cauldron. Not far from Wertheim human bones were discovered in a pit, fresh, fleshless, sucked to the marrow...`From Coln hither (to Frankfort) all the towns, villages and castles be battered, pillaged and burnt.'...the insecurity and discomfort of life encouraged irresponsibility in the ruler. Wars brought with them no immediate upheaval since they were fought largely by professional armies, and the civilian population - except in the actual area of the fighting - remained undisturbed at least until the need for money caused an exceptional levy on private wealth. Even in the actual district of the conflict the impact of the war was at first less overwhelming than in the nicely balanced civilization of to-day. Bloodshed, rape, robbery, torture, and famine were less revolting to a people whose ordinary life was encompassed by them in milder forms. Robbery and violence was common enough in peace-time, torture was inflicted at most criminal trials, horrible and prolonged executions were performed before great audiences; plague and famine effected their repeated and indiscriminate devastations. The outlook even of the educated was harsh...Prince and beggar were alike inured to the stink of decaying offal in the streets, of foul drainage about the houses, to the sight of carrion birds picking over public refuse dumps or rotting bodies swinging on the gibbets. On the road from Dresden to Prague a traveler counted `above seven score gallowses and wheels, where thieves were hanged, some fresh and some half rotten, and the carcasses of murderers broken limb after limb on the wheels.' The pressure of war on such a society had to be intensified and prolonged before any popular outcry was evoked, and by then the matter was usually beyond control."

In 'Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction' John Addington Symonds writes:

"The first thing which strikes a student of Italy between 1530 and 1600 is that crimes of violence, committed by private individuals for personal ends, continued steadily upon the increase. Compared with the later Middle Ages, compared with the Renaissance, this period is distinguished by extraordinary ferocity of temper and by an almost unparalleled facility of bloodshed...Each province, each city, each village became the theatre of private feuds and assassinations. Each household was the scene of homicide and empoisonment. Italy presented the spectacle of a nation armed against itself, not to decide the issue of antagonistic political principles by civil strife, but to gratify lawless passions - cupidity, revenge, resentment - by deeds of personal high-handedness. Among the common people of the country and the towns, crimes of brutality and bloodshed were of daily occurrence; every man bore weapons for self-defense and for attack upon his neighbor...Much of this savagery was due to the false ideas of honour and punctilio which the Spaniards introduced. Quarrels arose concerning a salute, a title, a question of precedence, a seat in church, a place in the prince's ante-chamber, a meeting in the public streets. Noblemen were ushered on their way by servants, who measured distances and took the height of dais or a bench, before their master committed his dignity by advancing a step beyond the minimum that was due. Love-affairs and the code of honour with regard to women opened endless sources of implacable jealousies, irreconcilable hatreds, and offenses that could only be wiped out with blood. On each and all these occasions, the sword was ready to the right hand... the harquebus and knife of paid assassins were employed without compunction. We must not, however, ascribe this condition of society wholly or chiefly to Spanish influences. It was in fact a survival of medieval habits under altered circumstances...The end of the sixteenth century witnessed the final degeneration and corruption of a medieval state of warfare, which the Renaissance had checked, but which the miseries of foreign invasions had resuscitated by brutalising the population, and which now threatened to disintegrate society in aimless anarchy and private lawlessness...woe to the wretches who became involved in criminal proceedings! Witnesses were tortured with infernal cruelty. Convicted culprits suffered horrible agonies before their deaths...But the very inhumanity of this judicial method, without mercy for the innocent from whom evidence could be extorted...taught the people to defy justice and encouraged them in brutality...The Church was jealous of her rights of sanctuary. Whatever may have been her zeal for orthodoxy, she showed herself an indulgent mother to culprits who demanded an asylum...Cardinals, ambassadors, and powerful princes claimed immunity from common jurisprudence in their palaces, the courts and basements of which soon became the resort of escaped criminals...Murders for the sake of robbery or rape were indeed esteemed ignoble. But a man who had killed an avowed enemy, or had shed blood in the heat of a quarrel, or had avenged his honour by the assassination of a sister convicted of light love, only established a reputation for bravery which stood him in good stead...To murder an enemy or a sister who had misbehaved herself was accounted as excusable.'

Norman Davies, in 'Europe: A History' (Oxford) informs us that in mid-sixteenth-century Paris cat-burning was common. A stage would be constructed such that a net containing several dozen cats would be lowered onto the bonfire. Kings and Queens and lesser folk howled with glee as the cats screamed in pain as they were roasted to death. William Manchester wrote that before the Reformation the Christians in Germany enjoyed the sport of setting a pack of famished dogs loose upon a bear chained in a pit. The bear would be eaten alive to the delight of the Christian spectators. Even Christendom's most learned women could be cold-blooded, as exemplified by Queen Christina of Sweden. Durant told us that Christina was feted in Rome, lionized in all the Catholic capitals of Europe after she abdicated the Swedish crown, renounced her Protestantism, and was baptized into the Church of Rome. Christina spoke eight languages, was said to know more than the Sorbonne, was hailed by Voltaire as a wonder among women. Though she was a fresh convert to Catholicism, these often making the most zealous and fanatical of Catholics, she found the enlightened path and condemned the persecution of the Huguenots. Yet Christina also had one of her attendants executed, without a trial, simply because she suspected he was plotting a harmless intrigue against her. Though the execution took place in France, and though she had abdicated the Swedish crown, she was within her monarchical rights because she remained queen over her retinue, by virtue of the privilege granted her by the Swedish Diet. And, as queen over her retinue, she could, in the France of that age, legally put to death without trial anyone in her retinue.

Voltaire described the abysmal state of Russian spirituality and the Orthodox Church during and before the age of Peter the Great. There had been a sanguinary rebellion which arose over the momentous issue of whether laymen should make the sign of the cross with two fingers or with three. In this Russia of old, all murderers were granted absolution provided they confessed their sin to the priest. Their religion held that they were purified in the eyes of God as soon as the priest gave his benediction, which had to be given, to all who confessed, even to those who committed the most despicable crimes. Russians were forbidden to leave their Christian homeland on pain of death unless they first received permission from the Patriarch.

Sismondi writes in `History of the Italian Republics',

`Alexander VI. dispatched judges from Rome, with orders to condemn the accused to death. Conformably with the laws of the church, the trial opened with torture. Savonarola was too weak and nervous to support it: he avowed in his agony all that was imputed to him: and, with his two disciples, was condemned to death. The three monks were burnt alive, on the 23rd of May, 1498, in the same square where, six weeks before, a pile had been raised to prepare them a triumph.'

It was Alexander VI. who gave the New World to Spain and Portugal. F. A. Kirkpatrick writes in his 'The Spanish Conquistadores' (Meridian Books, 1934),

`The work of Spanish-American historians remains in great part unknown to English readers, notably the vast, varied and illuminating work of the Chilean historian, the late José Toribio Medina, the greatest authority on the history of Spanish America...Since the testimony of Las Casas concerning the treatment of the Indians is suspect to some Spaniards and since his numbers are certainly exaggerated, no use has been made in this volume of that part of the writings of Las Casas...Columbus chiefly concerns us here as the man who gave Spain a vast and opulent dominion beyond the Ocean, as the first of the conquistadores...to ask for ships, men and money seemed madness when Ferdinand and Isabel...were striving to regulate a land distracted by misrule and were devoting all resource to the War of Grenada, which was to end Moorish dominion in Spain. This poor foreign suppliant, his tenacious ambition, the impressive force of his personality and his faith in his idea...Grenada had capitulated: the long adventurous epic of the Reconquista had ended in triumph...It is no mere fancy to view the conquest of America as a continuation of the Reconquista of Spain, as a fresh adventure of expanding dominion, or crusading zeal and of lucrative enterprise...At dawn of Friday, 12 October 1492, they anchored off the shore of a small island, one of the Bahamas: Columbus rowed ashore...displaying the royal banner, while the naked and beardless islanders gathered round, he called his companions to witness that he took possession of that island for Ferdinand and Isabel; an island of green trees, many waters and various fruits, "marvelous woods, climate and foliage like an Andalusian spring, songs of birds so that a man might never wish to depart, flocks of parrots obscuring the sky, fruits and perfumes from the trees...gentle people," says Columbus, "ignorant of arms; easy to subjugate and carry to Castile or make captive in their own land; would make good servants and easy converts"...In a letter written at the Azores and sent to Sant-angel from Lisbon, Columbus announces "The great victory, which our Lord has given me." He extols the beauty and fertility of Española [the island which today of Haiti and The Dominican Republic]...He promises to the crown "all the gold which they may need", spices, cotton and mastic and "as many slaves they shall command to be sent...our Redeemer gave this victory to our illustrious King and Queen...whence all Christendom should rejoice for the winning of so many people to our Holy Faith. All Christians shall find here refreshment and gain"...The Sovereigns, in order to obviate possible Portuguese claims, hastened to procure papal sanction for these western conquests. This was readily granted by the Spanish pope, Alexander VI, with the proviso that the inhabitants of those lands should be brought to the Catholic faith...The Admiral himself, to impress the Indians, marched through the land...the few horsemen riding in front. The natives gazed at these in astounded terror...a crowd of naked men with their clubs and pointed spears were helpless against the cross-bows, muskets, spears and swords of Columbus' little army of 200. The fight was a slaughter, and savage dogs were let loose on the helpless fugitives...Columbus now imposed a poll-tax of gold dust, which, which his subjects could not pay, and shipped 500 of them to be sold as slaves in Spain, most of whom died. His later efforts to make his dominions profitable by the slave-trade were frustrated by Isabel's decision that her subjects must not be enslaved. Later it was ruled that cannibals might be enslaved and also enemies captured in war. The Spanish adventurers gave a liberal interpretation to this concession; and slave-hunting on the Spanish Main became a lucrative business. The natives, weary of feeding these voracious guests, ceased to till the ground; famine followed, grievous to the Spaniards but destructive to the natives...Columbus...In order to satisfy the Spaniards...assigned to every settler a group of Indians as servants and labourers. These repartimientos were afterwards developed into the system of encomiendas, fiefs of vassal Indians granted to the Conquistadores throughout the Spanish Indies...an institution of serfdom which hastened the rapid extermination of the natives through mortality caused by unaccustomed labour on meager diet and through the break-up of the family and fall in the birth-rate. Suicide became common among these forlorn people. But the most sweeping and irresistible destroyers were the plagues of smallpox and measles, newly imported from Europe...A single sentence of Gomara illustrates..."Orando pacified the Province of Xaraga by burning forty Indian chiefs and by hanging the cacique Guaorocuya and his aunt Anacoana...In a long letter to the king...dated January 1513, Balboa tells of "great secrets of marvelous riches" which he has discovered..."many rich mines...I have learnt in various ways, putting some to the torture"...After cutting boughs in token possession, setting up a cross...The death of Balboa was a disaster. Though far from tender towards Indians, he desired, after inflicting the first cruel lesson, contented and friendly subjects...Pedrarias was also furnished with a "requisition," which was to be read aloud and interpreted to a party of opposing Indians. This was a theological exposition of the Creation, the authority granted to St. Peter and his successors, the donation made by the Pontiff to the Castillian sovereigns "of the islands and mainlands of the Ocean Sea"... Oviedo writes, "He [Ayora] committed extreme cruelties and killings upon the Indians...he tormented and robbed them...Oviedo who, it is fair to say, hated him, declares that Pedrarias was responsible for the death or enslavement of two million Indians...Prescott began his famous narrative, now a century old but ever fresh, by remarking that "The subversion of a great empire by a handful of adventurers, taken with all its strange and picturesque accompaniments, has the air of romance rather than sober history"...Yet no part of the Conquest is so well known. Cortés himself tells his story in five dispatches addressed to the Emperor Charles V...in 1552, five years after the death of Cortés, his chaplain Gomora published his History of the Conquest of Mexico. This book, inspired by Cortés, roused vehement indignation in an old soldier of the Conquest, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, because Gomora, though he told his story clearly and well, gave the credit of every decision and every success to his patron Cortés. Bernal Díaz, now an old man and a Town Councilor of the city of Guatemala, had been living there for many years in peace supported by his Indian vassals when he sat down to write...True History of the Conquest of Mexico...the hardships of fatigue, hunger, wounds, fever, danger and watching, the array of Aztec warriors gorgeous with feathered head-dress, the fantastic magnificence of Montezuma's court, the horror of human sacrifices, the confused and fatal nightmare of the noche triste, the booming of the great serpent-skin drum as Christian captives were driven up the stairs of the pyramid to be stretched upon the sacrificial stone, and the final victory... Cortés stained his victory and belied his first generous impulse by yielding to the clamour of the soldiers and of the royal treasurer that the vanquished guest of the Aztec King should be tortured into revealing a supposed hidden treasure. Nothing was revealed, and the pestilential ruins of the capital yielded little booty to the angry and disappointed soldiery.'

In `Renaissance in Italy', by John Addington Symonds (The Modern Library), we find:

`The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy may be called the Age of the Despots in Italian history...It will be observed in this classification of Italian tyrants that the tenure of their power was almost uniformly forcible. They generally acquired it through the people in the first instance, and maintained it by the exercise of violence. Rank had nothing to do with their claims. The bastards of Popes, who like Sixtus IV. had no pedigree, merchants like the Medici, the son of a peasant like Francesco Sforza, a rich usurer like Pepoli, had almost equal chances with nobles of the ancient houses of Este, Visconti, or Malatesta...Despotism in Italy as in ancient Greece was democratic. It recruited its ranks from all classes and erected its thrones upon the sovereignty of the people it oppressed. The impulse to the free play of ambitious individuality which this state of things communicated was enormous. Capacity might raise the meanest monk to the chair of St. Peter's, the meanest soldier to the duchy of Milan. Audacity, vigour, unscrupulous crime were the chief requisites for success...They lived habitually in an atmosphere of peril which taxed all their energies...About such men there could be nothing on a small or mediocre scale. When a weakling was born in a despotic family, his brothers murdered him, or he was deposed by a watchful rival. Thus only gladiators of tried capacity and iron nerve, superior to religious and moral scruples, dead to national affection, perfected in perfidy, scientific in the use of cruelty and terror, employing first-rate faculties of brain and will and bodily powers in the service of transcendent egoism, only the virtuosi of political craft as theorised by Machiavelli, could survive and hold their own upon in this perilous arena. The life of the Despot was usually one of prolonged terror. Immured in strong places on high rocks, or confined to gloomy fortresses like the Milanese Castello, he surrounded his person with foreign troops, protected his bedchamber with a picked guard...His timidity verged on monomania. Like Alfonso II. of Naples, he was tortured with the ghosts of starved or strangled victims; like Ezzelino, he felt the mysterious fascination of astrology; like Filippo Maria Visconti, he trembled at the sound of thunder, and set one band of body-guards to watch another next his person...Fisiraga burned the chief members of the ruling house of Vistarini...Fondulo slaughtered seventy of the Cavalcabo family...The Varani were massacred to a man in the church...the Trinci at Foligno...Chaiavelli of Fabriano in church...This wholesale extirpation of three reigning families introduces one of the most romantic episodes in the history of Italian despotism. From the slaughter of the Varani one only child, Giulio Caesar, a boy of two years old, was saved by his aunt Tora. She concealed him in a truss of hay and carried him to the Trinci at Foligno. Hardly had she gained this refuge, when the Trinci were destroyed, and she had to fly with her burden to the Chiavelli at Fabriano. There the same scenes of bloodshed awaited her. A third time she took flight, and now concealed her precious charge in a nunnery. The boy was afterwards stolen from the town on horseback by a soldier of fortune. After surviving three massacres of kith and kin, he returned as despot at the age of twelve to Camerino, and became a general of distinction. But he was not destined to end his life in peace. Caesar Borgia finally murdered him, together with three of his sons, when he had reached the age of sixty...Corrado then butchered the men, women and children of the Rasiglia clan, to the number of three hundred persons, accomplishing his vengeance with details of atrocity too infernal to be dwelt on in these pages. It is recorded that thirty-three asses laden with their mangled limbs paraded the streets of Foligno as a terror-stricken spectacle for the inhabitants...a huge book might be compiled containing nothing but the episodes in this grim history of despotism; now tragic and pathetic, now terror-moving in sublimity of passion, now despicable by the baseness of the motives brought to light, at one time revolting through excess of physical horrors...Even a princely house so well based in its dynasty and so splendid in its parade of culture as that of the Estensi offers a long list of tragedies. One princess is executed for adultery with her stepson; a bastard tries to seize the throne, and is put to death with all his kin; a wife is poisoned by her husband to prevent her poisoning him...Such was the labyrinth of plot and counterplot, of force repelled by violence, in which the princes praised by Ariosto and by Tasso lived...The actual details of Milanese history, the innumerable tragedies of Lombardy, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona, during the ascendancy of the despotic families, are far more terrible than any fiction...Their unbridled lust is never satiated, but their subjects have to suffer such outrages and insults as their fancy may from time to time suggest...Bernabo displayed all the worst vices of the Visconti...Having saddled his subjects with the keep of 5,000 boarhounds, he appointed officers to go round to see whether these brutes were either too lean or too well-fed to be in good condition for the chase. If anything appeared defective in their management, the peasants on whom they were quartered had to suffer in their persons and their property. This Bernabo was also remarkable for his cold-blooded cruelty. Together with his brother, he devised and caused to be publicly announced by edict that State criminals would be subjected to a series of tortures extending over a period of forty days. In this infernal programme every variety of torment found a place, and days of respite were so calculated as to prolong the lives of the victims for further suffering, till at last there was little left of them that had not been hacked and hewn and flayed away. To such extremes of terrorism were the Despots driven in the maintenance of their illegal power...Murders, poisoning, rapes, and treasons were common incidents of private as of public life. In cities like Naples bloodguilt could be atoned for at an inconceivably low price. A man's life was worth scarcely more than that of a horse. The palaces of the nobles swarmed with professional cut-throats, and the great ecclesiastics claimed for their abodes the right of sanctuary. Popes sold absolution for the most horrible excesses, and granted indulgences beforehand for the commission of crimes of lust and violence. Success was the standard by which acts were judged; and the man who could help his friends, intimidate his enemies, and carve a way to fortune for himself by any means he chose, was regarded as a hero...during this period the art and culture of the Renaissance were culminating. Filelfo was receiving the gold of Filippo Maria Visconti...Lionardo was delighting Milan with his music and his magic world of painting...Pico della Mirandola was dreaming of a reconciliation of the Hebrew, Pagan, and Christian traditions...This was the age in which even the wildest and most perfidious of tyrants felt the ennobling influences and the sacred thirst of knowledge. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the Lord of Rimini, might be selected as a true type of the princes who united a romantic zeal for culture with the vices of the barbarians. The coins which bear the portraits of this man...show a narrow forehead...The whole face seems ready to flash with sudden violence, to merge its self-control in a spasm of fury. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta killed three wives in succession, violated his daughter, and attempted the chastity of his own son."

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in `Democracy in America' (tr. Henry Reeve, Knopf, 1945):

`The human beings who are scattered over this space do not form, as in Europe, so many branches of the same stock. Three races, naturally distinct, and, I might say, hostile to each other, are discoverable among them at first glance...the first that attracts attention...is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called; below him appear the Negro and the Indian. These two unhappy races have nothing in common, neither birth, nor features, nor language, nor habits. Their only resemblance lies in their misfortunes. Both of them occupy an equally inferior position in the country they inhabit; both suffer from tyranny; and if their wrongs are not the same, they originate from the same authors...we should almost say that the European is to the other races of mankind what man is to the lower animals: he makes them subservient to his use, and when he cannot subdue he destroys them. Oppression has, at one stroke, deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all the privileges of humanity. The Negro of the United States has lost even the remembrance of his country; the language which his forefathers spoke is never heard around him; he abjured their religion and forgot their customs when he ceased to belong to Africa, without acquiring any claim to European privileges...The Negro, plunged in this abyss of evils, scarcely feels his own calamitous situation. Violence made him a slave, and the habit of servitude gives him the thoughts and desires of a slave; he admires his tyrants more than he hates them, and finds his joy and his pride in the servile imitation of those who oppress him...The Negro enters upon slavery as soon as he is born...If he becomes free...a thousand new desires beset him, and he has not the knowledge and energy to resist them: these are masters which it is necessary to contend with, and he has learned only to submit and obey. In short, he is sunk to such a depth of wretchedness that while servitude brutalizes, liberty destroys him. Oppression has been no less fatal to the Indian than to the Negro race, but its effects are different...The Europeans, having dispersed the Indian tribes and driven them into the deserts, condemned them to a wandering life, full of inexpressible sufferings...When the North American Indians had lost the sentiment of attachment to their country; when their families were dispersed, their traditions obscured, and the chain of their recollections broken; when all their habits were changed, and their wants increased beyond measure, European tyranny rendered them more disorderly and less civilized than they were before. The moral and physical condition of these tribes continually grew worse, and they became more barbarous as they became more wretched. Nevertheless, the Europeans have not been able to change the character of the Indians; and though they have had power to destroy, they have never been able to subdue and civilize them. The lot of the Negro is placed on the extreme limit of servitude, while that of the Indian lies on the uttermost verge of liberty; and slavery does not produce more fatal effects upon the first than independence upon the second. The Negro has lost all property in his own person, and he cannot dispose of his existence without committing a sort of fraud. But the savage is his own master as soon as he is able to act; parental authority is scarcely known to him; he has never bent his will to that of any of his kind, nor learned the difference between voluntary obedience and a shameful subjection...To be free, with him, signifies to escape from all the shackles of society. As he delights in this barbarous independence and would rather perish than sacrifice the least part of it, civilization has little hold over him. The Negro makes a thousand fruitless efforts to insinuate himself among men who repulse him; he conforms to the tastes of his oppressors, adopts their opinions, and hopes by imitating them to form a part of their community. Having been told from infancy that his race is naturally inferior to that of the whites, he assents to the proposition and is ashamed of his own nature...The Indian, on the contrary, has his imagination inflated with the pretended nobility of his origin, and lives and dies in the midst of these dreams of pride. Far from desiring to conform his habits to ours, he loves his savage life as the distinguishing mark of his race and repels every advance to civilization, less, perhaps, from hatred of it than from a dread of resembling the Europeans. The native of North America retains his opinions and the most insignificant of his habits with a degree of tenacity that has no parallel in history. For more than two hundred years the wandering tribes of North America have had daily intercourse with the whites, and they have never derived from them a custom or an idea. Yet the Europeans have exercised a powerful influence over the savages: they have made them more licentious, but not more European. In the summer of 1831 I happened to be beyond Lake Michigan, at a place called Green Bay, which serves as the extreme frontier between the United States and the Indians of the Northwest. Here I became acquainted with an American officer, Major H., who, after talking to me at length about the inflexibility of the Indian character, related the following fact: "I formerly knew a young Indian," said he, "who had been educated at a college in New England, where he had greatly distinguished himself and had acquired the external appearance of a civilized man. When the war broke out between ourselves and the English in 1812, I saw this young man again; he was serving in our army, at the head of the warriors of his tribe; for the Indians were admitted among the ranks of the Americans, on condition only that they would abstain from their horrible custom of scalping their victims. On the evening of the battle...[he] came and sat himself down by the fire of our bivouac. I asked him what had been his fortune that day. He related his exploits, and growing warm and animated by the recollection of them, he concluded by suddenly opening the breast of his coat, saying: `You must not betray me; see here!' And I actually beheld," said the major, "between his body and his shirt, the skin and hair of an English head, still dripping with blood."...The Negro, who earnestly desires to mingle his race with that of the European, cannot do so; while the Indian, who might succeed to a certain extent, disdains to make the attempt...The Europeans introduced among the savages of North America firearms, ardent spirits, and iron; they taught them to exchange for manufactured stuffs the rough garments that had previously satisfied their untutored simplicity. Having acquired new tastes...the Indians were obliged to have recourse to the workmanship of the whites; but in return for their productions the savage had nothing to offer except rich furs that still abounded in his woods...From the moment when a European settlement is formed in the neighborhood of the territory occupied by the Indians, the beasts of chase take alarm..."The buffalo is constantly receding," say Messrs. Clark and Cass in their Report of the year 1829; "a few years since they approached the base of the Allegheny; and a few years hence they may even be rare upon the immense plains which extend to the base of the Rocky Mountains."...A few European families, occupying points very remote from one another, soon drive away the wild animals...The Indians, who had previously lived in a sort of abundance, then find it difficult to subsist...At length they are compelled to acquiesce and depart; they follow the traces of the elk, the buffalo, and the beaver and are guided by these wild animals in the choice of their future country...It is impossible to conceive the frightful sufferings that attend these forced migrations. They are undertaken by a people already exhausted and reduced; and the countries to which the newcomers betake themselves are inhabited by other tribes, which receive them with jealous hostility. Hunger is in the rear, war awaits them, and misery besets them on all sides...I saw with my own eyes many of the miseries that I have just described, and was the witness of sufferings that I have not the power to portray. At the end of the year 1831, while I was on the left bank of the Mississippi, at a place named by Europeans Memphis, there arrived a numerous band of Choctaws...These savages had left their country and were endeavoring to gain the right bank of the Mississippi...It was then in the middle of winter, and the cold was unusually severe; the snow had frozen hard upon the ground, and the river was drifting huge masses of ice. The Indians had their families with them, and they brought in their train the wounded and the sick, with children newly born and old men upon the verge of death...I saw them embark to pass the mighty river, and never will that solemn spectacle fade from my remembrance. No cry, no sob, was heard among the assembled crowd; all were silent. Their calamities were of ancient date, and they knew them to be irremediable. The Indians had stepped into the bark that was to carry them across, but their dogs remained upon the bank. As soon as these animals perceived that their masters were finally leaving the shore, they set up a dismal howl and, plunging all together into the icy waters of the Mississippi, swam after the boat. The expulsion of the Indians often takes place at the present day in a regular and, as it were, a legal manner. When the European population begins to approach the limit of the desert inhabited by a savage tribe, the government of the United states usually sends forward envoys who assemble the Indians in a large plain and, having first eaten and drunk with them, address them thus: "What have you to do in the land of your fathers? Before long, you must dig up their bones in order to live. In what respect is the country you inhabit better than another? Are there no woods, marshes, or prairies except where you dwell?...Beyond those mountains which you see on the horizon, beyond the lake which bounds your territory on the west, there lie vast countries where beasts of the chase are yet found in great abundance; sell us your lands, and then go live happily in those solitudes." After holding this language, they spread before the eyes of the Indians firearms, woolen garments, kegs of brandy, glass necklaces, bracelets of tinsel, ear-rings, and looking-glasses..."The Indians," says the Report, "reach the treaty-ground poor, and almost naked. Large quantities of goods are taken their by the traders, and are seen and examined by the Indians. The women and children become importunate to have their wants supplied, and their influence is soon exerted to induce a sale..." If, when they have beheld all these riches, they still hesitate, it is insinuated that they cannot refuse the required consent, and that the government itself will not long have the power of protecting them in their rights...In this manner do the Americans obtain, at a very low price, whole provinces, which the richest sovereigns of Europe could not purchase. On May 19, 1830 Mr. Edward Everett affirmed before the House of Representatives that the Americans had already acquired by treaty, to the east and west of the Mississippi, 230,000,000 acres. In 1808 the Osages gave up 48,000,000 acres for an annual payment of 1,000 dollars. In 1818 the Quapaws yielded up 20,000,000 acres for 4,000 dollars. They reserved for themselves a territory of 1,000,000 acres for a hunting ground. A solemn oath was taken that it should be respected, but before long it was invaded like the rest. Mr Bell, in his Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs, February 24, 1830, has these words: "To pay an Indian tribe what their ancient hunting-grounds are worth to them after the game is fled or destroyed, as a mode of appropriating wild lands claimed by Indians, has been found more convenient, and certainly it is more agreeable to the forms of justice, as well as more merciful, than to assert the possession of them by the sword..." These are great evils; and it must be added that they appear to me to be irremediable. I believe the Indian nations of North America are doomed to perish, and that whenever the Europeans shall be established on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, that race of men will have ceased to exist...Civilization is the result of a long social process, which takes place in the same spot and is handed down from one generation to another, each one profiting by the experience of the last. Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty who habitually live by the chase. Pastoral tribes, indeed, often change their place of abode; but they follow a regular order in their migrations and often return to their old station, while the dwelling of the hunter varies with that of the animals he pursues. Several attempts have been made to diffuse knowledge among the Indians, leaving unchecked their wandering propensities, by the Jesuits in Canada and by the Puritans in New England; but none of these endeavors have been crowned by any lasting success...The great error of these legislators for the Indians was their failure to understand that in order to succeed in civilizing a people it is first necessary to settle them permanently, which cannot be done without inducing them to cultivate the soil...Men who have once abandoned themselves to the restless and adventurous life of the hunter feel an insurmountable disgust for the constant and regular labor that tillage requires...They consider labor not merely as an evil, but as a disgrace; so that their pride contends against civilization as obstinately as their indolence...he compares the plowman to the ox that traces the furrow; and in each of our handicrafts he can see only the labor of slaves. Not that he is devoid of admiration for the power and intellectual greatness of the whites; but although the result of our efforts surprises him, he despises the means by which we attain it; and while he acknowledges our ascendancy, he still believes in his own superiority. War and hunting are the only pursuits that appear to him worthy of a man. The following description occurs in an official document: "Until a young man has engaged with an enemy, and has performed some acts of valor, he gains no consideration, but is regarded nearly as a woman. In their great war-dances, all the warriors in succession strike the post, as it is called, and recount their exploits...The young man who finds himself at such a meeting without anything to recount is very unhappy; and instances have sometimes occurred of young warriors, whose passions had been thus inflamed, quitting the war-dance suddenly, and going off alone to seek for trophies which they might exhibit and adventures by which they might be allowed to glorify themselves." The Indian, in the dreary solitudes of his woods, cherishes the same ideas, the same opinions, as the noble of the Middle Ages in his castle; and he only needs to become a conqueror to complete the resemblance. Thus, however strange it may seem, it is in the forests of the New World, and not among the Europeans who people its coasts, that the ancient prejudices of Europe still exist...When I perceive the resemblance that exists between the political institutions of our ancestors, the Germans, and the wandering tribes of North America, between the customs described by Tacitus and those of which I have sometimes been a witness, I cannot help thinking that the same cause has brought about the same results in both hemispheres...In what we usually call the German institutions, then, I am inclined to perceive only barbarian habits, and the opinions of savages in what we style feudal principles...The Cherokees went further; they created a written language, established a permanent form of government, and, as everything proceeds rapidly in the New World, before all of them had clothes they set up a newspaper...The American continent was peopled by two great nations of Europe, the French and the English. The former were not slow in connecting themselves with the daughters of the natives, but there was an unfortunate affinity between the Indian character and their own: instead of giving the tastes and habits of civilized life to the savages, the French too often grew passionately fond of Indian life. They became the most dangerous inhabitants of the wilderness, and won the friendship of the Indian by exaggerating his vices and his virtues. M. de Senonville, the Governor of Canada, wrote thus to Louis XIV in 1685: "It has long been believed that in order to civilize the savages we ought to draw them nearer to us. But there is every reason to suppose we have been mistaken. Those that have been brought into contact with us have not become French, and the French who have lived among them are changed into savages, affecting to dress and live like them."...The Englishman...has remained in the midst of the American solitudes just what he was in the heart of European cities...and avoided with care the union of his race with theirs...Living in the freedom of the woods, the North American Indian was destitute, but he had no feeling of inferiority towards anyone; as soon, however, as he desires to penetrate into the social scale of the whites, he can take only the lowest rank in society, for he enters ignorant and poor within the pale of science and wealth. After having led a life of agitation, beset with evils and dangers, but at the same time filled with proud emotions, he is obliged to submit to a wearisome, obscure, and degraded state...When the Indians undertake to imitate their European neighbors, and to till the earth as they do, they are immediately exposed to formidable competition. The white man is skilled in the craft of agriculture; the Indian is a rough beginner...The former reaps abundant crops without difficulty, the latter meets with a thousand obstacles in raising the fruits of the earth. The European is placed among a population whose wants he knows and shares. The savage is isolated in the midst of a hostile people, with whose customs, language, and laws he is imperfectly acquainted, but without whose assistance he cannot live. He can procure only the materials of comfort by bartering his commodities for the goods of the European, for the assistance of his countrymen is wholly insufficient to supply his wants. Thus, when the Indian wishes to sell the produce of his labor, he cannot always find a purchaser, while the European readily finds a market; the former can produce only at considerable cost what the latter sells at a low rate. Thus the Indian has no sooner escaped those evils to which barbarous nations are exposed than he is subject to the still greater miseries of civilized communities; and he finds it scarcely less difficult to live in the midst of our abundance than in the depth of his own forest...Washington said in one of his messages to Congress: "We are more enlightened and more powerful than the Indian nations; we are therefore bound in honor to treat them with kindness, and even with generosity." But this virtuous and high-minded policy has not been followed. [Thoreau, in Walden, gave us a good example of Washington's and Tocqueville's themes here, "Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighbourhood. `Do you wish to buy any baskets?' he asked. `No, we do not want any,' was the reply, `What!' exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, `do you mean to starve us?' Having seen his industrious white neighbours so well off - that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and, by some magic, wealth and standing followed - he said to himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do...He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other`s while to buy them, or at least make him think it was so..."] The rapacity of the settlers is usually backed by the tyranny of the government... In 1829 the state of Alabama divided the Creek territory into counties and subjected the Indian population to European magistrates. In 1830 the state of Mississippi assimilated the Choctaws and Chickasaws to the white population and declared that any of them who should take the title of chief would be punished by a fine of 1,000 dollars and a year's imprisonment. When these laws were announced to the Choctaws...they unanimously declared that it was better at once to retreat again into the wilds. Destitution had driven these unfortunate Indians to civilization, and oppression now drives them back to barbarism...Between the 33rd and 37th degrees of north latitude lies a vast tract of country that has taken the name of Arkansas...Numberless streams cross it in every direction; the climate is mild and the soil productive...The government of the Union wishes to transport the broken remnants of the indigenous population of the South to the portion of this country that is nearest to Mexico...Moreover, the Indians readily discover that the settlement which is proposed to them is merely temporary. Who can assure them that they will at length be allowed to dwell in peace in their new retreat? The United States pledges itself to maintain them there, but the territory which they now occupy was formerly secured to them by the most solemn oaths. One finds in the treaty made with the Creeks in 1790 this clause :"The United States solemnly guarantee to the Creek nation all their land within the limits of the United States." The treaty concluded in 1791 with the Cherokees states: "The United States solemnly guarantee to the Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded. If any citizen of the United States, or any settler not of the Indian race, establishes himself upon the territory of the Cherokees, the United States declare that they will withdraw their protection from that individual, and give him up to be punished as the Cherokee nation thinks fit."...In a few years the same white population that now flocks around them will doubtless track them anew to the solitudes of the Arkansas; they will then be exposed to the same evils, without the same remedies; and the limits of the earth will at last fail them, their only refuge is the grave...From whichever side we consider the destinies of the aborigines of North America, their calamities appear irremediable: if they continue barbarous, they are forced to retire; if they attempt to civilize themselves, the contact of a more civilized community subjects them to oppression and destitution. They perish if they continue to wander from waste to waste, and if they attempt to settle they still must perish. The assistance of Europeans is necessary to instruct them, but the approach of Europeans corrupts and repels them into savage life...The Spaniards pursued the Indians with bloodhounds, like wild beasts; they sacked the New World like a city taken by storm, with no discernment or compassion; but destruction must cease at last and frenzy has a limit: the remnant of the Indian population which had escaped the massacre mixed with its conquerors and adopted in the end their religion and their manners...Christianity suppressed slavery, but the Christians of the sixteenth century re-established it...It is important to make an accurate distinction between slavery and its consequences. The immediate evils produced by slavery were very nearly the same in antiquity as they are among the moderns, but the consequences of these evils were different. The slave among the ancients belonged to the same race as his master, and was often the superior of the two in education and intelligence. Freedom was the only distinction between them; and when freedom was conferred, they were easily confounded together...The greatest difficulty in antiquity was that of altering the law; among the moderns it is that of altering the customs...among the moderns the abstract and transient fact of slavery is fatally united with the physical and permanent fact of color. The tradition of slavery dishonors the race, and the peculiarity of the race perpetuates the tradition of slavery. No African has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the New World...It is difficult for us, who have had the good fortune to be born among men like ourselves by nature and our equals by law, to conceive the irreconcilable differences that separate the Negro from the European in America...Whoever has inhabited the United States must have perceived that in those parts of the Union in which the Negros are no longer slaves they have in no wise drawn nearer to the whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those states where servitude has never been known...The electoral franchise has been conferred upon the Negroes in almost all the states in which slavery has been abolished, but if they come forward to vote, their lives are in danger. If oppressed, they may bring an action at law, but they will find none but whites among the judges; and although they may legally serve as jurors, prejudice repels them from that office. The same schools do not receive the children of the black and of the European. In the theaters gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their former masters; in the hospitals they lie apart; and although they are allowed to invoke the same God as the whites, it must be at a different altar and in their own churches, with their own clergy. The gates of heaven are not closed against them, but their inferiority is continued to the very confines of the other world. When the Negro dies, his bones are cast aside, and the distinction of condition prevails even in the equality of death. Thus the Negro is free, but he can share neither the rights, nor the pleasures, nor the labor, nor the afflictions, nor the tomb of him whose equal he has been declared to be; and he cannot meet him upon fair terms in life or in death. In the South, where slavery still exists, the Negroes are less carefully kept apart; they sometimes share the labors and the recreations of the whites; the whites consent to intermix with them to a certain extent, and although legislation treats them more harshly, the habits of the people are more tolerant and compassionate. In the South the master is not afraid to raise his slave to his own standing, because he knows that he can in a moment reduce him to the dust at pleasure. In the North the white no longer distinctly perceives the barrier that separates him from the degraded race, and he shuns the Negro with the more pertinacity since he fears lest they should some day be confounded together...But if the relative position of the two races that inhabit the United States is such as I have described, why have the Americans abolished slavery in the North of the Union, why do they maintain it in the South, and why do they aggravate its hardships? The answer is easily given. It is not for the good of the Negroes, but for that of the whites, that measures are taken to abolish slavery in the United States. The first Negroes were imported into Virginia about the year 1621...the number of slaves diminished towards the Northern states, and the Negro population was always very limited in New England. A century had scarcely elapsed since the foundation of the colonies when the attention of the planters was struck by the extraordinary fact that the provinces which were comparatively destitute of slaves increased in population, in wealth, and in prosperity more rapidly than those which contained many of them...The stream that the Indians had distinguished by the name of Ohio, or the Beautiful River, waters one of the most magnificent valleys...upon the left is called Kentucky; that upon the right bears the name of the river...Kentucky has admitted slavery, but the state of Ohio has prohibited the existence of slaves within its borders. Thus the traveler who floats down the current of the Ohio to the spot where that river falls into the Mississippi may be said to sail between liberty and servitude; and a transient inspection of surrounding objects will convince him which of the two is more favorable to humanity. Upon the left bank of the stream the population is sparse; from time to time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half-desert fields; the primeval forest reappears at every turn; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle...From the right bank, on the contrary, a confused hum is heard, which proclaims afar the presence of industry; the fields are covered with abundant harvests; the elegance of the dwellings announces the taste and activity of the laborers...Upon the left bank of the Ohio labor is confounded with the idea of slavery, while upon the right bank it is identified with that of prosperity and improvement; on the one side it is degraded, on the other it is honored. On the former territory no white laborers can be found, for they would be afraid of assimilating themselves to the Negroes; all the work is done by slaves; on the latter no one is idle, for the white population extend their activity and intelligence to every kind of employment. Thus the men whose task it is to cultivate the rich soil of Kentucky are ignorant and apathetic, while those who are active and enlightened either do nothing or pass over into Ohio, where they may work without shame. It is true that in Kentucky the planters are not obliged to pay the slaves whom they employ, but they derive small profits from their labors, while the wages paid to the free workmen would be returned with interest in the value of their services...The white inhabitant of Ohio, obliged to subsist by his own exertions, regards temporal prosperity as the chief aim of his existence...But the Kentuckian scorns not only labor but all the undertakings that labor promotes; as he lives in an idle independence, his tastes are those of an idle man...a passionate love of field sports and military exercises...In the South of the United States the whole race of whites formed an aristocratic XX, headed by a certain number of privileged individuals, whose wealth was permanent and whose leisure was hereditary...This aristocracy contained many who were poor, but none who would work...The emancipated Negros and those born after the abolition of slavery do not, indeed, migrate from the North to the South; but their situation with regard to the Europeans is not unlike that of the Indians; they remain half civilized and deprived of their rights in the midst of a population that is far superior to them in wealth and knowledge, where they are exposed to the tyranny of the laws and the intolerance of the people. On some accounts they are still more to be pitied than the Indians, since they are haunted by the reminiscence of slavery, and they cannot claim possession of any part of the soil. Many of them perish miserably, and the rest congregate in the great towns and lead a wretched and precarious existence...I have already shown how the Northern states made the transition from slavery to freedom, by keeping the present generation in chains and setting their descendants free; by this means the Negroes are only gradually introduced into society...But it would be difficult to apply this method to the south. To declare that all Negroes born after a certain time shall be free is to introduce the principle and the notion of liberty into the heart of slavery; the blacks whom the law thus maintains in a state of slavery from which their children are delivered are astonished at so unequal a fate, and their astonishment is only the prelude to their impatience and irritation. Thenceforward slavery loses, in their eyes, that kind of moral power which it derived from time and habit; it is reduced to a mere palpable abuse of force. The Northern states had nothing to fear from the contrast, because in them the blacks were few in number, and the white population was very considerable. But if this faint dawn of freedom were to show two millions of men their true position, the oppressors would have reason to tremble. After having enfranchised the children of their slaves, the Europeans of the Southern states would very shortly be obliged to extend the same benefit to the whole black population...If I were called upon to predict the future, I should say that the abolition of slavery in the South will, in the common course of things, increase the repugnance of the white population for the blacks. I base this opinion upon the analogous observation I have already made in the North...But the Americans of the South, who do not admit that the Negroes can ever be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them, under severe penalties, to be taught to read or write; and as they will not raise them to their own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes...it has long been remarked that the presence of a free Negro vaguely agitates the minds of his less fortunate brethren, and conveys to them a dim notion of their rights. The Americans of the South have consequently taken away from slave-owners the right of emancipating their slaves in most cases. Emancipation is not prohibited, but surrounded with such formalities as to render it difficult. I happened to meet an old man, in the South of the Union, who had lived in illicit intercourse with one of his Negresses and had had several children by her, who were born the slaves of their father. He had, indeed, frequently thought of bequeathing to them at least their liberty; but years had elapsed before he could surmount the legal obstacles to their emancipation, and meanwhile his old age had come and he was about to die. He pictured to himself his sons dragged from market to market and passing from the authority of a parent to the rod of the stranger, until these horrid anticipations worked his expiring imagination into frenzy...The events that are taking place in the Southern states appear to me to be at once the most horrible and the most natural results of slavery. When I see the order of nature overthrown, and when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain struggle against the laws, my indignation does not light upon the men of our time who are the instruments of these outrages; but I reserve my execration for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought back slavery into the world once more.'

The Durants informed us of the ascetic wrath of St. Pius V:

`He urged Charles IX of France and Catherine de Medici to prosecute war against the Huguenots till these should be utterly and mercilessly destroyed. He commended the harsh measures of Alba in the Netherlands...He never mitigated a penal sentence; he encouraged the Inquisition to enforce its rules and penalties...'

G. G. Coulton wrote in `Inquisition and Liberty':

"It must be borne in mind that it is an essential of Roman Catholic faith to believe in the Pope's infallibility when he formally adds any name to the lists of Saints. At the head of these four canonizations of 1712 was Pope Pius V, a great champion of the Inquisition, who by excommunicating Elizabeth had made it the moral duty of every Roman Catholic in England to rebel; a man who (in Lord Acton's words) `held that it was sound Catholic doctrine that any man may stab a heretic condemned by Rome.'"

The Roman Catholic historian, Ludwig von Pastor, wrote in his `History of the Popes' (Kegan Paul, London 1929):

"The wish that his works might be buried together with the great champion of the tribunals of the faith had found expression at the time of the death of Paul IV. in the destruction of the Palace of the Inquisition. But the futility and impracticality of any such idea was manifest to all when the former Grand Inquisitor of Paul IV., as soon as he had ascended the throne of St. Peter under the name of Pius V. proceeded to build a new and even more secure home for the Holy Office...On September 2nd, 1566, the first stone of the new building was laid with great solemnity, amid salvos of cannon from the Castle of St. Angelo, and then was pushed forward with all speed. The builders of St. Peter's were instructed to interrupt their labours on the basilica, and assist with the building of the new palace of the Holy Office. In July, 1567, the Pope paid a visit to the building, but it was not until 1569 that he was able to place over the iron doors of the completed edifice his own coat of arms, together with those of Cardinals Pacheco, Rebiba, Gambara and Chiesa, with an inscription proclaiming that the palace was to be used for the warfare against heresy, and the spread of the Catholic religion. Even before the first stone was laid the Pope had taken steps for the formation of well-arranged archives in the new building, ordering all that the minutes of the trials of the Inquisition should be collected and placed in the Holy Office, and that they were to be made use of there. Pius V. then took steps to provide the necessary revenues for the Roman tribunal of the faith. If Pius IV. had imitated the mildness of Paul III. and Julius III. in his administration of the Inquisition, it was only natural that one who was so stern and so zealous for the purity of the faith as was Pius V., should once more adopt the policy of Paul IV....After an audience with Pius V., the Inquisitor of Brescia gave it his opinion in March, 1566, that in all that concerned the tribunal of the faith the Pope stood in need of the bit rather than the spur; a short time afterwards the Venetian ambassador, Tiepolo, wrote that nothing lay so near the heart of the Pope as the Inquisition. Under his government all appearances of any readiness to offend against it or to favour heresy had to be carefully avoided. Cardinal Sirleto, a few weeks after the election of Pius V., thought it advisable to send a special warning to Commendone on the subject. The Pope, so he wrote by Caligari, is very scrupulous in matters of faith; Commendone must be on his guard against having any private conversation with the heretics, or, like Cardinal Este at Poissy, attending their sermons, for Pius V., would take any such act very ill. When, in the last year of the Pope's life, the case of the Count of Cajazzo was being considered by the Holy Office, Cardinal Rambouillet dared to say a word on his behalf, but Pius V., silenced him abruptly, saying that it ill beseemed one who wore the Cardinal's robes to speak of anyone accused by the Inquisition...A decree of July 28th, 1569, according to which an accused person, once he had been convicted of heresy or had confessed to it, was to be forced to fuller confession by means of torture, is directly reminiscent of Paul IV...Pius V. was using the very words of the edicts of Paul IV...The obligation of secrecy concerning all matters treated of by the tribunal, which had been imposed by his two predecessors, was insisted upon even more strictly by Pius V.; any infringement of this secrecy was to be considered as a personal affront to the Pope. The advice of the consulters was taken under Pius V. with regard to the old custom of not making known to one who was accused before the Inquisition the names of the witnesses, and of taking precautions against their becoming known; as the result of their advice the existing custom was retained...He appeals in the first place to his own long experience as Grand Inquisitor; this had shown him that many of those summoned before the tribunal of the faith brought false witnesses to speak for them, and that in their depositions accused persons helped each other, and by means of cunningly devised excuses and artifices deceived their judges and even the Popes. Several accused persons had even succeeded in obtaining from the tribunals of the faith and from the Popes documents in their own favour, as for example certificates in which they were declared to be good Catholics, both in their life and in their beliefs, or else Papal briefs and consistorial decrees which ensured to them the protection of the Pope, and prevented the Inquisition from taking any further action against them. Their former errors were thus maintained and even more widely spread under the aegis of such declarations. In order to obviate this abuse Pius V. then proceeds to give the Inquisition a free hand to take steps against heretics in spite of such documents, especially when they had given fresh signs of heresy. Even when a trial had been decided by the authority of the Council of Trent itself, the Inquisition has the right to reopen the case and re-examine it. Finally, the Pope renews the bull of Paul IV. of February 15th, 1558, against heretics and schismatics [schismatics would include the Eastern Orthodox]. It is obvious to whom the Pope refers when he complains that even some of the Popes had been deceived by the heretics. Some of the decrees of the Cardinal Inquisitors form a corollary to this stern edict. It was certainly in order to foil the intrigues of the prisoners of the Inquisition in the matter of mutual assistance, that it was enacted that except when they were making their defense, those who were imprisoned might only confer with other persons, or read or write, with the permission of the Inquisitors. Anyone who broke this rule might be subjected to torture. Even the governor of the prison could only visit a prisoner if he was accompanied by somebody else....the very gravest penalties were accordingly to be inflicted upon anyone who should kill, maltreat or intimidate an Inquisitor, or any of his assessors and assistants...The first auto-da-fe took place on June 23rd, 1566, at the Church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, when fifteen sentences were pronounced...In the time of Pius V. the auto-da-fes were conducted with greater solemnity than under previous Popes; the Cardinals and all the Papal court attended, and a great concourse of people assembled...There has always been on earth, so Pius V. wrote, only one true religion, and there can be only one which is the religion which the Apostles preached, which the early martyrs attested by their blood, and which has been handed down from the time of the Apostle Peter to later times by means of his successors. In the opinion of the Pope, therefore, it is obvious where the true Church of Christ is to be found, and if the new believers still resist it after they have been sufficiently instructed, their conduct could only be looked upon as obstinacy and pride....Even greater excitement was caused by the auto-da-fe of September 21st, 1567. Among the seventeen condemned there was a prelate who was a well-known figure in Rome, the protonotary-apostolic, Pietro Carnesecchi, at one time principal private secretary to Clement VII., and held in high esteem by the Duke of Florence and the Queen-Mother of France. After having been brought several times before the Inquisition, Carnesecchi had, in the time of Pius IV., obtained a discharge, but Pius V., in consequence of fresh signs of heresy, had his case reopened. Cosimo de' Medici did not dare to refuse to hand over his protonotary ...an `obstinate Lutheran' was executed by hanging; it was found impossible to the end to induce him to return to the Church...Bartolomeo Bartoccio, remained steadfast in his opinions even to the terrible death at the stake...Among the cities of the Papal States none was called upon to send more of its inhabitants for judgement before the Roman Inquisition than Faenza...the Pope even thought of destroying the city and transferring its inhabitants elsewhere; many persons from that city had recently been handed over to the Roman Inquisition. The Pope, who had already had experience of that place as Inquisitor, set up there a commissariate-general of the Inquisition, whose jurisdiction extended over the dioceses of Faenza, Ravenna, Imola, Cervia, Cesena, Bertinoro and Sarsina. The choice of the first commissary-general, however, was not a happy one; this was Angelo Gazini da Lugo. The Inquisitor was too severe; a chronicler wrote that even the stones trembled before his terrible rigour....Pius V., at the beginning of 1568, sent the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Borromeo, to Mantua...Borromeo's skill and prudence were successful in February, 1568. in appeasing the Duke and restoring the authority of the Inquisition.'

Dr. Lea wrote in his `A History of the Inquisition in Spain' (Macmillan, 1906):

`The Inquisition, however, regarded the conviction of a heretic as only the preliminary to forcing him to denounce his associates; the earliest papal utterance, in 1252, authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to discover accomplices and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be tortured for this purpose...It was, in reality, the torture of witnesses, for the criminal's fate had been decided, and he was thus used only to give testimony against others. The Spanish Inquisition was, therefore, only following a general practice when it tortured in capu alienum, those who had confessed their guilt. No confession was accepted as complete unless it revealed the names of those whom the penitent knew to be guilty of heretical acts, if there was reason to suspect that he was not fully discharging his conscience in this respect, torture was the natural resort. Even the impenitent or the relapsed, who was doomed to relaxation, was thus to be tortured and was to be given clearly to understand that it was as a witness and not as a party, and that his endurance of torture would not save him from the stake. The Instructions of 1561, however warn inquisitors that in these cases much consideration should be exercised and torture in caput alienum was rather the exception in Spain, than the rule as in Rome. In the case of the negativo, against whom conclusive evidence was had, and who thus was to be condemned without torture, the device of torturing him against his presumable accomplices afforded an opportunity of endeavoring to secure his own confession and conversion. We have seen this fail, in 1596, in the Mexican case of Manuel Diaz, nor was it more successful in Lima, in 1639, with Enrique de Paz y Mello, although the final outcome was different...He was sentenced to relaxation and torture in caput alienum; it was administered with great severity without overcoming his fortitude, and he persisted through five other publications as fresh evidence was gathered. Yet at midnight before the auto da fe, in which he was to be burnt, he weakened. He confessed as to himself and others and his sentence was modified to reconciliation and the galleys, while good use was made of his revelations against thirty of his accomplices...At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-eight, who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far, and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted and was revived with difficulty. In 1607 at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla, aged seventy-six, after confessing certain matters, was accused by a new witness of being an alfaqui; this he denied and was duly tortured...Isabel Madalena, a girl of thirteen, who was vaguely accused of Moorish practices, was tortured, overcame the torture and was penanced with a hundred lashes.'

Jakob Burckhardt, via translation from the German, writes in `The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy' (Phaedon Press),

"Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century found itself in the midst of a grave moral crisis, out of which the best men saw hardly an escape...other nations, though they found it no easier to forgive, nevertheless forgot more easily, while the Italian imagination kept the picture of the wrong alive with frightful vividness. The fact that, according to the popular morality, the avenging of blood is a duty - a duty often performed in a way to make us shudder - gives to this passion a peculiar and still firmer basis...Even among the peasantry, we read of Thyestean banquets [cannibalism] and mutual assassination on the widest scale. Let us look at an instance. In the district of Acquapendente three boys were watching cattle, and one of them said: `Let us find out the way people are hanged.' While one was sitting on the shoulders of the other, and the third, after fastening the rope round the neck of the first, was tying it to an oak, a wolf came, and the two boys who were free ran away and left the third hanging. Afterwards they found him dead, and buried him. On the Sunday his father came to bring him bread, and one of the two confessed what had happened, and showed him the grave. The old man then killed him with a knife, cut him up, brought away the liver, and entertained the boy's father with it at home. After dinner, he told him whose liver it was. Hereupon began a series of reciprocal murders between the two families, and within a month thirty-six persons were killed, women as well as men. And such `vendette,' handed down from father to son, and extending to friends and distant relations, were not limited to the lower classes, but reached to the highest...This personal need of vengeance felt by the cultivated and highly placed Italian, resting on the solid basis of an analogous popular custom, naturally displays itself under a thousand different aspects, and receives the unqualified approval of public opinion...All are at one on the point that, in the case of those injuries and insults for which Italian justice offered no redress...each man is free to take the law into his own hands. Only there must be art in the vengeance, and the satisfaction must be compounded of the material injury and moral humiliation of the offender. A mere brutal, clumsy triumph of force was held by public opinion to be no satisfaction...In certain districts of Italy...the country people were disposed to murder any stranger who fell into their hands...A worse symptom than brigandage of the morality of that time was the frequency of paid assassination...`Nothing,' says Pontano, `is cheaper than human life.'...The worst example of all was set by princes and governments, who without the faintest scruple reckoned murder as one of the instruments of their power...The thirst for blood on its own account, the devilish delight in destruction, is most clearly exemplified in the case of the Spaniard Cesare Borgia, whose cruelties were certainly out of all proportion to the end which he had in view. In Sigismondo Malatesta, tyrant of Rimini, the same disinterested love of evil may be detected. It is not only the Court of Rome, but the verdict of history, which convicts him of murder, rape, adultery, incest, sacrilege, perjury and treason...The most shocking crime of all -the unnatural attempt on his own son Roberto, who frustrated it with his drawn dagger- may have been the result not merely of moral corruption, but perhaps of some magical or astrological superstition. The same conjecture has been made to account for the rape of the Bishop of Fano by Pierluigi Farnese of Parma, the son of Paul III...If therefore egotism in its wider as well as narrower sense is the root and fountain of all evil, the more highly developed Italian was for this reason more inclined to wickedness than the members of other nations of that time."

G. G. Coulton wrote in 'The Inquisition' (Jonathan Cape, 1929):

`This subject has been so fully and scientifically studied during the last fifty years that we may speak with something like absolute certainty as to nearly all of the most important facts.

The reader will see that my bibliography rests mainly upon the Quaker Lea, Lord Acton, the greatest Roman Catholic historian who has written in the English language; a French canon; a French Catholic professor; and a distinguished French lawyer...as early as about 430, the law of Theodosius II. proclaimed death, in the last resort, against certain heretics...in 385, the Emperor Maximus had tortured and executed the heretic Priscillian, with six of his followers...Pope Leo I., in 447, justified the act and wished that it might be repeated in other cases...it was cited again with the express commendation, as a laudable precedent, by Hadrian VI. to the princes of Germany in 1522...St. Augustine, who began by protesting against persecution in the case of the Donatists, ended by retracting; he thought force was necessary, in some cases, to bring men to a sense of the truth...Many heretics, in different parts of Europe, were put to death between 1020 and 1150; but more often by princes or by lynch-law than be regular ecclesiastical authority...in the second half of the twelfth century, the plot thickens. Heretics are more regularly burned, and prelates are more prominent in the executions; moreover, there is no bishop, I believe, who protests. The first formal laws which prescribed the stake (except those of the earlier Roman emperors, which were gradually being unearthed and emphasised) emanated from two or three sovereigns...The King of Aragon claimed to be acting here "in obedience to the decrees of the Holy Roman church, which have prescribed that heretics should....be everywhere condemned and prosecuted...And, by 1231, there is no longer any possible doubt of the papal attitude...between 1230 and 1233, Gregory IX. put the finishing touches to what modern scholars call the Papal Inquisition. Lucius III., by a decree of 1184, had already created the Episcopal Inquisition...counts, barons, and civil magistrates must take a solemn oath to execute this edict, under pain of deposition, confiscation, and excommunication...the whole forces of Church and State were solemnly mobilized against heresy. But even these were found insufficient, and Innocent III. presently began the practice of sending commissioners of inquiry...Then, at last, came those stricter laws of Gregory IX...The Pope now regularly deputed inquisitors, nearly always chosen from the new and enthusiastic Mendicant Orders...Gregory IX...is quite certain that they are to be burned, and who musters and drills the orthodox against them, not only to the last man, but to the last child. For, under the Inquisition, just as the court has all the advantage of secret procedure, and concealment of witnesses, and torture not only of the suspect, but even of witnesses through whom there is any hope of securing a condemnation, so also an unfree man, or a criminal, is permitted or compelled to testify, and an infant not yet in his teens may be heard in evidence against his parents...Preachers and philosophers taught, and men in general believed, that the majority of mankind would find their way to hell. They believed that, whereas heaven meant an eternity of bliss beyond all conception, hell meant an eternity of unthinkable horror and torment...Innocent III. publicly proclaimed, that the heretic deserves the same punishment as the man who betrays his sovereign; or, indeed, much more, "since it is far worse to offend the Eternal Majesty than a temporal ruler." And the deductions from these premises were worked out, once for all, by St. Thomas Aquinas...any baptised Christian who pertinaciously dissents from the official teaching becomes thereby a traitor of the blackest dye, to be punished by death. And here St. Thomas speaks practically as the unchallenged representative of scholastic philosophy...at the present day, while Aquinas's are the orthodox conclusions, yet almost all the orthodox are concerned to bury them in oblivion...four devoted Franciscans were burned at Marseilles in 1318 for what was, in effect, a refusal to abjure an essential point in St. Francis's teaching...The man who first combined charcoal, salt-petre, and sulphur made a new and devastating compound; so also this medieval combination of many scattered juridical tyrannies formed a compound of unexampled violence. 1)...The Inquisition assumed his guilt unless he could prove his innocence...2) His judges were purely ecclesiastical...3) The procedure was secret. 4) The names of witnesses were also generally concealed...5) Indeed, infamous persons were expressly allowed to testify...children were heard, even against their parents. This, however, was only in favour of the prosecution; neither infamous persons nor infants might be heard in defense. 6) Advocates were nominally allowed at first; but it was made a punishable crime to appear in defense of a guilty person...7) witnesses for the defense...practically certain to be suspected of complicity as abettors of the heretics. 8) Torture might be inflicted not only on the suspect, but also on any witnesses...9) It was, indeed, forbidden to "repeat" torture; the man who had been racked on Monday might be racked again on Tuesday under colour of the word "continuance." 10) A very small nonconformity might be magnified into a crime punishable by death....11)...the Inquisition compelled every man to spy upon his neighbor's secrets...we have a pathetic complaint from the Inquisitor Eymeric in 1375: "In our days there are no more rich heretics; so that princes, not seeing much money in prospect, will not put themselves to any expense; it is a pity that so salutary an institution as ours should be so uncertain of its future"...women and children and old men were tortured. In Italy, they were more indulgent with children; these were spared up to the age of nine, and, after that age, beaten with a rod...We may see now why Sir John Fortescue, in 1470, reckoned the absence of torture in England as one of our most precious national assets; for the Inquisition had...worked among us only for a few months, in the matter of the Templars...When once well-meaning folk like the Waldenses and Fraticelli had been driven underground, it was easy to invent any lies about them. Men accused them of promiscuous lust in their secret conventicles; or of an abomination called barilotto, which added to this promiscuity the crime of roasting a new-born child in public at a fire and drinking a sacramental cup mingled with the ashes...Lord Acton noted that Lea, in his anxiety to be impartial, was sometimes over-indulgent to the persecutors...St. Bernard had heartily disapproved of lynch-law: `Faith must be persuaded to men, and not imposed upon them.' Historians have been too prone to quote that noble word, mainly at second-hand from each other, without ever reading the next sentence, in which St. Bernard foreshadows plainly the choice that lay finally before Innocent III. For he adds: `Yet it would be better that they were coerced by the sword of that [magistrate] who beareth not the sword in vain, than that they should be suffered to bring many others into their own error. "For he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."...The argument of St. Thomas Aquinas runs as follows: 1) All baptized Christians are, ipso facto, subjects of the Roman Catholic Church; 2) that Church is a "Perfect Society" in the medieval philosophical sense; 3) therefore she has full rights of coercion and punishment over all her subjects; 4) not only of spiritual punishment, such as excommunication, but also of corporal punishment; 5) not excluding the extreme penalty of death. 6) Heresy - formal as apart from mere material heresy is a crime; 7) and therefore punishable in proportion to its sinfulness and to the damage it causes. 8) Formal heretics are all who, not being invincibly ignorant, refuse pertinaciously to accept the Roman Catholic faith when put before them. 9) It is not for the 255 individual to judge the point at which this refusal becomes criminally pertinacious, nor for the State, nor for society in general: the sole judge here is the Church....The Summa Theologica was being composed in about 1250. Nearly eighty years before this, Pope and Emperor, in concert, had begun the systematic burning of heretics. In 1204, again, there had been the Albingensian Crusade, with its wholesale slaughter ending in a good deal of disillusionment for Innocent III. himself. St. Thomas knew that, in spite of all this bloodshed, hundreds or thousands of people were still being born and nurtured in heresy...and he knew that these were most numerous in the most civilised districts of Europe - Northern Italy, Southern France, and the great trade - routes like the Rhineland...St. Thomas must have known, almost as well as any modern philosopher, that the taking even of a single human life can be justified only in the last resort, and that anything like wholesale slaughter requires far stronger justification. Yet his logic drove him, from his own premises, to the conclusion that it is part of a Christian's duty...to burn his fellow Christians.'

Dr. Lea wrote in 'A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages,'
"The Church had not always been an organization which considered its highest duty to be the forcible suppression of dissidence at any cost. In the simplicity of apostolic times its members were held together by the bond of love, and the spirit with which discipline was enforced is expressed in St. Paul's precept to the Galatians (vi. 1,2) - `Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted'...Theology could not form itself without starting a cloud of questions unsettled by the gospel: earnest disputants arose who, in the heat of controversy, magnified the points at issue till they assumed an importance rendering them the vital tests of Christianity, and men believed with the most fervid conviction that their adversaries were not Christians because they differed on some unimportant fragment of ritual or discipline, or on some infinitesimal dogma which only the mind trained in the dialectics of the schools could comprehend. When Quintilla taught that water was not necessary in baptism, Tertullian shrieks to her that there is nothing in common between them, not even the same God or the same Christ. The Donatist heresy with its deplorable results arose on the question of the eligibility of a single bishop. When Eutyches, in his zeal against the doctrines of Nestorius, was led to confuse in some degree the double nature of Christ, thinking that he was only defending the dogmas of his friend St. Cyril, he suddenly found himself convicted of a heresy as damnable as Nestorianism; while his defense against the practiced rhetoric of Eusebius of Dorylaeum shows that he was not able to grasp the subtle distinction between substantia and subsistentia - a fatal failing which proved the ruin of thousands. Thus, during the first six centuries, as men explored the infinite problems of existence here and hereafter, new questions constantly arose and were disputed with merciless vehemence. Those who held commanding positions in the Church and could enforce their opinions were necessarily orthodox; those who were weaker became heterodox, and the distinction between the faithful and the heretic became year by year more marked. Nor was it merely the odium theologicum that raised the passions; not only pride of opinion and zeal for the purity of the faith. Wealth and power have charms even for a bishop and priest, and in the Church, as it grew through the centuries, wealth and power depended upon the obedience of the flock. A hardy disputant who questioned the dogmatic accuracy of his ecclesiastical superior was a mutineer of the worst kind; and if he succeeded in attracting followers they became the nucleus of a rebellion which threatened revolution, and every motive, good or evil, prompted the suppression of such sedition at all hazards and by every available means. If the sectaries became sufficiently numerous to form a community of their own, cutting them off from the communion of the Church was of no avail; the keenest shafts of ecclesiastical censure rebounded harmless from their armor of conscientious belief. This naturally led to an animosity against them greater than that visited on the worst of criminals. No matter how trivial may have been the cause of the of schism, nor how pure and fervent might be the faith of the schismatics, the fact that they had refused to bend to authority, and had thus sought to divide the seamless garment of Christ, became an offence in comparison with which all other sins dwindled into insignificance, neutralizing all the virtues and all the devotion which men could possess...Yet the spirit of persecution was too repugnant to the spirit of Christ for its triumph to come without a struggle, which can be traced in the writings of the early fathers. Tertullian warmly defends the freedom of conscience; it is irreligious to enforce religion; no one wishes to be venerated unwillingly, so that God may be assumed to desire only the worship which comes from the heart...It was indeed natural that a persecuted Church should plead for toleration, and the fact that, even in this early period, there should be flashes of intolerance gives ample warning of what was to come with the power of enforcing dogma on the recalcitrant. Lactantius was the last of the fathers of the persecuted Church, and he could feelingly argue that belief is not to be enjoined by force, that slaughter and piety are in no sense connected, and he boasts that none are coerced into remaining in the Church, for he who lacks piety is useless to God. The triumph of intolerance was inevitable when Christianity became the religion of the State, yet the slowness of its progress shows the difficulty of overcoming the incongruity between persecution and the gospel. Hardly had orthodoxy been defined by the Council of Nicaea when Constantine brought the power of the State to bear to enforce uniformity...Yet while the churchmen might feel it to be a duty thus to obstruct the development and dissemination of teachings which they regarded as destructive to religion, they still shrank from pushing intolerance to extremity and enforcing uniformity with blood, although the Emperor Julian declared that he had found no wild beasts so cruel to men as most of the Christians were to each other...It was in 385 that the first instance was given of judicial capital punishment for heresy, and the horror which it excited shows that it was regarded everywhere as a hideous innovation. The Gnostic and Manichaean speculations of Priscillian were looked upon with the peculiar detestation which that group of heresies ever called forth; but when he was tried by the tyrant Maximus, at Trèves, with the use of torture, and was put to death with six of his disciples, while others were banished to the barbarous island beyond Britain, there was a most righteous burst of indignation. Of the two prosecuting bishops, Ithacius and Idacius, one was expelled from the episcopate and the other resigned. The saintly Martin of Tours, who had done all in his power to prevent the atrocity, refused to join in communion with them, or with any who communed with them. If he finally yielded, in order to save the lives of some men for whom he had come to Maximus to beg mercy, and also to prevent the tyrant from persecuting the Priscillianists of Spain...yet, in spite of the consoling visit of an angel, he was overcome with grief at what he had done, and he found that he had lost for some time the power to expel devils and heal the sick...Early in the fifth century we find Chrysostom teaching that heresy must be suppressed, heretics silenced and prevented from ensnaring others, and their conventicles broken up, but that the death-penalty is unlawful. About the same time St. Augustin entreats the Prefect of Africa not to put any Donatists to death because, if he does so, no ecclesiastic can make complaint of them, for they will prefer to suffer death themselves rather than be the cause of it to others...The fiery Jerome, when his wrath was excited by Vigilantius forbidding the adoration of relics, expressed his wonder that the bishop of that hardy heretic had not destroyed him in the flesh for the benefit of his soul, and argued that piety and zeal for God could not be cruelty; rigor, in fact, he argues in another place, is the most genuine mercy, since temporal punishment may avert eternal perdition. It was only sixty-two years after the slaughter of Priscillian and his followers had excited so much horror, that Leo I., when heresy seemed to be reviving, in 447, not only justified the act, but declared that if the followers of a heresy so damnable were allowed to live there would be an end of human and divine law. The final step had been taken, and the Church was definitely pledged to the suppression of heresy at whatever cost. It is impossible not to attribute to ecclesiastical influence the successive edicts by which, from the time of Theodosius the Great, persistence in heresy was punished with death...We have seen numerous cases of burning alive interspersed with sentences of imprisonment, and it was long before a definite formula was reached...The practice of burning the heretic alive was thus not the creature of positive law, but arose generally and spontaneously, and its adoption by the legislator was only the recognition of a popular custom. We have seen numerous instances of this in a former chapter, and even as late as 1219, at Troyes, an insane enthusiast who maintained that he was the Holy Ghost was seized by the people, placed in a wicker crate surrounded by combustibles, and promptly reduced to ashes. The origin of this punishment is not easily traced, unless it is to the pagan legislation of Diocletian, who decreed this penalty for Manichaeism...As heresy was regarded as the greatest of crimes, the desire which was felt alike by laity and clergy to render its punishment as severe and as impressive as possible found in the stake its appropriate instrument...Technically there was no difference between the episcopal and papal Inquisitions. The equitable system of procedure borrowed from the Roman law by the courts of the Ordinaries was cast aside, and the bishops were permitted and even instructed to follow the inquisitorial system, which was a standing mockery of justice - perhaps the most iniquitous that the arbitrary cruelty of man has ever devised. In tracing the history of the institution, therefore, there is no distinction to be drawn between its two branches, and the exploits of both are to be recorded as springing from the same impulses, using the same methods, and leading to the same ends. Yet the papal Inquisition was an instrument of infinitely greater efficiency for the work in hand. However zealous an episcopal official might be, his efforts were necessarily isolated, temporary, and spasmodic. The papal Inquisition, on the other hand, constituted a chain of tribunals throughout Continental Europe perpetually manned by those who had no other work to attend to. Not only, therefore, did the persecution in their hands assume the aspect of part of the endless and inevitable operations of nature, which was necessary to accomplish its end, and which rendered the heretic hopeless that time would bring relief, but by constant interchange of documents and mutual co-operation they covered Christendom with a network rendering escape almost impossible. This, combined with the most careful preservation and indexing of records, produced a system of police singularly perfect for a period when international communication was so imperfect. The Inquisition had a long arm, a sleepless memory, and we can well understand the mysterious terror inspired by the secrecy of its operations and its almost supernatural vigilance. If public proclamation was desired, it summoned all the faithful, with promises of eternal life and reasonable temporal reward, to seize some designated heresiarch, and every parish priest where he was suspected to be in hiding was bound to spread the call before the whole population. If secret information was required, there were spies and familiars trained to the work. The record of every heretical family for generations could be traced out from the papers of one tribunal or other. A single lucky capture and extorted confession would put the sleuth-hounds on the track of hundreds who deemed themselves secure, and each new victim added his circle of denunciations...During the fierce persecution of the Spiritual Franciscans in 1317 and 1318 a number of pitying souls had assisted fugitives, had stood by the pyres of the martyrs and had comforted them in various ways. Some had been suspected, had fled and changed their names: others had remained in favoring obscurity; all might have fancied that the affair was forgotten. Suddenly, in 1325, some chance - probably the confession of a prisoner - placed the Inquisition on their track. Twenty or more were traced out and seized...Flight was of no avail. Descriptions of heretics who disappeared were sent throughout Europe, to every spot where they could be supposed to seek refuge...Bernard Gui, the most experienced inquisitor of his day, concludes his elaborate instructions as to procedure with some general directions as to conduct and character...The organization of the Inquisition was simple, yet effective. It did not care to impress the minds of men with magnificence, but rather to paralyze them with terror...The inquisitor...was at most accompanied by a few armed familiars, partly as a guard, partly to execute his orders. His principal scene of activity was in the recesses of the dreaded Holy Office, whence he issued his commands and decided the fate of whole populations in a silence and secrecy which impressed upon the people a mysterious awe a thousand times more potent than the external magnificence of the bishop...In 1316 an old woman was brought before the tribunal; on examination it was found in 1268, nearly fifty years before, she had confessed and abjured heresy and had been reconciled, and as this aggravated her guilt the miserable wretch was condemned to perpetual imprisonment in chains...Not the least important among the functionaries of the Inquisition were the lowest class - the apparitors, messengers, spies, and bravos, known generally by the name of familiars, which came to have so ill-omened a significance in the popular ear...Not only did they enjoy the immunity from secular jurisdiction attaching to all in the service of the Church, but the special authority granted by Innocent IV., in 1245, to the inquisitors to absolve their familiars for acts of violence rendered them independent even of ecclesiastical tribunals...Thus panoplied, they could tyrannize at will over the defenseless population...The same inquisitor illustrates the ease with which the cunning of these simple folk fenced and played with the best-trained men of the Holy Office by a case in which he saw a serving-wench elude the questions of picked examiners for several days together, and she would have escaped had there not by chance been found in her chest the fragment of a bone of a heretic recently burned, which she had preserved as a relic, according to one of her companions who had collected the bones with her. But the inquisitor does not tell us how many good Catholics, confused by the awful game which they were playing, mystified by the intricacies of scholastic theology, ignorant how to answer the dangerous questions put to them so searchingly, and terrified with the threats of burning for persistent denial, despairingly confessed the crime of which they were so confidently assumed to be guilty, and ratified their conversion by inventing tales about their neighbors...[the inquisitor] was laboring to preserve the sheep by not liberating an infected one to spread the pestilence among the flock. It mattered little to the victim what were the motives actuating his persecutor, for conscientious cruelty is apt to be more cold-blooded and calculating, more relentless and effective, than passionate wrath...The resources for procuring unwilling confession, at command of the inquisitor, may be roughly divided into two classes - deceit and torture, the latter comprehending both mental and physical pain, however administered. Both classes were resorted to freely and without scruple, and there was ample variety to suit the idiosyncrasies of all judges and prisoners...That spies should play a prominent part in such a system was inevitable...The prisoner who refused to confess, or whose confession was deemed imperfect, was remanded to his cell, and left to ponder in solitude and darkness. Except in rare cases time was no object with the Inquisition, and it could afford to wait...Months would lengthen into years, perhaps years into decades, and find him still unconvicted and still a prisoner, hopeless and despairing. Should friendly death not intervene, the terrible patience of the Inquisition was nearly certain to triumph in the end, and the authorities all agree upon the effectiveness of delay. This explains what otherwise would be hard to understand - the immense protraction of so many inquisitorial trials whose records have reached us. Three, five, or ten years are common enough as intervals between the first audience of a prisoner and his final conviction, nor are instances wanting of even greater delays. Bernalde, wife of Guillem de Montaigu, was imprisoned at Toulouse in 1297, and made a confession the same year, yet she was not formally sentenced to imprisonment until the auto of 1310...When it was desired to hasten this slow torture, the object was easily accomplished by rendering the imprisonment unendurably harsh. As we shall see hereafter, the dungeons of the Inquisition at best were abodes of fearful misery, but when there was reason for increasing their terrors there was no difficulty in increasing the hardships...With all these resources at their command, it might seem superfluous for inquisitors to have recourse to the vulgar and ruder implements of the torture-chamber. The rack and strappado, in fact, were in such violent antagonism, not only with the principles of Christianity, but with the practices of the Church, that their use by the Inquisition, as a means of furthering the faith, is one of the saddest anomalies of that dismal period...The prisoner was shown the implements of torment and urged to confess. On his refusal he was stripped and bound by the executioners and again entreated to speak, with promises of mercy in all cases in which mercy could be shown...If this proved ineffective, the torture was applied with gradually increasing severity."

Dr. Lea writes in his 'A History of the Inquisition in Spain,'

`To the modern mind the judicial use of torture, as a means of ascertaining truth, is so repellant and illogical that we are apt to forget that it has, from the most ancient times, been practiced by nearly all civilised nations...That it should be used by the Inquisition was a matter of course, for the crime of heresy was often one peculiarly difficult to prove; confession was sought in all cases and, from the middle of the thirteenth century, the habitual employment of torture by the Holy Office had been the most efficient factor in spreading its use throughout Christendom, at the expense of the obsolete Barbarian customs. It is true that Spain was loath to admit the innovation...Alfonso X...required that confession be voluntary...In the Kingdoms of Aragon, which admitted the Inquisition, torture remained illegal, and it was only by the positive commands of Clement V that it was employed, in 1311, on the Templars...In Aragon, Pena tells us that, although it was forbidden in secular jurisprudence, it was freely permitted in matters of faith...The system was evil in conception and in execution, but the Spanish Inquisition, at least, was not responsible for its introduction and, as a rule, was less cruel than the secular courts in its application...In this respect, the comparison between the Spanish and the Roman Inquisition is also eminently in favor of the former...in Rome it was the rule that all who confessed or were convicted in matters of faith were tortured for the further discovery of the truth and the revelation of accomplices...torture was employed by Rome to extort confessions...The indirect torture of especially harsh imprisonment was not unknown to the Inquisition...It was not, as in the medieval Inquisition prescribed as an ordinary resource, but it was at the discretion of the tribunal...of Diego García, a priest accused of having said twenty years before, when a boy, that the sacrament was bread, the consulta held two meetings...and finally voted torture...When the indications of guilt were too slender to justify torture, the consulta de fe sometimes voted to threaten torture. Then the sentence was formally drawn up and read to the accused, he was taken to the torture-chamber, stripped and perhaps tied on the potro or escalera, without proceeding further...Leonor Pérez who, at the age of seventy, was sentenced, May 3, 1634, in Valladolid, to be placed in conspectu tormentorum. When stripped, on May 10th, the executioner reported marks of previous torture; the proceedings were suspended and, on May 13th, she admitted that, twenty years before, she had been tortured in Coimbra. On June 14th the sentence was again executed, but before being stripped, she confessed to some Jewish beliefs and then fainted. A postponement was necessary and two days later she revoked her confession. The case dragged on and it was not until August 1, 1637 that she was condemned...but we still hear of her as in prison, early in 1639...When Francisco de Tornamira, a boy of eighteen and page of the Duke of Pastrana, was tried in 1592, on the charge of having said that Jews and Moors could be saved if they had faith in their respective beliefs, he denied and was tortured till he confessed...The same tribunal in 1579, tried Stefano Grillen, an Italian, who, in a discussion with some chance fellow-travellers, maintained that the miracles at the shrines of Our Lady of Atocha and of la Caridad were wrought by the Virgin herself and not by her images. He freely confessed but was tortured....Juan Pereira, a boy of fifteen, tried, in 1646, for Judaism at Valladolid...The Suprema was applied to and sagely ordered torture to find out. It was administered, April 22, 1648, but the method of diagnosis was not as successful as its ingenuity deserved and, in August, he was sent to a hospital for six months, with instructions to observe him carefully. As his name after this disappears from the records, he probably died in the hospital...the earliest papal utterance in 1252, authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to discover accomplices and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be tortured for this purpose...Like majestas, in heresy there were no privileged classes exempt from torture. Nobles were subjected to it and so were ecclesiastics of all ranks, but the latter were to be tortured less severely than laymen, unless the case was very grave...Llorente, indeed, in describing a case in which a woman of ninety was tortured at Cuenca, says that this was contrary to the orders of the Suprema which prescribed that the aged should only be placed in conspectu tormentorum, but I have never met with such a rule...the Instructions of 1561, which are very full, impose no limit of age and leave everything to the discretion of the tribunal...the Madrid tribunal, in instructions of 1690, only makes the concession of placing pregnant women on a seat, in place of binding them on the rack, while applying the exceedingly severe torture of the garrote - sharp cords, two on each arm and two on each leg, bound around the limb and twisted with a short lever...As regards women who were suckling, there seems to have been no established rule. In 1557, when the Valencia tribunal proposed to torture María Gilo, the physician who was called in reported that it would expose the child to imminent risk and the purpose was abandoned. In 1608, however, at Toledo, when the same question arose in the case of Luisa de Narvaez, the consulta voted in discordia and the Suprema ordered her to be tortured...The tribunals seem to have been more tender-hearted than the Suprema which, in its instructions of 1662, reproved inquisitors who avoid sentencing to torture on account of weakness or of a broken arm. This, it says, is not proper, because it forfeits the opportunity of obtaining confession in the various preliminaries of reading sentence, carrying to the torture-chamber, stripping him and tying him to the trestle; besides, after commencing, the torture is always to be stopped when the physician orders...About 1560, Inquisitor Cervantes says that the patient is not to have food or drink on the evening before or the morning of the infliction and, in 1722, a writer specifies eight hours for the preliminary fasting...Ferdinand, in a letter of July 22, 1486, to Torquemada, complains that the inquisitors of Saragossa had employed a torturer because the messengers had refused to do the work...In Madrid from March to August, 1681, Alonso de Alcalá, the city executioner, was paid by the tribunal forty-four ducats, for eleven torturings, at four ducats apiece. It seems strange that objection should be made to the torturer being disguised but, in 1524, the Suprema forbade him to wear a mask or to be wrapped in a sheet; subsequently he was permitted to wear a hood and to change his garments and, in the seventeenth century, a mask and other disguise was permissible, if it were thought best that he should not be recognized...The exposure of stripping was not a mere wanton aggravation but was necessary, for the cords around the thighs and arms, the belt at the waist with cords passing from it over the shoulders from front to back, required access to every portion of the body and, at the end of the torture, there was little of the surface that had not had its due share of agony. Women as well as men were subjected to this, the slight concession to decency being the zaraguelles or panos de verguenza, a kind of abbreviated bathing-trunks...The patient was admonished not to tell falsehoods about himself or others and, during the torture, the only words to be addressed to him were `Tell the truth.' No questions were to be put and no names mentioned to him, for the reason, as we are told, that the sufferers in their agonies were ready to say anything that was in any way suggested, and to bear false-witness against themselves and others. The executioner was not to speak to the patient, or make faces at him, or threaten him...The work was to proceed slowly with due intervals between each turn of the garrotes or hoist in the garrucha, or otherwise the effect was lost, and the patient was apt to overcome the torture...The secretary faithfully recorded all that passed, even to the shrieks of the victim, his despairing ejaculations and his piteous appeals for mercy or to be put to death...As for the varieties of torture currently employed, it must be borne in mind that the Inquisition largely depended on public executioners, and its methods thus were necessarily identical with those of the secular courts...In the earlier period only two tortures were generally in vogue - the garrucha or pulleys and the water-torture. These are the only ones alluded to by Pablo García and both of them were old and well-established forms...when hoisted he should be held there while the psalm Miserere is thrice repeated slowly in silence...In the Toledo case of Marí Rodríguez, in 1592, the operation was divided, the cordeles being applied while she was seated on the banquillo, and were given eight turns; she was then transferred to the trestle, and the garrotes were used, followed by the water; at the second jarra she vomited profusely...For nine months she was left in her cell, then the consulta de fe voted to suspend the case and she was told to be gone in God's name...For the trampa or trampazo the ladder in the potro had one of its rungs removed so as to enable the legs to pass through...The cord, we are told, would cut through skin and muscle to the bone, while the body of the patient was stretched as in a rack...After this the potro came in play. The patient was released from the trampa and mancuerda and placed on the eleven sharp rungs of the potro...the same was done with the cord around the forehead, but this was abandoned as it was apt to start the eyes from their sockets...There was and could be no absolute limitation on the severity of torture. The Instructions of 1561 say that the law recognizes it as uncertain and dangerous in view of the difference in bodily and mental strength among men, wherefore no certain rule can be given...In that of Antonio López, at Valladolid in 1648, it commenced at eight o'clock and continued until eleven, leaving him with a crippled arm; in a fortnight he endeavored to strangle himself and he died within a month. Such cases were by no means rare. Gabriel Rodríguez, at Valencia, about 1710, was tortured thrice and condemned to the galleys...There is something hideously suggestive in such a matter of fact record as that of Blanca Rodríguez Matos, at Valladolid, which simply says that she was voted to torture, May 21, 1655, and it having been executed she died the same day...in 1643...Engracia Rodríguez, a woman of sixty years of age, had a toe wrenched off while in the balestilla. Nevertheless the torture proceeded until, in the first turn of the mancuerda, an arm was broken. It then was stopped without having extorted a confession, but her fortitude availed her little, for fresh evidence supervened against her and, some ten months later, she confessed to Jewish practices...the regular practice was to repeat the torture, when a confession followed by another revocation, subjected the victim to a third torture...Miguel de Castro, tried for Judaism, at Valladolid, in 1644...was tortured and confessed, after which he ratified, revoked and ratified again...he was tortured again until an arm was dislocated and he lost two fingers...Finally he was sentenced to reconciliation and irremissible prison and sanbenito, with a hundred lashes as a special punishment for revocation...In a number of cases tried by the tribunal of Lima between 1635 and 1639, nearly all the accused appear to have been tortured...About 1710, Fernando Castellon, on trial at Valencia for Judaism, claimed not to be baptised and was promptly tortured...As the activity of the Inquisition diminished, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the use of torture naturally decreased but, until the suppression in 1813, the formal demand for it was preserved...Llorente tells us that the Gazette de France of April 14, 1816, contained a letter from Rome of March 31st, stating that the pope had forbidden the use of torture in all tribunals of the Inquisition...I see no reason for doubting this, although no such brief appears in the Bullarium of Pius VII...According to an arancel, or fee-list, of 1553, the executioner was entitled to one real for administering torture, or to half a real if the infliction was only threatened. In the lay courts the sufferer was obliged to pay his tormentor, for there is provision that, if he is poor, the executioner is to receive nothing and is not allowed to take his garments in lieu of the money...In the Roman Inquisition, where torture was used so much more indiscriminately, a decision of the Congregation, in 1614, relieved the accused from payment of the fee...The condemnation of a human being to a death by fire, as the penalty of spiritual error, is so abhorrent to the moral sense and so repugnant to the teachings of Christ...The earliest recorded example of concremation is that administered by Robert the Pious of France to the Cathari of Orleans in 1017...It thus became part of the public law of Christendom, not so much from the initiative of the rulers, as from a recognition of what had become a custom through the spontaneous ferocity of popular fanaticism. The Inquisition, through whose agency heretics were consigned to the stake...`relaxed' them to the secular arm for due punishment...This shifting of responsibility to the civil power was not through any sense that the laws punishing heresy with burning were cruel or unjust, for the Church taught this to be an act so eminently pious that it accorded an indulgence to any one who would contribute wood to the pile, thus assuming the responsibility and expending the Treasury of the Merits of Christ in stimulating popular ferocity...In fact, when Luther argued that the burning of heretics was contrary to the will of the spirit, Leo X included this among his heresies condemned in the bull Exsurge Domine. Consequently the secular power had no choice as to what it should do with heretics delivered to it...if it listened to the hypocritical plea for mercy, it was liable to prosecution as a fautor of heresy...The Church enforced this by embodying in the canon law a provision that princes and their officials must punish duly and promptly all heretics delivered to them by inquisitors, under pain of excommunication...That the function of the magistrate was not judicial is manifested in the refusal to communicate the trial to him. When those of Brescia, in 1486, refused to execute the sentences of the inquisitor without seeing the trials, Innocent VIII ordered the inquisitor to excommunicate them if they delayed more than six days, no matter what the local laws might be, for heresy was a purely ecclesiastical crime...The Venetian Signory was not always as prompt as it should be in suppressing heresy so, to avoid delays and embarrassing questions, the papal nuncio there, with his fiscal, auditor and other officials, had facilities to condemn to mutilation and death all heretics without incurring irregularity or other ecclesiastical penalties...Such provisions were issued in 1547 by Paul III and in 1550 by Julius III and were doubtless customary. Pena reduces this to a general principle for, without referring to special papal faculties, he asserts that the intervention of the secular judge is unessential and that, if he is not accessible, the tribunal can condemn the heretic to death...Still, the estilo of the Inquisition required the ghastly comedy of asking mercy...In time the cardinals of the Roman Inquisition were beset with similar scruples and, to relieve their consciences, Pius V, October 9, 1567, granted a decree empowering them to participate in sentences of blood without incurring irregularity...The treatment is exemplified in the case of Fray Bonato, the head of a little body of Spiritual Franciscans in Catalonia. He was pertinacious until the flames had roasted him on one side, when his resolution gave way; he professed conversion and was rescued, but some years later he was found to be still cherishing his heresies and, in 1335, he was burnt alive...in the first rush and fury, the case of Juan Chinchilla in 1483...indicates that even frank confession failed to save from the stake those who had sought reconciliation in a Term of Grace...in the Murcia auto of May 17, 1722, when Inez Alvárez Pereira, convicted as an impenitent Judaizer, begged mercy during the reading of her sentence, professed that she wished to confess and be converted, and was sent back to prison, where she was reconciled...In such cases reconciliation was accompanied with confiscation, irremissible prison and sanbenito and usually one or two hundred lashes for tardy confession...Diego López Duro, an humble retailer of tobacco, condemned for Judaism, recanted while on the staging and was reconciled with imprisonment. In 1700, one day, when hearing mass, he stood apart from his fellow-prisoners and, in a loud voice, told the priest that he lied for the Law of Moses was the only true one. He would have been slain on the spot had he not been hurried out to save him from the popular wrath, but for him there could be no mercy. The inquisitors labored long to save his soul by inducing him to recant without success; he was pertinacious to the last and was burnt alive in the Seville auto of October 28, 1703 - one of those martyrs whose constancy explains why Judaism has been indestructible...in the sixty-four autos de fe between 1721 and 1727, there was a total of seventy-seven cases of relaxation in person. In the relations it is not always stated distinctly whether the victim was burned alive or garrotted...In the Córdova auto of April 12, 1722, Antonio Gabriel de Torre Zavallos, relaxed for Judaism, was converted after the reading of his sentence. At the brasero, with copious tears and signs of repentance, he loudly proclaimed his Christian faith, praising the mercy of God and of the Holy Office and demanding to be burnt alive, in order to offer God satisfaction for his sins, but this was refused; he was duly garrotted and `he gave his soul to God to the great consolation and edification of all the people'...Spanish executioners are said to possess such dexterity in manipulating the garrote that they can prolong the death-agony for hours when they are not bribed to give a speedy release. In the universal venality of the period, it is possible that those, whose friends failed to earn the good-will of the minister of justice, were by no means insensible when the torch was applied to the faggots...At the Seville auto of July 5, 1722...There were four pertinacious Jews, two men and two women...The younger woman, known as La Almiranta, at the bracer begged audience of the deputy assistente...was remanded to the royal prison...when taken to the bracero was more pertinacious than ever, saying that, as her companions had died as Catholics, they were accursed...she got the martyrdom which she craved...At a Valladolid auto of May 29, 1691, there were five pertinacious women condemned for Judaism, described as being from 24 to 27 years of age and very handsome, who excited general compassion. On being delivered to the magistrate two of them weakened, while three persisted in their faith, yet they were all garroted before burning...The negativo - he man who denied his heresy in the face of what was deemed competent testimony of guilt \- was classed as an impenitent heretic and doomed to relaxation. This was the inevitable logic of the Inquisition, although it led to the most tragic of all situations - that of being tortured to death in honor of the faith which the sufferer held...There was also the diminuto, who made a confession that did not `satisfy the evidence.'...was subject to relaxation after torture in caput alienum...Thus Hernando de Palma, a Morisco accused of teaching and conducting Moorish ceremonies, denied and overcame severe torture, whereupon the consulta de fe voted for appearance in an auto and abjuration de levi. Ignorant of this, he asked for an audience and confessed that, for seven or eight years he had practiced some Moorish rites, without regarding them as contrary to the faith...he persisted and was burnt in the Toledo auto of 1606...[Pope Paul IV.] desired to show that Rome was not to be outdone by Geneva in persecuting rigor and that, if Calvin in 1553 had burnt Servetus for denying the Trinity, he could be equally zealous for the faith. By the bull Cum quorundam he decreed that all who denied the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, his conception through the Holy Ghost, his death for human salvation, of the perpetual virginity of the Virgin, and who did not confess to inquisitors and abjure their errors within three months...should be forthwith relaxed to the secular arm [burned at the stake].'

Dr. Lea wrote in his 'A History of the Inquisition in Spain' (Macmillan, 1906):

`The Inquisition, however, regarded the conviction of a heretic as only the preliminary to forcing him to denounce his associates; the earliest papal utterance, in 1252, authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to discover accomplices and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be tortured for this purpose...It was, in reality, the torture of witnesses, for the criminal's fate had been decided, and he was thus used only to give testimony against others. The Spanish Inquisition was, therefore, only following a general practice when it tortured in capu alienum, those who had confessed their guilt. No confession was accepted as complete unless it revealed the names of those whom the penitent knew to be guilty of heretical acts, if there was reason to suspect that he was not fully discharging his conscience in this respect, torture was the natural resort. Even the impenitent or the relapsed, who was doomed to relaxation, was thus to be tortured and was to be given clearly to understand that it was as a witness and not as a party, and that his endurance of torture would not save him from the stake. The Instructions of 1561, however warn inquisitors that in these cases much consideration should be exercised and torture in caput alienum was rather the exception in Spain, than the rule as in Rome. In the case of the negativo, against whom conclusive evidence was had, and who thus was to be condemned without torture, the device of torturing him against his presumable accomplices afforded an opportunity of endeavoring to secure his own confession and conversion. We have seen this fail, in 1596, in the Mexican case of Manuel Diaz, nor was it more successful in Lima, in 1639, with Enrique de Paz y Mello, although the final outcome was different...He was sentenced to relaxation and torture in caput alienum; it was administered with great severity without overcoming his fortitude, and he persisted through five other publications as fresh evidence was gathered. Yet at midnight before the auto da fe, in which he was to be burnt, he weakened. He confessed as to himself and others and his sentence was modified to reconciliation and the galleys, while good use was made of his revelations against thirty of his accomplices...At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-eight, who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far, and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted and was revived with difficulty. In 1607 at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla, aged seventy-six, after confessing certain matters, was accused by a new witness of being an alfaqui; this he denied and was duly tortured...Isabel Madalena, a girl of thirteen, who was vaguely accused of Moorish practices, was tortured, overcame the torture and was penanced with a hundred lashes.'

Dr. Lea,

"On secular jurisprudence the example of the Inquisition worked even more deplorably. It came at a time when the old order of things was giving way to the new - when the ancient customs of the barbarians, the ordeal, the wager of law, the wer-gild, were growing obsolete in the increasing intelligence of the age, when a new system was springing to life under the revived study of the Roman law, and when the administration of justice by the local feudal lord was becoming swallowed up in the widening jurisdiction of the crown. The whole judicial system of the European monarchies was undergoing reconstruction, and the happiness of future generations depended on the character of the new institutions. That in this reorganization the worst features of the imperial jurisprudence - the use of torture and the inquisitorial process - should be eagerly, nay, almost exclusively adopted, should be divested of the safeguards which in Rome restricted their abuse, should be exaggerated in all their evil tendencies, and should, for five centuries, become the prominent characteristic of the criminal jurisprudence of Europe, may safely be ascribed to the fact that they received the sanction of the Church. Thus recommended, they penetrated everywhere along the Inquisition; while most of the nations to whom the Holy Office was unknown maintained their ancestral customs, developing into various forms of criminal practice, harsh enough, indeed, to modern eyes, but wholly divested of the more hideous atrocities which characterized the habitual investigation into crime in other regions. Of all the curses which the Inquisition brought in its train this, perhaps, was the greatest - that, until the closing years of the eighteenth century, throughout the greater part of Europe, the inquisitorial process, as developed for the destruction of heresy, became the customary method of dealing with all who were under accusation; that the accused was treated as one having no rights, whose guilt was assumed in advance, and from whom confession was to be extorted by guile or force. Even witnesses were treated in the same fashion; and the prisoner who acknowledged guilt under torture was tortured again to obtain information about any other evil-doers of whom he perchance might have knowledge. So, also the crime of `suspicion' was imported from the Inquisition into ordinary practice, and the accused who could not be convicted of the crime laid to his door could be punished for being suspected of it, not with the penalty legally provided for the offence, but with some other, at the fancy and discretion of the judge. It would be impossible to compute the amount of misery and wrong, inflicted on the defenseless up to the present century, which may be directly traced to the arbitrary and unrestricted methods introduced by the Inquisition and adopted by the jurists who fashioned the criminal jurisprudence of the Continent. It was a system which might well seem the invention of demons, and was fitly characterized by Sir John Fortescue as the Road to Hell."

Dr. Lea wrote in 'History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages,'

Thus habituated to the harshest measures, the Church grew harder and crueller and more unchristian. The worst popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries could scarce have dared to shock the world with such an exhibition as that with which John XXII. glutted his hatred of Hughes Gerold, Bishop of Cahors...he was partially flayed alive and then dragged to the stake and burned...When, in 1385, six cardinals were accused of conspiring against Urban VI. the angry pontiff had them seized...When it came to the turn of the Cardinal of Venice, Urban intrusted the work to an ancient pirate...with instructions to apply the torture till he could hear the victim howl; the infliction lasted from early morning till the dinner-hour, while the pope paced the garden under the window of the torture-chamber, reading his breviary aloud...The strappado and rack were applied by turns but though the victim was old and sickly, nothing could be wrenched from him save... "Christ suffered for us!'...Urban's competitor, known as Clement VII. [the anti-pope Clement VII. of the 14th century - not pope Clement VII. of the 16th century] was no less sanguinary. When, as Cardinal Robert of Geneva, he exercised legatine functions for Gregory XI., he led a band of Free Companions to vindicate the papal territorial claims. The terrible cold-blooded massacre of Cesena was his most conspicuous exploit, but equally characteristic of the man was his threat to the citizens of Bologna that he would wash his hands and feet in their blood.'

W. H. Lecky wrote in `History of European Morals' (D. Appleton, 1890):

"In the period when men are still perfect barbarians, when their habits of life are still nomadic, and when, war and the chase, being their sole pursuits, the qualities that are required in these form their chief measure of excellence, the inferiority of women to men should be regarded as undoubted, and their position should be extremely degraded. In all those qualities which are then most prized, women are indisputably inferior. The social qualities in which they are especially fitted to excel have no sphere for their display. The ascendancy of beauty is very faint, and, even if it were otherwise, few traces of female beauty could survive the hardships of the savage life. Woman is looked upon merely as the slave of man, and as the minister to his passions. In the first capacity, her life is one of continual, abject, and unrequited toil. In the second capacity, she is exposed to all the violent revulsions of feeling that follow, among rude men, the gratification of the animal passions...The first two steps which are taken towards the elevation of women are probably the abandonment of the custom of purchasing wives, and the construction of the family on the basis of monogamy...Monogamy was the general system in Greece...The conjugal tenderness of Hector and Andromache; the unwearied fidelity of Penelope...the heroic love of Alcestis...the filial piety of Antigone...the joyous, modest, and loving Nausicaa...all these are pictures of perennial beauty, which Rome and Christendom, chivalry and modern civilisation, have neither eclipsed nor transcended...The whole history of the Siege of Troy is a history of the catastrophes that followed a violation of the nuptial tie. Yet, at the same time, the position of women was in some respects a degraded one...Female captives of the highest rank were treated with great harshness...In the historical age of Greece...Virtuous women lived a life of perfect isolation...The facts in moral history, which it is at once most important and most difficult to appreciate, are what may be called the facts of feeling. It is much easier to show what men did or taught than to realise the state of mind that rendered possible such actions or teaching...That unhappy being whose very name is a shame to speak; who counterfeits with a cold heart the transports of affection, and submits herself as the passive instrument of lust; who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed, for the most part, to disease and abject wretchedness and an early death, appears in every age as the perpetual symbol of the degradation and the sinfulness of man...She remains, while creeds and civilisations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people...with all of her sex who have violated the law of chastity, the public opinion of most Christian countries pronounces a sentence of extreme severity...Thucydides doubtless expressed the prevailing sentiment of his countrymen when he said that the highest merit of woman is not to be spoken of either for good or for evil...In the writings of Xenophon we have a charming picture of a husband who had received into his arms his young wife of fifteen, absolutely ignorant of the world and its ways. He speaks to her with extreme kindness, but in the language that would be used to a little child...In Plutarch the wife is represented not as the mere housekeeper, or as the chief slave of her husband, but as his equal and his companion...In general, however, the position of the virtuous Greek woman was a very low one. She was under perpetual tutelage: first of all to her parents, who disposed of her hand, then to her husband, and in her days of widowhood to her sons...The courtesan was the one free woman of Athens...Aspasia, who was as famous for her genius as for her beauty, won the passionate love of Pericles. She is said to have instructed him in eloquence, and to have composed some of his most famous orations...Socrates himself has owned his deep obligations to the instructions of a courtesan named Diotima...It was a remark of Aristotle, that the superiority of the Greeks to the barbarians was shown, among other things, in the fact that the Greeks did not, like other nations, regard their wives as slaves, but treated them as helpmates and companions...In the female life of Imperial Rome...Intellectual culture was much diffused among them...It was expressly enjoined that no married persons should participate in any of the great Church festivals if the night before they had lain together, and St. Gregory the Great tells of a young wife who was possessed by a daemon, because she had taken part in a procession of St. Sebastian, without fulfilling this condition. The extent to which the feeling on the subject was carried is shown by the famous vision of Alberic in the twelfth century, in which a special place of torture, consisting of a lake of mingled lead, pitch, and resin is represented as existing in hell for the punishment of married people who had lain together on Church festivals or fast days...in the earliest period of the Church, the privilege of marriage was accorded the clergy...It is a popular illusion, which is especially common among writers who have little direct knowledge of the middle ages, that the atrocious immorality of monasteries, in the century before the Reformation, was a new fact, and that the ages when the faith of men was undisturbed, were ages of great moral purity. In fact, it appears, from the uniform testimony of the ecclesiastical writers, that ecclesiastical immorality in the eighth and three following centuries was little if at all less outrageous than in any other period, while the Papacy, during almost the whole of the tenth century, was held by men of infamous lives. Simony was nearly universal. Barbarian chieftains married at an early age, and totally incapable of restraint, occupied the leading positions in the Church...From the earliest period a long succession of Councils as well as such men as St. Boniface, St. Gregory the Great, St. Peter Damiani, St. Dunstan, St. Anselm, Hildebrand and his successors in the Popedom, denounced priestly marriage or concubinage as an atrocious crime, and the habitual life of the priests was, in theory at least, generally recognized as a life of sin...The writers of the middle ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were like brothels, of the vast multitude of infanticides within their walls...The destruction of priestly marriage is chiefly due to Hildebrand...The priests sometimes strenuously resisted. At Cambrai, in A.D. 1077, they burnt alive as a heretic a zealot who was maintaining the doctrines of Hildebrand...But Papal resolution supported by popular fanaticism won the victory. Pope Urban II. gave licence to nobles to reduce to slavery the wives whom priests had obstinately refused to abandon, and after a few more acts of severity priestly marriage became obsolete. The extent, however, of the disorders that still existed, is shown by the mournful confessions of the ecclesiastical writers, by the uniform and indignant testimony of the poets and prose satirists who preceded the Reformation, by the atrocious immoralities disclosed in the monasteries at the time of their suppression, and by the significant prudence of many lay Catholics, who were accustomed to insist that their priest should take a concubine for the protection of the families of his parishioners...Another injurious consequence, resulting, in a great measure, from asceticism, was a tendency to depreciate extremely the character and the position of women...A woman was regarded as the origin of human ills...Woman was represented as the door of hell...She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman...She should be especially ashamed of her beauty, for it is the most potent instrument of the daemon...in the whole feudal legislation women were placed in a much lower legal position than in the Pagan empire...Wherever the canon law has been the basis of legislation, we find laws of succession sacrificing the interests of daughters and of wives...The contrast between the levity with which the frailty of men has been in most ages regarded, and the extreme severity with which women who have been found guilty of the same offence...forms one of the most singular anomalies in moral history...the temptation usually springs from the sex which is so readily pardoned...the sex which is visited with such crushing penalties is proverbially the most weak; and that, in the case of women, but not in the case of men, the vice is very commonly the result of the most abject misery and poverty...much of our feeling on these subjects is due to laws and moral systems which were formed by men, and were in the first instance intended for their own protection...The character of the seducer, and especially the passionless seducer who pursues his career simply as a kind of sport...has been glorified and idealised in the popular literature of Christendom in a manner to which we can find no parallel in antiquity. When we reflect that the object of such a man is by the coldest and most deliberate treachery to blast the lives of innocent women...when we remember that he can only deceive his victim by persuading her to love him, and can only ruin her by persuading her to trust him, it must be owned that it would be difficult to conceive a cruelty more wanton and more heartless...That such a character should for many centuries have been the popular ideal of a considerable section of literature, and the boast of numbers who plume themselves upon their honour, is assuredly one of the most mournful facts in history...'

William Lecky wrote in `History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne' (D. Appleton, 1890),

"Who can estimate the wars that have been kindled, the bitterness and the wretchedness that have been caused, by errors relating to the apparent antagonism of the interests of nations which were so natural that for centuries they entangled the very strongest intellects...Our knowledge of the Supreme Excellence, our best evidence even of the existence of the Creator, is derived not from the material universe but from our own moral nature...for Homer said there was a special portal through which deceptive visions passed into the mind, and the Fathers declared that it was one of the occupations of the daemons to perplex and bewilder us with unmeaning dreams...It is extremely difficult for an ordinary man, who is little conversant with the writings of the past, and who unconsciously transfers to other ages the critical spirit of his own, to realise the fact that histories of the most grotesquely extravagant nature could, during the space of many centuries, be continually propounded without either provoking the smallest question or possessing the smallest truth...In obedience to dreams, the great Emperor Augustus went begging money through the streets of Rome...the Oriental custom of deifying emperors having been introduced into Rome, to burn incense before their statues had become a kind of test of loyalty...but it was esteemed inconsistent with Christianity...`If the Tiber ascends to the walls,' says Tertullian, `or if the Nile does not overflow the fields, if the heaven refuses its rain, if the earth quakes, if famine and pestilence desolate the land, immediately the cry is raised, "The Christians to the lions!"'....St. Ambrose dissected with the most unsparing rationalism the theory that ascribed the national decline to the suppression of the vestals...Salvian wrote his treatise on Providence to prove that the barbarian invasions were a Divine judgment on the immorality of the Christians. St. Augustine concentrated all his genius on a great work, written under the impression of the invasion of Alaric, and intended to prove that `the City of God' was not on earth, and that the downfall of the Empire need therefore cause no disquietude to the Christians. St. Gregory the Great continually represented the calamities of Italy as warnings foreboding the destruction of the world. When Rome sank finally before the barbarian hosts, it would seem as though the doctrine that temporal success was the proof of Divine favour must finally be abandoned...All through the middle ages had passed, and for some centuries after the middle ages had passed, every startling catastrophe was regarded as a punishment, or a warning, or a sign of the approaching termination of the world...St. Ambrose confidently asserted that the death of Maximus was a consequence of the crime he had committed in compelling the Christians to rebuild a Jewish synagogue they had destroyed. One of the laws in the Justinian code, directed against the Jews, Samaritans, and Pagans, expressly attributes to them the sterility of the soil, which in an earlier age the Pagans had so often attributed to the Christians...The greatest and best of the Pagans spoke of it as a hateful superstition, and the phrase they most frequently reiterate, when speaking of its members was `enemies' or `haters of the human race.' Such a charge, directed persistently against men whose main principle was the supreme excellence of love, and whose charity unquestionable rose far above that of any other class, was probably due to the unsocial habits of the converts, who deemed it necessary to abstain from all the forms of public amusement, to refuse to illuminate their houses, or hang garlands from their portals in honour of the national triumphs...It may also have arisen from a knowledge of the popular Christian doctrine about the future destiny of the Pagans...but even when the moral standard of the Christians was greatly lowered, it was lowered only to that of the community about them...Even the most extravagant charges of the Pagan populace were reiterated by the Fathers in their accusations of the Gnostics. St. Epiphanius, in the fourth century, assures us that some of their sects were accustomed to kill, to dress with spices, and to eat the children born of their promiscuous intercourse...To agitate the minds of men with religious terrorism, to fill the unknown world with hideous images of suffering, to govern the reason by alarming the imagination, was in the eyes of the Pagan world one of the most heinous of crimes. These fears were to the ancients the very definition of superstition, and their destruction was a main object of both the Epicurean and the stoic. To men holding such sentiments, it is easy to perceive how obnoxious must have appeared religious teachers who maintained that an eternity of torture was reserved for the entire human race then existing in the world...But though the traditions of Pagan freedom, and the true Catholicism of Justin Martyr and Origen, lingered long, it was inevitable that error, being deemed criminal, should be made penal. The dogmatism of Athanasius and Augustine, the increasing power of the clergy, and the fanaticism of the monks, hastened the end. The suppression of all religions but one by Theodosius, the murder of Hypatia at Alexandria by the monks of Cyril, and the closing by Justinian of the schools of Athens, are the three events which mark the decisive overthrow of intellectual freedom. A thousand years had rolled away before that freedom was in part restored...In the first two centuries of the Christian Church, the moral elevation was extremely high, and was continually appealed to as a proof of the divinity of the creed. In the century before the conversion of Constantine, a marked depression was already manifest. Two centuries after Constantine are uniformly represented by the Fathers as a period of general and scandalous vice...With unwavering consistency and with the strongest emphasis, they denounced the practice, not simply as inhuman, but as definitely murder. In the penitential discipline of the Church, abortion was placed in the same category as infanticide...By the Council of Ancyra the guilty mother was excluded from the Sacrament till the very hour of her death; and though this penalty was soon reduced, first to ten and afterwards to seven years' penitence, the offence still ranked amongst the gravest in the legislation of the Church...Trajan had even decided that the exposed child could not become under any circumstances a slave. The law of Constantine, on the other hand, doomed it to irrevocable servitude...The law of Constantine concerning the sale of children was also a step...of retrogression. A series of emperors, among whom Caracalla was conspicuous, had denounced and endeavored to abolish, as `shameful,' the traffic in free children, and Diocletian had expressly and absolutely condemned it. The extreme misery, however, resulting from the civil wars under Constantine, had rendered it necessary to authorise the old practice of selling children in the case of absolute destitution, which, though it had been condemned, had probably never altogether ceased. Theodosius the Great attempted to take a step in advance...but this measure was repealed by Valentinian III. The sale of children in case of great necessity, though denounced by the Fathers, continued long after the time of Theodosius, nor does any Christian emperor appear to have enforced the humane enactment of Diocletian...It may, however, be safely asserted that the publicity of the trade in exposed children became impossible under the influence of Christianity...The extreme destitution...was met by Christian charity...The Council of Rouen, in the ninth century, invited women who had secretly borne children to place them at the door of the church, and undertook to provide for them if they were not reclaimed...a decree of the Council of Arles, in the fifth century, and afterwards a law of Charlemagne, had echoed the enactment of Constantine, declaring that exposed children should be the slaves of their protectors...At last, after many complaints of the frequency of infanticide, St. Vincent de Paul arose, and gave so great an impulse to that branch of charity that he may be regarded as its second author, and his influence was felt not only in private charities, but in legislative enactments...But the Christians steadily refused to admit any professional gladiator to baptism till he had pledged to abandon his calling, and every Christian who attended the games was excluded from communion...The most prominent evidence, indeed, of ecclesiastical influence in the Theodosian code is that which must be most lamented. It is the immense mass of legislation, intended on the one hand to elevate the clergy into a separate and sacred caste, and on the other to persecute in every form, and with every degree of violence, all who deviate from the fine line of Catholic orthodoxy...The wretched Jews, stung to madness by the persecution of the Catholics, furnish the most numerous examples of suicide during the middle ages. A multitude perished by their own hands, to avoid torture in France, in 1095; five hundred, it is said, on a single occasion at York; five hundred in 1320, when besieged by the Shepherds...a Council of Arles, in the fifth century, having pronounced suicide to be the effect of diabolical inspiration, a Council of Bragues, in the following century, ordained that no religious rite should be celebrated at the tomb of the culprit, and that no masses should be said for his soul...St. Lewis originated the custom of confiscating the property of the dead man, and the corpse was soon subjected to gross and various outrages...it was dragged upon a hurdle through the streets, hung up with the head downwards, and at last thrown into the public sewer...or transfixed by a stake on the public highway...extreme injustice of reducing to beggary the unhappy relations of the dead...When the wives of priests were separated in vast numbers from their husbands by Hildebrand, and driven into the world blasted, heart-broken, and hopeless, not a few of them shortened their agony by suicide...its criminality was discussed at considerable length by Abelard and St. Thomas Aquinas, while Dante has devoted some fine lines to painting the condition of suicides in hell, where they are also frequently represented in the bas-reliefs of the cathedrals...A melancholy leading to desperation, and known to theologians under the name of `acedia,' was not uncommon in monasteries, and most of the recorded instances of mediaeval suicides in Catholicism were monks...Under the empire of Catholicism and Mohammedanism, suicide, during many centuries, almost absolutely ceased in all the civilised, active, and progressive part of mankind. When we recollect how warmly it was applauded, or how faintly it was condemned, in the civilisation of Greece and Rome; when we remember, too, that there was scarcely a barbarous tribe, from Denmark to Spain, who did not habitually practice it, we may realise the complete revolution which was effected in this sphere by the influence of Christianity...The history at this period passes chiefly into the new world, where the unhappy Indians, reduced to slavery, killed themselves in great numbers; till the Spaniards, it is said, discovered an ingenious method of deterring them, by declaring that the master also would commit suicide, and would pursue his victims into the world of spirits...Sir Thomas More, in his `Utopia,' represented the priests and magistrates of his ideal republic permitting or even enjoining those who were afflicted with incurable disease to kill themselves...Even in 1749, in the full blaze of the philosophic movement, we find a suicide named Portier dragged through the streets of Paris with his face to the ground, and then thrown into the sewers; and the laws were not abrogated till the Revolution...In England, the burial in a highway and the mutilation by a stake were abolished under George IV.; but the monstrous injustice of confiscating to the Crown the entire property of the deliberate suicide still disgraces the statute-book, though the force of public opinion and the charitable perjury of juries render it inoperable...the license of torturing still conceded to the master...The abolition of the punishment of crucifixion had, however, a special value to the slave class, and a very merciful law of Constantine forbade the separation of the families of the slaves...if a free woman had improper intercourse with her slave, Constantine ordered that the woman should be executed and the slave burnt alive...According to that of Gratian, any slave who accused his master of any offense except high treason, should immediately be burnt alive, without any investigation of the justice of the charge...Christianity imparted a moral dignity to the servile class...Cicero had declared that nothing great or noble could exist in a slave...Christianity for the first time gave the servile virtues the foremost place in the moral type. Humility, obedience, gentleness, resignation, are all cardinal or rudimentary virtues in the Christian character; they were all neglected or underrated by the Pagans; they can all expand and flourish in a servile position...The multitudes of slaves who embraced the new faith was one of the reproaches of the Pagans; and the names of Blandina, Potamiaenna, Eutyches, Victorinus, and Nereus, show how fully they shared in the sufferings and the glory of martyrdom. The first and grandest edifice of Byzantine architecture in Italy - the noble church of St. Vital, at Ravenna was dedicated by Justinian to the memory of a martyred slave...Pope St. Gregory, many of the clergy at Hippo under the rule of St. Augustine, as well as great numbers of private individuals, freed their slaves as an act of piety. It became customary to do so on occasions of national or personal thanksgiving...Slavery, however, lasted in Europe for about 800 years after Constantine...In the course of time, almost the entire free peasantry, and the greater number of old slaves, had sunk or risen into the qualified slavery called serfdom, which formed the basis of the great edifice of feudalism. Towards the end of the eighth century, the sale of slaves beyond their native provinces was in most countries prohibited...St. Ambrose, disregarding the outcries of the Arians, who denounced his act as atrocious sacrilege, sold the rich church ornaments of Milan to rescue some captives who had fallen into the hands of the Goths, and this practice - which was afterwards formally sanctioned by St. Gregory the Great - became speedily general. When the Roman army had captured, but refused to support, seven thousand Persian prisoners, Acacius, Bishop of Amida, undeterred by the bitter hostility of the Persians to Christianity, and declaring that `God had no need of plates or dishes,' sold all the rich church ornaments of his diocese, rescued the unbelieving prisoners, and sent them back unharmed to their king. During the horrors of the Vandal invasion, Deogratias, Bishop of Carthage, took a similar step to ransom the Roman prisoners. St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Caesarius of Arles, St. Exuperius of Toulouse, St. Hilary, St. Remi, all melted down or sold their church vases to free prisoners...St. Serapion, having exhausted all other forms of charity, as a last gift sold himself to slavery. When, long afterwards, the Mohammedan conquests in a measure reproduced the calamities of the barbarian invasions, the same unwearied charity was displayed. The Trinitarian monks, founded by John of Malta in the twelfth century, were devoted to the release of Christian captives...At the little town of Velleia, we find a charity instituted by Trajan, for the partial support of 270 children...Marcus Aurelius dedicated to the memory of their wives institutions for the support of girls...A Roman lady, named Fabiola, in the fourth century, founded at Rome, as an act of penance, the first public hospital, and the charity planted by that woman's hand overspread the world, and will alleviate, to the end of time, the darkest anguish of humanity...St. Basil also erected at Caesarea what was probably the first asylum for lepers...In the time of St. Chrysostom the church of Antioch supported 3,000 widows and virgins, besides strangers and sick...A Christian, it was maintained, should devote at least one-tenth of his profits to the poor. The enthusiasm of charity, thus manifested in the Church, speedily attracted the attention of the Pagans. The ridicule of Lucian, and the vain efforts of Julian to produce a rival system of charity within the limits of Paganism emphatically attested both its pre-eminence and its catholicity...The history of Italy became one monotonous tale of famine and pestilence, of starving populations and ruined cities...When the Imperial city was captured and plundered by the hosts of Alaric, a Christian church remained a secure sanctuary, which neither the passions nor the avarice of the Goths transgressed...Pope St. Leo...confronted the victorious Hun...and Atilla, overpowered by religious awe, turned aside in his course. When, two years later, Rome lay at the mercy of Genseric, the same Pope interposed with the Vandal conqueror, and obtained from him a partial cessation of the massacre. The Archdeacon Pelagius interceded with similar humanity and similar success, when Rome was captured by Totila. In Gaul, Troyes is said to have been saved from destruction by the influence of St. Lupus, and Orleans by the influence of St. Agnan. In Britain an invasion of the Picts was averted by St. Germain of Auxerre. When Antioch was threatened with destruction on account of its rebellion against Theodosius, the anchorites poured forth from the neighboring deserts to intercede with the ministers of the emperor...surely no achievement of the Christian Church are more truly great than those which it has effected in the sphere of charity...There are, however, two important qualifications...A strong, ill-defined notion of the supernatural character of insanity had existed from the earliest times; but there were special circumstances which rendered the action of the Church peculiarly unfavourable to those who were either predisposed to or afflicted with this calamity. The reality of witchcraft and diabolical possession had been distinctly recognized in the Jewish writings...Very frequently it led the unhappy maniac to some delusion, which called down upon him the speedy sentence of the Church. Thus, in the year 1300, the corpse of a Bohemian, or, according to another version, an English girl, who imagined herself to be the Holy Ghost incarnate for the redemption of women, was dug up and burnt; and two women who believed in her perished at the stake...In some cases the hallucination took the form of an irregular inspiration. On this charge, Joan of Arc, and another girl, who had been fired by her example...were burnt alive...The existence, however, of some forms of natural madness was generally admitted; but the measures for the relief of the unhappy victims were very few...In the first period of the hermit life, when many anchorites became insane through their penances, a refuge is said to have been opened for them at Jerusalem...The Mohammedans, in this form of charity, seem to have preceded the Christians. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Baghdad in the twelfth century, describes a palace in that city, called `the House of Mercy,' in which all mad persons found in the country were confined and bound with iron chains. They were carefully examined every month and released as soon as they recovered...The Knights of Malta were famous as the one order who admitted lunatics into their hospitals; but no Christian asylum expressly for their benefit existed till 1409. The honor of instituting this form of charity belongs to Spain. A monk named Juan Gilaberto Joffre, filled with compassion at the sight of the maniacs who were hooted by crowds through the streets of Valencia, founded an asylum in that city, and his example was speedily followed in other provinces. The new charity was introduced into Saragossa in A.D. 1425, into Seville and Valladolid in A.D. 1436, into Toledo in A.D. 1483. All these institutions existed before a single lunatic asylum had been founded in any other part of Christendom...In most other countries their condition was indeed truly deplorable. While many thousands were burnt as witches, those who were recognized as insane were compelled to endure all the horrors of the harshest imprisonment. Blows, bleeding, chains were their usual treatment, and horrible accounts were given of madmen who had spent decades bound in dark cells. Such treatment naturally aggravated their malady, and that malady in many cases rendered impossible the resignation and ultimate torpor which alleviate the sufferings of ordinary prisoners. Not until the eighteenth century was the condition of this unhappy class seriously improved. The combined progress of theological skepticism and scientific knowledge relegated witchcraft to the world of phantoms, and the exertions of Morgagni in Italy, of Cullen in Scotland, and of Pinel in France, renovated the whole treatment of acknowledged lunatics...As the monastic system was increased, and especially after the mendicant orders had consecrated mendicancy, the evil assumed gigantic dimensions. Many thousands of strong men, absolutely without private means, were in every country withdrawn from productive labour, and supported by charity. The notion of the meritorious nature of simple almsgiving immeasurably multiplied beggars...Saints wandered through the world begging money, that they might give to beggars, or depriving themselves of their garments, that they might clothe the naked, and the result of their teaching was speedily apparent...Withdrawing multitudes from all production, encouraging a blind and pernicious almsgiving, diffusing habits of improvidence through the poorer classes, fostering an ignorant admiration for saintly poverty, and an equally ignorant antipathy to the habits and aims of an industrial civilisation, they have paralysed all energy, and proved an insuperable barrier to material progress...All through the darkest period of the middle ages, amid ferocity and fanaticism and brutality, we may trace the subduing influence of Catholic charity, blending strangely with every excess of violence and every outburst of persecution. It would be difficult to conceive a more frightful picture of society than is presented by the history of Gregory of Tours; but that long series of atrocious crimes, narrated with an almost appalling tranquility, is continually interspersed with accounts of kings, queens, or prelates, who, in the midst of the disorganised society, made the relief of the poor the main object of their lives. No period of history exhibits a larger amount of cruelty, licentiousness, and fanaticism than the Crusades; but side by side with the military enthusiasm, and with the almost universal corruption, there expanded a vast movement of charity, which covered Christendom with hospitals for the relief of leprosy, and which grappled nobly, though ineffectually, with the many forms of suffering that were generated. St. Peter Nolasco, whose great labors in ransoming captive Christians I have already noticed, was an active participator in the atrocious massacre of the Albigenses. Of Shane O'Neale, one of the ablest, but also one of the most ferocious, Irish chieftains who ever defied the English power, it is related, amid a crowd of crimes, that, `sitting at meat, before he put one morsel into his mouth he used to slice a portion above the daily alms, and send it to some beggar at his gate, saying it was meet to serve Christ first.'...Religion is the one romance of the poor. It alone extends the narrow horizon of their thoughts, supplies the images of their dreams, allures them to the super-sensual and the ideal. The graceful beings with which the creative fancy of Paganism peopled the universe shed a poetic glow on the peasant's toil...The tender, winning, and almost feminine beauty of the Christian Founder, the Virgin mother, the agonies of Gethsemane or Calvary, the many scenes of compassion and suffering that fill the sacred writings, are the pictures which, for eighteen hundred years, have governed the imaginations of the rudest and most ignorant of mankind. Associated with the fondest recollections of childhood, with the music of the church bells, with the clustered lights and tinsel splendour, that seem to the peasant the very ideal of majesty; painted over the altar where he received the companion of his life, around the cemetery where so many of whom he had loved were lain, on the stations of the mountain, on the portal of the vineyard, on the chapel where the storm-tossed mariner fulfills his grateful vow; keeping guard over his cottage door, and looking down upon his humble, forms of tender beauty and gentle pathos for ever haunt the poor man's fancy, and silently win their way into the very depths of his being...To an ordinary layman the life of an anchorite might appear in the highest degree opposed to that of the Teacher who began His mission at a marriage feast; who was continually reproached by His enemies for the readiness with which He mixed with the world, and who selected from the female sex some of His purest and most devout followers; but the monkish theologians, avoiding, for the most part, these topics, dilated chiefly on His immaculate birth, His virgin mother, His life of celibacy, His exhortation to the rich young man...St.Peter...was unquestionably married...For six months, it is said, St. Macarius of Alexandria slept in a marsh, and exposed his naked body to the stings of venomous flies. He was accustomed to carry about with him eighty pounds of iron. His disciple, St. Eusebius, carried one hundred and fifty pounds of iron, and lived for three years in a dried-up well...St. Besarion spent forty days and nights in the middle of thorn bushes, and for forty years never lay down when he slept...Of another famous saint, named John, it is asserted that for three whole years he stood in prayer...Some of the hermits lived in deserted dens of wild beasts...Some disdained all clothes, and crawled abroad like the wild beasts...St. Athanasius relates with enthusiasm how St. Anthony, the patriarch of monachism, had never, to extreme old age, been guilty of washing his feet. The less constant St. Poemen fell into this habit for the first time when a very old man, and, with a glimmering of common sense, defended himself against the astonished monks by saying that he had `learnt to kill not his body, but his passions.'...St. Ammon had never seen himself naked. A famous virgin named Silvia, though she was sixty years old and though bodily sickness was a consequence of her habits, resolutely refused, on religious principles, to wash any part of her body except her fingers...An anchorite once imagined that he was mocked by an illusion of the devil, as he saw gliding before him through the desert a naked creature black with filth and years of exposure, and with white hair floating to the wind. It was a once beautiful woman, St. Mary of Egypt, who had thus, during forty-seven years, been expiating her sins...But of all the evidences of the loathsome excesses to which this spirit was carried, the life of St. Simeon Stylites is probably the most remarkable. It would be difficult to conceive a more horrible or disgusting picture than is given of the penances by which that saint commenced his ascetic career. He had bound a rope around him so that it became imbedded in his flesh, which putrefied around it. `A horrible stench, intolerable to the bystanders, exhaled from his body, and worms dropped from him whenever he moved, and they filled his bed...He built successively three pillars, the last being sixty feet high and scarcely two cubits in circumference, and on this pillar, during thirty years, he remained exposed to every change of climate, ceaselessly and rapidly bending his body in prayer almost to the level of his feet...It is true that self-torture was for some centuries regarded as the chief measure of human excellence...Till the reform of St. Benedict, the ideal was on the whole unchanged...`The duty,' said St. Jerome, `of a monk is not to teach, but to weep.' A cultivated and disciplined mind was the least subject to those hallucinations, which were regarded as the highest evidence of Divine favour...St. Anthony, the true founder of monachism, refused when a boy to learn letters, because it would bring him into too great intercourse with other boys...At a time when St. Jerome had suffered himself to feel a deep admiration for the genius of Cicero, he was, as he himself tells us, borne in the night before the tribunal of Christ, accused of being rather a Ciceronian than a Christian, and severely flagellated by the angels...With such men, living such a life, visions and miracles were necessarily habitual. All the elements of hallucination were there. Ignorant and superstitious, believing as a matter of religious conviction that countless daemons filled the air, attributing every fluctuation of his temperament, and every exceptional phenomenon in surrounding nature, to spiritual agency; delirious, too, from solitude and long continued austerities, the hermit soon mistook for palpable realities the phantoms of his brain. In the ghostly gloom of the sepulchre, amid mouldering corpses, he took up his abode; in the long hours of the night penance, when the desert wind sobbed around his lonely cell, and the cries of wild beasts were borne upon his ear, visible forms of lust or terror appeared to haunt him, and strange dramas were enacted by those who were contending for his soul...A man named Mutius, accompanied by his only child, a little boy of eight years old, abandoned his possessions and demanded admission into a monastery. The monks received him, but they proceeded to discipline his heart. `He had already forgotten that he was rich; he must next be taught to forget that he was a father.' His little child was separated from him, clothed in dirty rags, subjected to every form of gross and wanton hardship, beaten, spurned, and ill treated. Day after day the father was compelled to look upon his boy wasting away with sorrow, his once happy countenance for ever stained with tears, distorted by sobs of anguish. But yet, says the admiring biographer, `though he saw this day by day, such was his love for Christ, and for the virtue of obedience, that the father's heart was rigid and unmoved. He thought little of the tears of his child. He was anxious only for his own humility and perfection in virtue.' At last the abbot told him to take his child and throw it into the river. He proceeded, without a murmur or apparent pang, to obey, and it was only at the last moment that the monks interposed, and on the very brink of the river saved the child...it is curious to observe how pale and weak is the picture which Molière drew of the affected prudery of Tartuffe, when compared with the narratives that are gravely propounded in the Lives of the Saints. When abbot Sisoes had become a very old, feeble, and decrepit man, his disciples exhorted him to leave the desert for an inhabited country. Sisoes seemed to yield; but he stipulated, as a necessary condition, that in his new abode he should never be compelled to encounter the peril and perturbation of looking on a woman's face...A man was once travelling with his mother - in itself a most unusual circumstance - and, having arrived at a bridgeless stream, it became necessary for him to carry her across. To her surprise, he began carefully wrapping up his hands in cloths; and upon her asking the reason, he explained that he was alarmed lest he should be unfortunate enough to touch her, and thereby disturb the equilibrium of his nature...Severed from all other ties, the monks clung with a desperate tenacity to their opinions and to their Church, and hated those who dissented from them with all the intensity of men whose lives were concentrated on a single subject, whose ignorance and bigotry prevented them from conceiving the possibility of any good thing in opposition to themselves, and who had made it a main object of their discipline to eradicate all natural sympathies and affections...Men who had learnt to look with indifference on the tears of a broken-hearted mother...were but little likely to be moved either by the pathos of old associations, and of reverent, though mistaken worship...Sometimes the civil power ordered the reconstruction of Jewish synagogues or heretical churches which had been illegally destroyed; but the doctrine was early maintained that such a reconstruction was a deadly sin...Great multitudes entered the Church to avoid municipal offices; the deserts were crowded with men whose sole objective was to escape from honest labor, and even soldiers used to desert their colours for the monasteries. Noble ladies, pretending a desire to lead a higher life, abandoned their husbands to live with low-born lovers. Palestine, which was soon crowded with pilgrims, had become, in the time of St. Gregory of Nyssa, a hotbed of debauchery. The evil reputation of the pilgrimages long continued; and in the eighth century we find St. Boniface writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, imploring the bishops to take some measures to restrain or regulate the pilgrimages of their fellow-countrywomen; for there were few towns in central Europe, on the way to Rome, where English ladies, who started as pilgrims, were not living in open prostitution. The luxury and ambition of the higher prelates, and the passion for amusements of the inferior priests, were bitterly acknowledged. St. Jerome complained that the banquets of many bishops eclipsed in splendour those of the provincial governors, and the intrigues by which they obtained offices, and the fierce partisanship of their supporters, appear in every page of ecclesiastical history. In the lay world, perhaps the chief characteristic was extreme childishness...The simple fact that the quarrels between the factions of the chariot races for a long period eclipsed all political, intellectual, and even religious differences, filled the streets again and again with bloodshed, and more than once determined great revolutions in the State, is sufficient to show the extent of the decadence...The luxury of the court, the servility of the courtiers, and the prevailing splendour of dress and ornament, had attained an extravagant height. The world grew accustomed to a dangerous alternation of extreme asceticism and gross vice, and sometimes, as in the case of Antioch, the most vicious and luxurious cities produced the most numerous anchorites...There was more falsehood and treachery than under the Caesars, but there was much less cruelty, violence, and shamelessness. There was also less public spirit, less independence of character, less intellectual freedom. In some respects, however, Christianity had already effected a great improvement. The gladiatorial games had disappeared from the West, and had not been introduced into Constantinople. The vast schools of prostitution which had grown up under the name of temples of Venus were suppressed. Religion, however deformed and debased, was at least no longer a seedplot of depravity, and under the influence of Christianity the effrontery of vice had in a great measure disappeared. The gross and extravagant indecency of representation, of which we have examples in the paintings on the walls, and the signs on many of the portals of Pompeii; the banquets of rich patrons, served by naked girls; the hideous excesses of unnatural lust, in which some of the Pagan emperors had indulged with so much publicity, were no longer tolerated. Although sensuality was very general, it was less obtrusive, and unnatural and eccentric forms had become rare...A bad man might be insensible to the moral beauties of religion, but he was still haunted by the recollection of its threatenings...The first condition of all really great moral excellence is a spirit of genuine self-sacrifice and self-renunciation. The habits of compromise, moderation, reciprocal self-interest, gentleness, courtesy, and refinement, which are appropriate to luxurious or utilitarian civilisations, are very favourable to the development of many secondary virtues...At a time when the passion for ecclesiastical dignities had become the scandal of the Empire, they systematically abstained from them, teaching, in their quaint but energetic language, that `there are two classes a monk should especially avoid - bishops and women.' The very eccentricities of their lives, their uncouth forms, their horrible penances, won the admiration of rude men...Multitudes of barbarians were converted to Christianity at the sight of St. Simeon Stylites...The games in which the slaughter of animals bore so large a part...did very much to arrest or retard the natural progress of humane sentiments. In ancient Greece, besides the bull-fights of Thessaly, the combats of quails and cocks were favourite amusements...notwithstanding the gladiatorial shows, the standard of humanity towards men was considerably raised during the Empire...Lucretius, who rarely struck the chords of pathos, had at a still earlier period drawn a very beautiful picture of the sorrows of the bereaved cow, whose calf had been sacrificed upon the altar. Plutarch mentions, incidentally, that he could never bring himself to sell, in its old age, the ox which had served him faithfully in the time of its strength...Pythagoras and Empedocles were quoted as the founder of this branch of ethics. The moral duty of kindness to animals was in the first instance based upon a dogmatic assertion of the transmigration of souls...If we now pass to the Christian Church, we shall find that little or no progress was at first made in this sphere...Catholicism has done very little to inculcate humanity to animals. The fatal vice of theologians, who have always looked upon others solely through the medium of their own special dogmatic views, has been an obstacle to all advance in this direction. The animal world, being altogether external to the scheme of redemption, was regarded as beyond the range of duty, and the belief that we have any kind of obligation to its members has never been inculcated - has never, I believe, been even admitted - by Catholic theologians...St. Francis always treated lambs with special tenderness, as being symbols of his Master. Luther grew sad and thoughtful at a hare hunt, for it seemed to him to represent the pursuit of souls by the devil...The amount of callousness or of conscious cruelty displayed or elicited by amusements or practices that inflict suffering on animals, bears no kind of proportion to the intensity of that suffering...it must not be forgotten that the inculcation of humanity to animals on a wide scale is mainly the work of a recent and a secular age; that the Mohammedans and the Brahmins have in this sphere considerably surpassed the Christians...In most men, the love of truth is so languid, and the reluctance to encounter mental suffering is so great, that they yield their judgments without an effort to the current, withdraw their minds from all opinions or arguments opposed to their own, and thus speedily convince themselves of the truth of what they wish to believe...In the new faith the range of genuine sympathy was strictly limited by the creed. According to the popular belief, all who differed from the teaching of the orthodox lived under the hatred of the Almighty, and were destined after death for an eternity of anguish...The eighty or ninety sects, into which Christianity speedily divided, hated one another with an intensity that extorted the wonder of Julian...and the fierce riots and persecutions that hatred produced appear in every page of ecclesiastical history...The Donatists...declared that all who adopted the orthodox view must be damned...beat multitudes to death with clubs, blinded others by anointing their eyes with lime, filled Africa, during nearly two centuries, with war and desolation...The childish and almost unintelligible quarrels between the Homoiousians and the Homoousians...filled the world with riot and hatred. The Catholics tell how an Arian Emperor caused eighty orthodox priests to be drowned on a single occasion...The triumph of the Catholics in Egypt was accompanied (if we may believe the solemn assertions of eighty Arian bishops) by every variety of plunder, murder, sacrilege, and outrage, and Arius himself was probably poisoned by Catholic hands. The followers of St. Cyril of Alexandria, who were chiefly monks, filled their city with riot and bloodshed, wounded the prefect Orestes, dragged the pure and gifted Hypatia into one of their churches, murdered her, tore the flesh from her bones with sharp shells, and, having stripped her body naked, flung her mangled remains into the flames. In Ephesus, during the contest between St. Cyril and the Nestorians, the cathedral itself was the theatre of a fierce and bloody conflict. Constantinople, on the occasion of the deposition of St. Chrysostom, was for several days in a condition of absolute anarchy...About fifty years later, when the Monophysite controversy was at its height, the palace of the emperor was blockaded, the churches were besieged, and the streets commanded be furious bands of contending monks...St. Augustine himself is accused of having excited every kind of popular persecution against the Semi-Pelagians...In the `Robber Council' of Ephesus, Flavianus, the Bishop of Constantinople, was kicked and beaten by the Bishop of Alexandria, or at least by his followers, and a few days later died from the effect of the blows. In the contested election that resulted in the election of St. Damascus as Pope of Rome, though no theological question appears to have been at issue, the riots were so fierce that one hundred and thirty-seven corpses were found in one of the churches...In the convulsions that followed the barbarian invasions, intellectual energy of a secular kind almost absolutely ceased... no impartial reader can, I think, investigate the innumerable grotesque and lying legends that, during the whole course of the Middle Ages, were deliberately palmed upon mankind as undoubted facts, can follow the histories of the false decretals, and the discussions that were connected with them, or can observe the complete and absolute incapacity most Catholic historians have displayed, of conceiving any good thing in the ranks of their opponents, or of stating with common fairness any consideration that can tell against their cause, without acknowledging how serious and how inveterate has been the evil...Yet it is, I believe, difficult to exaggerate the extent to which this moral defect exists in most of the ancient and very modern literature of Catholicism. It is this which makes it so unspeakably repulsive to all independent and impartial thinkers, and has led a great German historian to declare, with much bitterness, that the phrase Christian veracity deserves to rank with the phrase Punic faith...when credulity is inculcated as a virtue, falsehood will not long be stigmatised as a vice...In the monkish chronicles, the merits of sovereigns are almost exclusively judged by their bounty to the Church, and in some cases this is the sole part of their policy which has been preserved. There were, no doubt, a few redeeming points in this dark period. The Irish monks are said to have been honourably distinguished for their reluctance to accept the lavish donations of their admirers...The outrageous and notorious immorality of the monasteries, during the century before the Reformation, was chiefly due to their great wealth; and that immorality, as the writings of Erasmus and Ulric von Hutton show, gave a powerful impulse to the new movement, while the abuses of the indulgences were the immediate cause of the revolt of Luther. But these things arrived only after many centuries of successful fraud. The religious terrorism that was unscrupulously employed had done its work, and the chief riches of Christendom had passed into the coffers of the Church...According to the patristic theologians, it was part of the gospel revelations that the misery and suffering the human race endures on earth is but a feeble image of that which awaits in the future world; that all its members beyond the Church, as well as a very large proportion of those who are within its pale, are doomed to an eternity of agony in a literal and undying fire...It is impossible to conceive more ghastly, grotesque, and material conceptions of the future world than they evince, or more hideous calumnies against that Being who was supposed to inflict upon His creatures such unspeakable misery. The devil was represented bound by red-hot chains, on a burning gridiron in the centre of hell. The screams of his never-ending agony made its rafters to resound...Daemons with red-hot iron plunged souls alternately into fire and ice...The redbreast, according to one popular legend, was commissioned by the Deity to carry a drop of water to the souls of unbaptised infants in hell, and its breast was singed in piercing the flames. In the calm, still hour of evening, when the peasant boy asked why the sinking sun, as it dipped beneath the horizon, flushed with such a glorious red, he was answered, in the words of an old Saxon catechism, because it is then looking into hell...a lavish gift to a church or monastery could always enlist a saint in his behalf, and priestly power could always protect him against the dangers which priestly sagacity had revealed...Charlemagne was saved, because the monasteries he built outweighed his evil deeds...To amass relics, to acquire the patronage of saints, to endow monasteries, to build churches, became the chief part of religion...That which strikes a student in perusing this literature, is not so much the existence of these superstitions, as their extraordinary multiplication, the many thousands of grotesque miracles wrought by saints, monasteries, or relics, that were deliberately asserted and universally believed. Christianity had assumed a form that was quite as polytheistic and quite as idolatrous as the ancient Paganism...All the avenues of enquiry were painted with images of appalling suffering, and of malicious daemons. No sooner did the worshipper begin to question an article of faith...than he was threatened with a doom that no human heroism could brave...the suffering that was undergone by those brave men who in ages of ignorance and superstition dared to break loose from the trammels of their Church, and who laid the foundation of the liberty we now enjoy...The fire of purgatory, according to the most eminent theologians, was like the fire of hell - a literal fire, prolonged, it was sometimes said, for ages...Innumerable visions detailed with a ghastly minuteness the various kinds of torture they underwent...A special place, it was said, was reserved in purgatory for those who had been slow in paying their tithes...A system which deputed its minister to go to the unhappy widow in the first dark hour of her anguish and her desolation, to tell her that he who was dearer to her than all the world besides was now burning in a fire, and that he could only be relieved by a gift of money to the priests, was assuredly of its own kind not without an extraordinary merit...The picture which Gregory of Tours gives us is that of a society which was almost absolutely anarchical...The two queens Frédégonde and Brunehaut rise conspicuous above other figures for their fierce and undaunted ambition, for the fascination they exercised over the minds of multitudes, and for the number and atrocity of their crimes...The worst sovereigns found flatterers or agents in ecclesiastics. Frédégonde deputed two clerks to murder Childebert...she caused a bishop to be assassinated at the altar...The bishoprics were filled by men of notorious debauchery...Gregory tells of two bishops of the sixth century who had killed many enemies with their own hands...Never, perhaps, was the infliction of mutilation, and prolonged and agonising forms of death, more common. We read...of a king burning together his rebellious son, his daughter-in-law, and their daughters; of a queen condemning a daughter she had by a former marriage to be drowned, lest her beauty should excite the passions of her husband; of another queen endeavoring to strangle her daughter with her own hands...of a prince who made it an habitual amusement to torture his slaves with fire, and who burned two of them alive...of a bishop's wife, who, besides other crimes, was accustomed to mutilate men and torture women, by applying red-hot irons to the most sensitive parts of their bodies; of great numbers who were deprived of their ears and noses, tortured through several days, and at last burnt alive or broken on the wheel. Brunehaut...fell into the hands of Clotaire, and the old queen, having been subjected for three days to various kinds of torture, was led out on a camel for the derision of the army, and at last bound to the tail of a furious horse, and dashed to pieces in its course. And yet this age was, in a certain sense, eminently religious. All literature had become sacred. Heresy of every kind was rapidly expiring. The priests and monks had acquired enormous power, and their wealth was inordinately increasing. Several sovereigns voluntarily abandoned their thrones for the monastic life...Sighebert was murdered, and Clovis sent ambassadors to the parricide, professing a warm friendship, but with secret orders on the first opportunity to kill him...Clovis proceeded to Cologne, the capital of Sighebert; he assembled the people, professed with much solemnity his horror of the tragedies that had taken place, and his complete innocence...says the Episcopal historian, `Clovis received the treasures and dominions of Sighebert, and added them to his own. Every day God caused his enemies to fall beneath his hand, and enlarged his kingdom, because he walked with a right heart before the Lord, and did the things that were pleasing in His sight.'...Having secured himself against dangers from without, by killing all his relations, with the exception of his wife and children, he is reported to have lamented before his courtiers his isolation, declaring that he had no relations remaining in the world to assist him in his adversity; but this speech, Gregory assures us, was a stratagem; for the king desired to discover whether any possible pretender to the throne had escaped his knowledge and his sword...Northern tribes, who had been taught that the gates of the Walhalla were ever open to the warrior who presented himself stained with the blood of his vanquished enemies, were converted to Christianity; but they carried their old feelings into their new creed...When a sovereign was sufficiently orthodox in his opinions, and sufficiently zealous in patronising the Church and in persecuting the heretics, he was extolled as an angel. When his policy was opposed to the Church he was represented as a daemon...the most odious and ferocious [Catholic Emperor of Constantinople] was probably Phocas...[he] resolved to put the captive emperor to death; but, first of all, he ordered his five children to be brought out and to be successively murdered before the eyes of their father...In two letters, full of passages from Scripture, and replete with fulsome and blasphemous flattery, the Pope St. Gregory the Great, wrote to congratulate Phocas and his wife upon their triumph; he called heaven and earth to rejoice over them; he placed their images to be venerated in the Lateran.'

Chapter 12 - Michelet's Culmination

In Philippians 4. 8 St. Paul advised us to meditate on noble things,

`Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things.'

Jules Michelet's subjects are not always lovely but his literary art is usually superb. Roland Barth writes in his Michelet,

`Michelet's disease is the migraine, that mixture of vertigo and nausea. For him, everything brings on migraine: cold, storms, springtime, wind, the History he is writing. This man, who produced an encyclopedic oeuvre of sixty volumes...writes constantly...yet is always in a state of total collapse...Dying repeatedly, and believing each crisis is the last, he is reborn all the more delightedly. Consider him at forty-four: he feels he is entering "that long torment, old age"; but consider him once again six years later: he is about to marry a woman of twenty and cheerfully embark on a third life...'

A friend of Robert Louis Stevenson once bribed a French official, slipping the gendarme one of Michelet's valuable volumes, thereby securing Stevenson's release from a French jail.

Will Durant said Michelet's 19 volume `History of France' was an `interminable but unwearying rhapsody.'

The following is a small sampling of Michelet's `History of France', superbly translated from the French by Walter K. Kelley (Chapman and Hall, 1846, London):

`BOOK THE THIRD. PICTURE OF FRANCE. The History of France begins with the French language. Language is the principal sign of national existence. The first monument of ours is the oath dictated by Charles the Bald to his brother in the treaty of 843 [For the love of God, and for the Christian people, and our common salvation, from this day forward, and as long as God shall grant me knowledge and power, I will support my brother Karl here present...] It was in the succeeding half century, that the various parts of France, until then confounded together in an obscure and vague unity, assumed each its characteristic expression by means of a feudal dynasty. The population, so long fluctuating, at length becomes fixed and settled; we now know where to find them, and at the same time that they exist and act apart, they gradually assume a voice, each has its own history, each tells its own tale....In the north are the rich plains of Belgium and Flanders, with their fields of flax and colewort, and their hops, the bitter vine of the north. From Rheims to Moselle begin the true vine and wine: all spirit in Champagne, good and warm in Burgundy, it becomes very heavy in Languedoc, and, again, light and cheerful in Bordeaux. The mulberry and the olive appear at Mont Auban, but those delicate children of the south are always exposed to hazard in the unequal climate of France...Charlemagne's orchard at Paris was regarded as unique, because it contained apple, pear, hazel, service, and chestnut trees. The potato which now feeds so large a portion of the population, did not come to us from Peru until the end of the sixteenth century. St. Louis brought us the inodorous ranunculus of the plains of Syria...Provins owes its rose gardens to the crusade of the trouvère Thibaut, Count of Champagne and Brie. India gave us the Indian chestnut in the beginning of the seventeenth century. We long envied Turkey of the tulip, of which we now possess nine hundred species, more beautiful than those of all other countries. The elm was scarcely known in France before the reign of Francis I., nor the artichoke before the sixteenth century. The mulberry was not planted in our soil before the middle of the fourteenth century. Fontainbleau owes its delicious grapes to the Isle of Cyprus. We have gone in quest of the weeping willow to the environs of Babylon; we have brought the acacia from Virginia; the black ash and the thya from Canada; the marvel of Peru from Mexico; the heliotrope from the Cordilleras; the mignionette from Egypt; the tall millet from Guinea; the castor oil plant and the date plum from Africa; the passionflower and the Jerusalem artichoke from Brazil; the gourd and the agave from America; tobacco from Mexico; the amomum from Madeira; the angelica from the mountains of Laponia; the yellow hemerocallis from Siberia; the balsamine from India; the tuberose from Ceylon; the barberry from Tartary; buckwheat from Greece; New Zealand Flax from the Australian regions." Depping, Description de la France, i. 51...We shall see the intimate relations connecting as in a long band, the frontier provinces of the Ardennes, Lorraine, the Franche-Comté, and Dauphiné. The oceanic girdle, composed of a part of Flanders, Picardy, and Normany, and, elsewhere, of Poitou and Guienne, would float loosely in its vast development were it not tied together in the middle with the hard knot of Bretagne. It has been said, Paris, Rouen, and Havre de Grace are but one city of which the Seine is the main street. Pass on from that magnificent street towards the south, where castles follow close upon castles, villages upon villages; pass from the Seine Inferieur to Calvados, and from Calvados to La Manche...The country is grave; we shall find it, as we proceed, becoming gloomy and wild. Passing the lofty chateaux of Normandy, we find ourselves among the low manors of Bretagne. The change in costume seems to keep pace with that of architecture. The triumphal cap of the women of Caux, that so suitably bespeaks the conquerors of England, becomes hollowed towards Caen, and flattened after we reach Villedieu; at St. Malo it divides, and as the breeze shapes it, looks something like the arms of a windmill, sometimes like the sails of a vessel...The forests increasing in the thickness of their shades, the solitudes of La Trappe, where the monks lead the life of the wilds in community, the express names of the towns Fougères and Rennes (Rennes also signifies fougères, fern), the gray waters of the Mayenne and the Villaine; all this bespeaks a region of ruggedness. It is with this region, nevertheless, that we shall begin the study of France. The eldest daughter of the monarchy, the Celtic province, deserves our first attention...The poor and rugged Bretagne, the resisting element of France, spreads its fields of quartz and schist from the slate quarries of Châteaulin, near Brest, to those of Angers...The Breton language does not even begin at Rennes, but towards Elven, Pontivy, Loudéac, and Châtelaudren. From thence to Cape Finisterre is the true Bretagne, la Bretagne bretonnante; a country wholly alien to us, precisely because it has remained too faithful to our primitive condition; a country hardly French because it is so very Gaulish, and which we should have lost more than once, had we not held it as in a vice between four French towns of rude and vigorous genius, Nantes and St. Malo, Rennes and Brest. And yet this poor old province saved us more than once. Often when the country was in extremity, and almost desperate, there were found Breton breasts and heads harder than the steel of the stranger. When the men of the north swept our coasts and rivers with impunity, it was the Breton Nomenoe who began the resistance. The English were repulsed in the fourteenth century by Dugeusclin, in the fifteenth by Richemont; in the seventeenth they were pursued over all the seas by Duguay-Trouin. The wars for religious freedom, and those for political liberty, have no more innocent or purer glories to show than Lanoue, and Latour-d'Auvergne, the first grenadier of the Republic...The genius of Bretagne is indomitable resistance, and intrepid, obstinate, blind opposition; witness Moreau, the adversary of Bonaparte...The Breton Pelagius, who carried the stoic spirit into Christianity, and who was the first in the Church to lift up his voice in favour of human liberty, had for successors Abailard and Descartes, both Bretons...The same portion of Bretagne (St. Malo, Dinan, and St. Briene) which produced under Louis XV. The unbelieving Duclos, Maupertius, and La Mettrie, has in our day given Catholicism its poet and its orator, Chateaubriand and Lamennais...At its two gates Bretagne has two forests; the Norman and the Vendean Bocage; two towns, St. Malo and Nantes, the town of pirates and that of slave traders. These are two facts which I allege, but how much ought we to add if we would render justice to these heroic towns, and pay them all that is due to them by France? Nantes has another peculiarity which deserves notice, viz.: the perpetuity of commercial families, its slowly acquired and honourable fortunes, its economy and family spirit, and a certain roughness in business, springing from a desire to fulfill all engagements with honour. The young people of Nantes are watchful of each others conduct, and the morals of the town are better than those of any other seaport. The aspect of St. Malo is singularly ugly and sinister...It is a little town, rich, gloomy, and dismal; a nest of vultures and ospreys alternately; an island and a peninsula, according as it is ebb or flood; encompassed on every side with dirty and fetid breakers heaped with rotting sea-rack; beyond it is a coast beset with white angular rocks cut as with a razor. War is the prosperous time with St. Malo. Its inhabitants know no more delightful season...At the other extremity is Brest, the great military port, the object of Richelieu's constant thought, the right hand of Louis XIV., with its fort, its arsenal and bagnio, its cannons and vessels, its armies and millions, the force of France heaped up at the extremity of France; all of this is a contracted port, where one feels smothered between two mountains loaded with immense works. When you pass through this port, it is as if you were rowing in a little boat between two towering vessels; you almost feel as if the cumbrous masses on either side would close and crush you between them. The general impression is grand, but painful...Many a vessel has perished in the channel of Brest. All this coast is a graveyard; sixty vessels perish there every winter. The sea is English in inclination, it loves not France; it shatters our vessels, and fills up our ports with sand. Nothing is so sinister and formidable as this coast of Brest; it is the extreme limit, the point, the prow of the ancient world. There the two enemies are face to face with each other, land and sea, man and nature. When the sea rises there in its fury, what monstrous waves it rolls up, volume on volume, at Cape St. Mathieu, to the height of fifty, sixty, or eighty feet. The spray flies to the very church, where the mothers and sisters of the seamen are at prayer; and even in times of truce, when the ocean is mute, who ever passed along that funeral coast without saying or thinking within himself, "Tristis usque ad mortem?" In truth, there is there something worse than the breakers, worse than the tempest; there nature and man are atrocious, and seem to understand each other. When the sea flings them an unfortunate vessel, they rush to the coast, men, women, and children, and fasten upon that quarry. Hope not to stop those wolves; they would go on pillaging uninterruptedly, under the fire of the gendarmes. This were bad enough, even if they always waited for the shipwreck; but it is confidently affirmed that they have frequently brought it about by artful contrivances. Frequently, it is said, a cow, carrying a moving light on her horns, has brought vessels upon the breakers; and then, Heaven alone can tell what scenes take place by night! Some have been known to bite off the finger of a drowning woman in order to secure her ring. Man is hard-hearted upon this coast, an outcast son of creation; a true Cain, why should he pardon Abel? Nature does not pardon him. Do the billows spare him, when, in the fearful nights of winter, he goes about among the breakers gathering the floating sea-rack to manure his sterile field; and the wave, that throws up the sea-rack, so often carries off the man? Do they spare him, when he creeps tremblingly along under the point of the Raz to the red rocks embaying the Hell of Plogoff, beside the Baie des Trepassés (the Bay of the Dead), whither the currents have, for ages, swept the bodies of the drowned? There nature is expiring, humanity becomes sullen and cold; there is no poetry, little religion. Christianity is there a thing of yesterday. Michel Noblet was the apostle of Batz in 1648. In the islands of Sein, Batz, and Ouessant, marriage is sad and austere...The woman cultivates the land, while the man remains seated in his boat, rocked and tossed by his rude nurse, the sea...upon this formidable cap of Raz, upon this undermined rock, 300 feet high, whence we look down upon a range of seven leagues of coast...the sanctuary of the Celtic world...you perceive...the island of Sein, a dull sand-bank, without trees, and almost without shelter. A few families live there, poor and compassionate, who every year save some shipwrecked men. This island was the abode of the sacred virgins, who dealt out fine weather or shipwreck to the Celts. There they celebrated their dismal and murderous orgies; and the mariner heard with dread the sound of the barbarian cymbols sweeping over the open sea. Tradition makes this island the cradle of Myrddyn, the Merlin of the middle ages. His tomb is on the other side of Bretagne, in the forest of Broceliande, under the fatal stone where his Vyvyan enchanted him. All those rocks you see, are towns buried beneath the waves, such as Douarnenez and Is, the Breton Sodom. Yonder two crows flying heavily along the shore, are nothing else than the souls of King Grallon and his daughter; and the whistlings you hear, and which you might suppose were those of the tempest, are the Crierien, the shades of the shipwrecked entreating burial...the stones Loc-Maria-Ker...the houses of the Torregans and the Courils, little lascivious men who bar your way at night, and force you to dance with them till you die of fatigue...I set out at early morning from Auray, the holy city of the Chouans, to visit the Great Druidic monuments of Loc-Maria-Ker and Carnac...the shore of Quiberon of sinister memory...a fog, such as hangs over these coasts throughout half the year...sorry bridges over marshes...a low sombre manor with the long avenue of oak trees religiously preserved in Bretagne; low tufted woods...a peasant who passes by without looking on you, nevertheless he has seen you with his sidelong eye like that of a bird at night. This cast of countenance explains their famous war cry, and the name of Chouans given to them by the blues...In every direction are great wolds with their melancholy decoration of heath and various yellow plants...fields white with buckwheat. This summer snow, these colours without lustre...like Ophelia's garland of straw and flowers...Morbihan is sombre...It is a country of old hatreds, of pilgrimages and civil war, a land of stone, a race of granite...The priests are very strong there; yet, it is a serious mistake to suppose that these populations of the West are profoundly religious. In several cantons of the West, the saint who does not grant the prayers of his votaries, runs the risk of being soundly flogged. In Bretagne, as in Ireland, Catholicism is dear to the people as a symbol of nationality; the influence of religion is there, above all, political. An Irish priest who becomes the friend of the English is soon driven from the country. No church of the middle ages longer remained independent of Rome than did those of Ireland and Bretagne...The nobles as well as the priests are dear to Bretagne and to La Vendée as defenders of the ancient habits and ways of thinking...A great number of peasant families regarded themselves as noble...Serfage was unknown in several parts of the province...A saying of profound meaning has been uttered respecting La Vendée and it is applicable also to Bretagne: these populations are essentially republican, that is, socially, not politically, republican...Before Anjou could prevail in the twelfth century over Bretagne, it was necessary that the Plantagenets should become kings of England, and dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine, by two marriages. Bretagne threw herself into the arms of France to escape them; but it needed still a whole century of warfare between the French and English party, between the Blois and the Montforts. When the marriage of Anne and Louis XII. had united the province with the kingdom: when Anne had inscribed on the Château of Nantes the old motto of the château of the Bourbons (Qui qu'en grogne tel est mon plaisir), then began the legal struggle of the estates of the parliament of Rennes, its defense of the common law, the war of provincial privileges against monarchical centralisation. Rudely suppressed by Louis XIV., the resistance began again under Louis XV.; and Lachalotais wrote his courageous factum against the Jesuits with a toothpick in a dungeon at Brest...Nantes is a semi-Bordeaux, less brilliant and more sober...Through it flows the great Loire, rolling its waters between Bretagne and La Vendée, the river of the Noyades...It was at St. Florent, upon the same spot where rises the column of the Vendéan Bonchamps, that the Breton Nomanoe, the vanquisher of the Northmen, set up his own statue in the ninth century. It was turned towards Anjou, towards France, which he regarded as his prey. But Anjou was to gain the victory: the greater feudalism prevailed among its more disciplinable population. Bretagne, with its innumerable petty nobility, could wage no great war, or achieve any conquest. The black town of Angers bears this feudal character impressed, not only on its vast castle and on its Tour du Diable, but also on its very cathedral. That church, St. Maurice, is filled, not with saints, but with knights armed cap-à-pie...Angers slumbers at this day. It is enough for it to have for some time united, under its Plantagenets, England, Normandy, Bretagne, and Aquitaine...and at least asserted its right to the thrones of Naples, Aragon, Jerusalem, and Provence; whilst its daughter, Margaret, upheld the red rose against the white, the house of Lancaster against that of York. The towns of Saumur and of Tours, the capital of French Protestantism and the capital of French Catholicism - at least at the end of the Merovingian period, slumber by the murmuring of the Loire, Saumur, the little kingdom of the preachers, and of old du Plessis Mornay...the good city of Tours, with its tomb of St. Martin, the old asylum, the old oracle, the Delphi of France, whither the Merovingians used to come to consult the sortes; that great and lucrative place of pilgrimage for which the Counts of Blois and Anjou broke so many a lance. Mans, Angers, and all Bretagne, were dependent on the Archbishop of Tours. Its canons were the Capets, the dukes of Burgandy and of Bretagne, the Count of Flanders, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and Compostella. Money was coined there...manufactories of silk and precious stuffs...confections called rillettes...Tours and Rheims, those cities of priests and sensuality...the sunny skies, and the soft flowing Loire. Labour is a thing against nature in the indulgent climate of Tours, Blois, and Chinon, in the native land of Rabelais, near the tomb of Agnes Sorel. Chenonceaux, Chambord, Montbazon, Longeais, Loches, all the male and female favourites of our kings, have their châteaux along the river. It is the country where men laugh and do nothing; a country of fruits, and trees as brightly green in August as in May. If you look across the river, the other bank seems suspended in the air, so perfectly does the water reflect the sky...the willow drinking at the stream...the poplar and aspen and the hazel...the isles on isles...Soft and sensual region! Well may it have been here that the idea was conceived of making woman queen of the monasteries, and of living beneath her sway in a voluptuous obedience, half love, half sanctity...never did abbey equal the splendor of Fontevrault...Many a king desired to be buried there; even the fierce Richard Coeur de Lion bequeathed it his heart; that murderous and parricidal heart he thought would last, perhaps, find rest in the gentle hand of a woman and beneath the prayer of the virgins...the grave Orlean, a town of legists in the middle ages, then Calvinistic, then Jansenist, and now a town of trade...proceed towards the Iberians, towards the Pyrenees. Poitou...is a country formed of very various, but not promiscuous, elements...Poitou is the centre of Calvinism in the sixteenth century; it recruits the armies of Coligné, and attempts the foundation of a Protestant republic, and it was from Poitou that the Catholic and royalist opposition of La Vendée issued in our own day. The former epoch belongs above all to the nation of the coast; the latter is particularly that of the Vendéan Bocage. Nevertheless, both are referable to one same principle of which republican Calvinism and Catholic royalism were each but an outward form. That principle was the indomitable spirit of opposition to the central government. Poitou is the battle field between the South and the North. It was near Poitiers that Clovis defeated the Goths, that Charles Martel repulsed the Saracens, and that the Anglo-Gascan army of the Black Prince captured King John. Presenting in its jurisprudence a medley of the common law and the Roman law, giving its legists to the North, its troubadours to the south, Poitou is, itself, like its Melusina, an assemblage of divers natures, half woman, half serpent. A country of mixture, a country of mules, and of vipers...the old Roman town of Poitiers, now so lonely, was with Arles and Lyons the first Christian school of Gaul. St. Hilary shared in the combats sustained by Athanasius for the divinity of Jesus Christ. Poitiers was for us, in some respects, the cradle of the monarchy as well as of Christianity...The last gleam of Latin poetry had shown itself at Poitiers with Fortunatus; the dawn of modern literature appeared there in the twelfth century. William VII. was the first troubador. This William, excommunicated for carrying off the Viscountess de Châtelleraut, led, it is said, 100,000 men to the Holy Land. He arrived before Antioch with six men!; but he also took with him the whole host of his mistresses. The Bishop of Angoulême said to him: "Mend your ways." The count replied: "I will when thou combest thyself." The bishop was bald. It is of him that an old author says, "He was a good troubador, a good knight at arms, and long and far did he travel about deceiving the ladies."...Gilbert of La Porée, born at Poitiers, bishop of that town, and Abailard's colleague at the school of Chartres, taught with equal boldness, like Abailard was attacked by St. Bernhard, retracted like him, but did not persist in his backslidings like the Breton logician...When the jealous Eleanor of Guienne put to death the beautiful Rosamond in the labyrinth where her husband had concealed her, this was not the first instance in which a Countess of Poitiers assassinated her rival. Eleanor's sons, Henry, Richard Coeur de Lion, and John, never knew whether they were Poitevins or English, Angevins or Normans. The internal conflict between two contradictory natures was displayed in their fickle and stormy lives. Henry III., John's son, was governed by the Poitevins, and we know what civil wars this cost England...Fontenai furnished great lawyers (Tiraqueau, Besly, and Brisson); the nobility of Poitou produced many able courtiers (Thouars, Mortemar, Meilleraie, Maulá'áon). The greatest statesman and the most popular writer of France belonged to eastern Poitou, Richelieu and Voltaire. The latter, born at Paris, was of a family from Parthenai. According to M. Genoude there are still members of the Arouet family in the village of St. Loup, in the environs of that town...The table-land of the two Sèvres pours those rivers, the one towards Nantes, the other toward La Rochelle...Rochelle as well as St. Malo, was originally an asylum opened by the church for the Jews, serfs, and coliberts of Poitou. The pope protected both towns against the lords...A host of adventurers sprung from this medley populace, sought their fortunes by sea as merchants or as pirates...Without going back so far as the serf Leudaste, of the island of Ré, whose curious history Gregory of Tours has preserved for us, we will mention the famous Cardinal of Sion, who armed the Swiss for Julius II.; the Chancellor Olivier under Charles IX.; Balue and Doriole under Louis XI. The latter prince was fond of using these intriguers, shutting them up when he had done with them in an iron cage. Rochelle, at one time, expected to become another Amsterdam, of which Coligné should have been the William of Orange. Well known are the two famous sieges it maintained against Charles IX. and Richelieu, the heroic efforts, the extraordinary pertinacity of the besieged, and the dagger which the major laid on the table of the Hotel de Ville, ready for the man who should speak of surrendering. Nevertheless, they were compelled by force to yield, when England, betraying the Protestant cause and her own interest, suffered Richelieu to close their port...La Vendée, which has fourteen rivers, and not one navigable, a country lost in its hedges and woods, was, after all that has been said on the subject, neither more religious, nor more royalist, than many other frontier provinces; but it clung to its old usages...the sombre town of Saintes and the beautiful country around it; the battle fields of Taillebourg and Janac, the grottoes of Charente, and its vineyards in the salt marshes...Limousin; that elevated, cold, rainy region from which so many rivers descend. Its beautiful granite hills, rounded into hemispheres, and its vast forests of chestnuts, maintain an honest population, but dull, timid, and awkward from indecision. It is a country that has endured much, having been so long disputed between England and France. Lower Limousin is different; there, we are already struck by the bustling and quick spirit of the men of the south. The names of Ségur, St. Aulaire, Noailles, Ventadour, Pompadour, and, above all, Turenne, sufficiently indicate how much the men of this country are attached to the central power, and how much they have gained thereby. That rascal, Cardinal Dubois, was a native of Brives la Gaillarde...Auvergne is the valley of the Allier...Mont Dor...Puy de Dôme...The walnut strikes its root into the clefts of the basalt, and wheat springs up out of the pumice-stone. The infernal fires are not so wholly extinguished...a certain valley still smokes...The towns are black, built of lava (Clermont, St. Flour, &c.), but the country is beautiful...vast and lonely meadows of the Cantal and Mont Dor, pursued by the monotonous sound of the cascades...Auvergne is exposed to a continual conflict of the winds...It is a cold country under a sky already southern; a land where one freezes whilst treading upon lava...Their wine is coarse, their cheese bitter, like the rude herbage that produces it...And yet there is a real force in the men of this race, a thrifty sap, harsh and crude, perhaps, but full of life...There we find those great lawyers, -Domat, of Clermont; the Laguesle of Vic le Comte; Duprat, and Barillion his secretary, of Issoire; l'Hôpital, of Aigueperse; Anne Dubourg, of Riom; Piérre Lizet...; the Du Vair, d'Aurillac, &c. - those logicians of the Gallican party who never rightly knew whether they were on the pope's side or against him; the Chancellor de l'Hôpital, the equivocal Catholic; the Arnauds; the stern Domat; the Jansenist Papinian, who strove to shut up law within the limits of Christianity; and his friend Pascal, the only man of the seventeenth century who was conscious of the religious crisis between Montaigne and Voltaire...I might enter by Rouergue into the great valley of the South...This region...rent by precipices, and torn by two torrents, the Tarn and the Aveyron, is little inferior in ruggedness to the Cevennes. But I prefer entering by way of Cahors. There, the whole country is clothed with vineyards; the mulberries begin before Montauban...a vast ocean of agriculture...above it rise the fantastic forms of the silvery-headed Pyrenees. The ox, yoked by the horns, tills the fertile valley; the vine climbs the elm...the mule, loaded with oil, traverses the narrow path...You arrive at evening at some large and gloomy town, say Toulouse. From the sonorous accents around you, you would believe yourself in Italy...violent legists, who prompted the slap in the face given by Phillip le Bel to Boniface VIII., often made amends for this at the expense of the heretics, four hundred of whom they burned in less than a century. Subsequently they made themselves subservient to the vengeance of Richelieu...The Garonne passes by old Toulouse, through the old Roman and Gothic Languedoc, and, continually augmenting in volume, spreads out and meets the sea like another sea, in front of Bordeaux. This latter town, long the capital of English France, and, longer still, English at heart, is turned by its commercial interests towards England, the ocean, and America. The Garonne, which we must now call Gironde, is twice as broad there as the Thames at London...The distant summits of the Pyrenees invite us...the dismal lordship of the Albrets...an ocean of moors...a few cork trees, vast pinadas, a sombre and lonely tract of country...flocks of black sheep...nomads...companions of the stars in their eternal solitude...continue the Asiatic life, the life of Lot and of Abraham...In Spain they reign...the triumphant merinos devour the country from Estramadura to Navarre and Aragon...Two distinct peoples, who are, really, neither Spaniards nor Frenchmen, the Basques upon the west, and the Catalans and Roussillonese on the east, are the gatekeepers of the two worlds. They open and they shut; irritable and capricious porters, weary of the everlasting passage of the nations, they open the way for Abderrahman and close it against Roland. There is many a tomb between Roncesvalles and the Seu d'Urgel...when nature improvised her prodigious geological epopoea; when the inflamed mass of the globe shot forth the axis of the Pyrenees; when the mountains were cleft, and the earth, in the tortures of a Titanic birth, flung up the black and bald Maladetta against the sky. But a soothing hand gradually drew over the wounds of the mountain those green meadows, whose verdure puts to shame that of the Alps...Port de Paillers, whence the parted waters flow down to two seas...between the beautiful and the sublime...meadows of living emerald...soon comes the savage and fearful wildness of the great mountains, concealed behind, like a monster under the mask of a beautiful girl...perpetual snows...Here France ends...the gate of Spain...The Spanish slope, exposed to the south, is far more abrupt, dry, and savage...The French side...clothed with beautiful meadows...Barcelona lives on our oxen. That country of wine and pasture is obliged to purchase our flocks and our wines...Cross the frontier, compare our splendid roads with their rugged paths; or cast a glance merely on those strangers at the waters of Cauterets, covering their rags under the dignity of a cloak; somber, disdaining to compare their condition with that of others. Great and heroic nation, fear not that we would insult your misery! Whoever would see all the races and all the costumes of the Pyrenees must go to the fair of Tarbes...There you frequently find...the white bonnet of Bigorre, the brown of Foix, and the red of Roussillon; sometimes, even, the large flat hat of Aragon, the round hat of Navarre, and the pointed bonnet of Biscay. The Basque voturier will come thither upon his ass, with his long carriage drawn by three horses; he wears the béret of Béarn...The Basque race, the oldest of those of the West, motionless in its corner of the Pyrenees, has seen all the nations pass before it - Carthaginians, Celts, Romans, Goths, and the Saracens...This race had possession of Aquitaine for a short period, and bequeathed to it the name of Gascony. Driven back into Spain in the ninth century, it founded there the kingdom of Navarre; and, in the course of two hundred years, it occupied all the Christian thrones of Spain - Gallicia, the Asturias and Leon, Aragon and Castile. But as the Spanish crusade pushed on towards the south, the Navarres, isolated from the theatre of European glory, gradually lost everything. Their last king, Sancho the Secluded...is a true type of the destinies of his people...Navarre sued for aid, even to the Mussulmans of Africa; and, at last, threw itself into the arms of the French. Sancho destroyed his kingdom by bequeathing it to his son-in-law Thibaut, Count of Champagne. It was like Roland breaking his durandal that it might not fall into the hands of the enemy. The house of Barcelona, the stock of the kings of Aragon, and the counts of Foix, seized Navarre in turn, and gave it, for awhile, to the Albrets and Bourbons, who lost Navarre to gain France. But they recovered in the person of the grandson of Louis XIV., the descendant of Henry IV., not only Navarre, but all Spain. Thus was verified the mysterious inscription on the castle of Coaraze, where Henry IV. was brought up; Lo que de ser, no puedo falter. What is to be, cannot fail to be. Our kings entitle themselves kings of France and of Navarre...Antiquity has disappeared there, the medieval world is dying. Those crumbling châteaux, those towers of the Moors, those bones of the Templars preserved at Gavarnie, most significantly typify the things that are no more...gaunt denuded crests testify its decay...it is smitten by so many storms...man aids in the work of destruction...he plucks away that deep girdle of forests that covered the nakedness of the ancient mother. The vegetable mold, which the herbage retained on the slopes, is swept down with the waters. The bare rock, chapped, and exfoliated, by heat and cold, and mined by the melting snows, is carried away by the avalanches...Numerous hamlets in the high valleys have been abandoned for want of firewood, and the inhabitants have removed toward France to escape the effects of their own devastations...All this southern region, beautiful as it is, is, nevertheless, a country of ruins compared with the North. Pass the fantastic landscapes of St. Bernard de Comminges and Foix; those towns, one would fancy, had been dropped upon their sites by the fairies...and its songs...so sweet to hear at evening from the lips of the country girls. Descend into stony Languedoc, traverse its hills imperfectly shaded with olives, and ringing with the monotonous chirping of the cicala...numerous salt ponds, and salt lands too, where nothing grows but marsh-sapphire; countless thermal springs, bitumen and balm; it is another Judaea. There was nothing to hinder the rabbins of the Jewish schools of Narbonne from believing themselves in their native land...Montpellier, which looks upon the Pyrenees and the Cevennes, and even the Alps, has near it and beneath it an unwholesome soil covered with flowers, aromatic and, as it were, highly drugged: a town of medicine, perfumes, and verdigris. A very old land is this Languedoc; all through it you find ruins on ruins; the Camisards over the Albigeois, the Saracens over the Goths; under the latter, the Romans and the Iberians. The walls of Narbonne are built of tombs, statues, and inscriptions. The amphitheatre of Nîmes is pierced with Gothic embrasures, crowned with Saracen battlements, and blackened with the flames lighted by Charles Martel; but, here again it is the oldest races that have left most tokens of their existence...The Roman law is another ruin, and one far more imposing. To it, and to the franchises that accompanied it, Languedoc owed its exception, from the feudal maxim, `No land without a lord.' Here presumption was always in favour of liberty. Feudalism could only make its way into the country under cover of the crusade, as an auxiliary of the Church, as a familiar of the inquisition. Simon de Montfort established four hundred and thirty-four fiefs in Languedoc. I have been assured that in 1814, many families of emigrants were reproached with their descent from the companions of Simon de Montfort...Languedoc, a country of political freedom and of religious servitude, more fanatical than devout, has always nurtured a vigorous spirit of opposition. The Catholics of that country have had their Protestantism under the Jansenist form. At this very day they scrape the grave of Pavillon at Alet, and mingle the dust with their drink to cure fevers. The Pyrenees have always furnished heretics since the days of vigilance and Felix d'Urgel. Bayle, the most obstinate of skeptics, the man who believed the most in doubt, was a native of Carlat. Limoux produced the Cheniers, brothers and rivals, but not, as has been supposed, to the extent of fratricide...I will speak elsewhere of the fearful catastrophe of the thirteenth century. To this very day there still subsists between Nîmes and the mountain of Nîmes a traditional hatred, which, it is true, day by day retains less of a religious character. The respective inhabitants are like the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. These Cevennes are so poor and so rude, that we need not wonder there should be a conflict, full of violence and endless rage...The history of Nîmes is a mere bull-fight. The strong and stern genius of Languedoc has not been sufficiently distinguished from the witty levity of Guienne, and from the headlong petulance of Provence...In Languedoc, conviction is strong, intolerant, often atrocious, and so too is incredulity. Guienne, on the contrary, the country of Montaigne and of Montesquieu, is the land of unstable belief. Fénélon, the most religious man it produced, was almost a heretic. Matters are far worse as we advance towards Gascony, a country of poor devils, very noble and very beggarly; rogues, every one of whom would have said, like their Henry IV., "Paris is well worth a mass;"...The Provençal genius seems to have more analogy, in some respects, with that of Gascony than with that of Languedoc...Whilst Languedoc retreats from the sea, Provence advances into it, and plants upon it Marseilles and Toulon. She seems prompted by nature to maritime excursions, to the crusades, to the conquest of Italy and of Africa. Provence has visited and been the host of all nations. All have sung the songs and dance the dances of Avignon and Beaucaire; all have halted at the passing places of the Rhone...The saints of Provençe (true saints whom I honour) built bridges for their countrymen -the shepherd St. Benezet was ordered in a vision to build the bridge of Avignon; the bishop would not believe it until Benezet carried on his back an enormous rock to be laid as the first stone. He founded the order of frères pontifes- and began the brotherhood of the West. The lively and beautiful girls of Arles and Avignon...have taken by the hand the Greek, the Spaniard, and the Italian, and have made them tread the farandole whether they would or not; and the strangers had no wish to embark again, but built Greek, Moorish, and Italian towns in Provence. They preferred the feverish faces of Fréjust to those of Ionia or Tusculum. They battled with the torrents, cultivated the rapid slopes in flights of terraces; and forced stony hills, that yielded only thyme and lavender, to produce the grape. With all its poetry, Provence is not the less a rude land. Not to mention its pontine marshes and the vale of Ollioules, and the tiger-like vivacity of the peasant of Toulon, that unceasing wind that buries the trees beneath the sand, and drives vessels upon the coast, is hardly less pernicious by land than by sea; the sudden impetuous squalls deal mortal blows...It is a land of soldiers, of your Agricolas, Baux, and Crillons; a land of intrepid mariners, and a rude school is the Gulf of Lyon...the Bailli de de Suffren, that renegade, who died capitan pasha in 1706...Even in the rural districts serfdom was never so oppresive as in the rest of France; these peasants were their own liberators, and the vanquishers of the Moors...Bold and free too was the flight of Provençe in literature and philosophy...It is a country of fine speakers, copious and impassioned, at least as regards words, and, when they please, obstinate artificers of language. They have given us Massillon, Mascaron, Flechier, Maurai, our orators and rhetoricians. But all Provençe, its municipalities, parliament, and nobility, its democracy and rhetoric, the whole crowned with magnificent southern insolence, was concentrated in Mirabeau, the bull neck, the force of the Rhone. How came it that this country did not vanquish and rule France? Italy it vanquished in the thirteenth century...When we ascend from the coast, and from the pasturages of Arles, to the hills of Avignon, and then to the mountains that approach the alps, we can account for the downfall of Provençe. That district, wholly eccentric, has no great towns, except upon the frontiers...The counts of Toulouse made themselves masters, at last, of the Rhone; the Catalans, of the coast and of the ports. The Baux, or indigenous Provençals, who had formerly delivered the country from the Moors, had Forcalquier and Sisteron; that is to say, the interior. Thus the states of the South crumbled to pieces until the French arrived, overthrew Toulouse, drove back the Catalans into Spain, united the Provençals, and led them to the conquest of Naples. This was the end of the destinies of Provençe. She went to sleep with Naples under one same master. Rome lent her pope to Avignon; wealth and scandals abounded. Religion was in a very sickly state...the French Revolution was not sanguinary in Grenoble; it had been effected there beforehand. The working classes of Grenoble maintained order in the period of Terror, with admirable courage and humanity. In like manner as did Michel Lando, the wool-carder of Florence, during the insurrection of the Ciompi. The population is not meek, mild, and easily governed; but democracy is at home there, and why should it be violent?...Bonaparte knew Grenoble well, when he chose it for his first station on returning from the island of Elba. It was then, his intention to restore the empire by means of the republic....Besançon, like Grenoble, is another ecclesiastical republic under its archbishop, prince of the empire, and its noble chapter. In like manner, in the abbey of St. Claude, transformed into a bishopric in 1741, the monks were required to give proof of nobility on the paternal and the maternal sides for five generations back. The canons had to prove sixteen quarters, eight on each side. But the perpetual war between Franche-Comté and Germany, rendered feudalism more oppressive in the former...It was with the serfs of the church of St. Claude, and in the poor Nantua on the other side of the mountain, that the industry of these regions began. Fixed to the soil, their first occupation was carving chaplets for Spain and Italy...Metz was free, even under its bishop, like Liège and Lyons...Metz, Toul, and Verdun...formed...an island, an asylum for fugitive serfs. Even the Jews, everywhere proscribed, were received in Metz...The beautiful rounded hills of the Vosges, the chain even of Alsace, those mountains of soft and placid forms, were so many encouragements to war. Lorraine, that Ostrasian land, everywhere marked with Carlovingian monuments, with its twelve great houses, its one hundred and twenty peers, and its sovereign abbey of Remiremont, where Charlemagne and his sons held their grand autumn hunts, and where the sword was carried before the abbess...To become a lady of Remiremont it was necessary to prove 200 years nobility on both sides. To become a canoness or demoiselle of Epinal, it was necessary to prove four paternal and maternal noble generations...Thus was formed there, and in the valleys of the Meuse and of the Moselle and in the forests of the Vosges, a vague and fluctuating population that scarcely knew its own origin, living, indifferently, on the nobility and on the priest, who took them alternately into their service. Metz was the town of all those who had none of their own; a medley town if ever there was one...The French language stops at Lorraine, and I will not go further. I forbear to cross the mountain, and cast a glance on Alsace. The Germanic world is a dangerous one for me. There is in it an all-potent lotus that makes one forget his native land. Were I to descry thee, divine tower of Strasburg; were I to behold my heroic Rhine, I might, perhaps, commit myself to the current of the stream, and float with an ear fascinated by their legends - a duke of Alsace and Lorraine in the seventh century wished for a son. He had but a blind daughter, and he caused her to be exposed. He afterwards became the father of a son, who brought the girl to the old duke, who was now become fierce and moody, and dwelt in solitary retirement in the castle of Hohenburg. At first, he repulsed her, but afterwards his sternness gave way, and he founded a monastery for her, which afterwards was called by her name, St. Odile. Baden and Germany are visible from its summit. Pilgrims visited from all parts; the Emperor Charles IV.; Richard Coeur de Lion; the King of Denmark; the King of Cyprus; and a pope. This convent received the wife of Charlemagne, and that of Charles le Gros. At Winstein, in the north of Lower Rhine, the devil keeps costly treasures in a castle cut out of the rock. -Between Haguenau and Wissemburg a fantastic flame issues from a fountain of pitch (Pechelbrunnen); that flame is the hunter, the phantom of the old lord who is undergoing the expiation of his tyranny- towards the red cathedral of Mayence, towards that of Cologne and to the ocean...I should remain enchanted on the solemn limits of the two empires...I halt on the limit of the two languages, in Lorraine, at the battle-field of the two races; at the Oak of the Partisans, which is still shown in the Vosges...They all fell, or were made prisoners, fighting for France at Courtrai, Cassel, Crécy, and Auray. A girl from the frontiers of Lorraine and Champagne, a poor peasant, Joan of Arc, did more. She revived the moral energy of the nation; in her appeared, for the first time, the grand image of the people under a pure and virgin form. Through her Lorraine became bound to France...As we descend to Lorraine from the Low Countries by the Ardennes, La Meuse, from being agricultural and manufacturing, becomes more and more military. Verdun and Stenay, Sedan, Mézières, and Givet, Maestricht and a multitude of fortresses, command its course. It lends them its waters; it serves them as a guard or as a girdle. All this country is woody, as if to mask the defense and the attack from the approaches of Belgium...the hunters could pursue their game continually in its shade from Germany, from Luxembourg, to Picardy, and from St. Hubert to Notre Dame de Liesse...oaks loaded with miseltoe...the mysteries of the Druids...the wars of the Boar of Ardennes, in the fifteenth century; from the miraculous stag, the apparition of which converted St. Hubert, down to the fair Iseult and her lover. They were sleeping on the moss when Iseult's husband surprised them, but they looked so beautiful, so chaste, with the broad sword laid between them, that he courteously withdrew. Come with me beyond Givet, and see the Trou-du-Han, into which, but very recently, no one dared to enter...I still have before me the girl at her spinning-wheel, who, as she plies her task, holds on her knees the precious volume of the Blue Library...In it we read, how the good Renaud played many a trick on Charlemagne, and how, nevertheless, he made a good end, having humbly become a mason and a knight, and carrying on his back huge blocks to build the holy church of Cologne...Behind this rude and heroic zone of Dauphiné, Franche-Comté, Lorraine, and Ardennes, spreads another, far softer and more abundant in the fruits of thought. I mean the provinces of the Lyonese, Burgundy and Champagne. A zone of the vine, of inspired poetry, of eloquence, of elegant and ingenious literature. These people were not doomed, like the rest, incessantly to receive and return the shock of foreign invasion; better sheltered, they were enabled to cultivate at leisure the delicate flower of civilization...Lyons, with its eminently social genius, uniting the peoples like the rivers. The Saône as far as the Rhone, and the Rhone as far as the sea, divided France from the Empire...This point of junction of the Rhone and Saône seems to have been always a sacred spot. The Segusii of Lyons were dependent on the Druidical people of the Edui. Sixty tribes of Gaul erected the altar of Augustus in that town, and Caligula established there those contests in eloquence, the rule of which was, that the defeated candidate should be thrown into the Rhone... The famous bronze table, where we still read the speech of Claudius for the admission of the Gauls into the senate, is the first of our national antiquities, the sign of our initiation into the civilized world. Another initiation, far more holy, has its monument in the catacombs of St. Irenæus, in the crypt of St. Pothin, in Fourvière, the mountain of the pilgrims...Lyons was the seat of the Roman administration...In the terrible convulsions of the first medieval centuries, this great ecclesiastical town gave refuge to a multitude of fugitives...nearly as Constantinople gradually concentrated within it all the Greek empire, which retreated before the advances of the Arabs or the Turks...This laborious ant-hill [Lyons] shut in between the rocks and the river, with its narrow gloomy shelving streets swept with rain and overhung with perpetual fogs, had yet its moral life and its poetry. It was thus our Maître Adam, the joiner of Nevers, it was thus the Meistersänger of Nuremburg and Frankfurt, coopers, locksmiths, the smelters, and in our day too the tinman of Nuremburg; - all these men revered in their obscure cities that nature, which they did not behold, and that bright sun which was denied them. They hammered out in their gloomy workshops idylls on the fields, the birds, and the flowers. In Lyons, the source of poetic inspiration was not nature, but love. Many a young shop girl, pensive in the twilight of the back shop, wrote, like Louise Labbé, like Pernette Guillet, verses full of melancholy and of passion, which were not for their husbands. The love of God, it must be mentioned, and the most gentle mysticism, were likewise characteristic of Lyons...It seems a whimsical and contradictory fact, that mysticism should have sprung up spontaneously in those great cities of trade and of corruption, such as now are Lyons and Strasburg; but the truth is, that nowhere does the heart of man feel more need of heaven. In places, where all gross pleasures are within man's reach, disgust soon follows; the sedentary life, too, of the artisan, seated before his loom, favours this internal fermentation of the soul. The silk-worker in the humid obscurity of the streets of Lyons; the weaver of Artois and of Flanders in the cave where he lived, created for themselves a world; or, for want of a real world, they created for themselves a moral paradise of sweet dreams and visions. To indemnify themselves for the absence of that nature which was denied them, they gave themselves to God. No class of men supplied the fiery persecutions of the middle ages with more victims. The Vaudois of Arras had their martyrs like those of Lyons. These men, disciples of the merchant Valdo, Vaudois, or paupers of Lyons, as they were called, sought to bring back things to the condition of the first times of the gospel. They set an affecting example of fraternity; nor was this unity of hearts merely confined to community of religious opinions. Long after the days of the Vaudois, we meet with contracts entered into at Lyons, wherein two friends adopt each other, and hold their lives and fortunes in common...If anyone would become acquainted with the true Burgundy, the pleasant Burgundy of the vine, he must ascend the Saône by Chalons, then turn aside by the Cote d'Or to the plateau of Dijon, and descend again towards Auxerre...No province had abbeys of greater extent, wealthier, or more fruitful in distant colonies; St. Benigne at Dijon, Cluny near Mâcon, and Citeaux close by Chalon...Citeaux...was the mother of Clairvaux and of St. Bernard. Her abbot, the Abbot of Abbots, was recognized as chief of the order in 1491 by 3252 monasteries. It was the monks of Citeaux who founded the military orders of Spain in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and preached the crusade against the Albigeois, as St. Bernard had preached the second crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem. Burgundy is the land of orators, the land of pompous and solemn eloquence. It is from the elevated portion of the province, from whence flows the Seine, from Dijon and Mont Bar, that arose the most resonant voices of France, those of St. Bernard, Bossuet, and Buffon. But the amiable sentimentality of Burgundy is to be remarked at other points; more graceful in the north, more showy in the south. Near Semur we have the good Madame de Chantal, and her grand-daughter, Madame de Sévigné; at Mâcon, Lamartine, the poet of the religious and lonely soul; at Charolles, Edgar Quinet, the poet of history and humanity. France has no element more binding than Burgundy, none more capable of reconciling the North and the South...The genius of France was destined to descend into the colourless plains of the centre, to abjure pride and swelling vanity, and even the oratorical form, in order to bear its last fruit, its most exquisite, its most French...Bourgogne seems still to retain something of its Burgundians yet; the intoxicating juice of Beaune and of Mâcon confuses the mind...the exuberant beauty of the women of Vermanton and Auxerre is no unapt expression of this literature...The flesh and the blood are paramount here...we need only mention Crebillon, Longepierre, and Sedaine...It is a sad fall to come down from Burgundy to Champagne...the country is gently flat, pale, and desperately prosaic; the animals are of a poor kind...A few dull streams creep with their whitish waters...Troyes is almost as remarkable for its ugliness as for its manufactures. Rheims derives a melancholy character from the solemn breadth of its streets...It is the whilom town of bourgeois and priests, Tours' true sister, a sugary and somewhat devout town, a town of chaplets and gingerbread...These towns, essentially democratic and anti-feudal, have been the principal support of the monarchy...The nobility did not gain by this accession of roturier nobles; at last they threw away idle shame, and became traders...It was not the adventurous, heroic kind of trade carried on with distant lands by the Catalans or the Genoese. The commerce of Troyes and of Rheims was not a luxurious one; they had none of those illustrious corporations, those Great and Little Arts of Florence, wherein statesmen, like the Medicis, dealt in the noble productions of the East and of the North, in silk, furs, and precious stones. The industry of Champagne was profoundly plebian. In the fairs of Troyes, frequented by all Europe, were sold thread, inferior stuffs. Urban IV. was the son of a cordwainer of Troyes. He built St. Urban in that town, and had a tapestry wrought representing his father making shoes. Our tanners of the Faubourg St. Marceau were originally a colony from Troyes. Those cheap manufactured goods, so necessary to all, made the country rich. The nobles sat themselves down with a good grace before the counter, and practiced politeness towards the clown. It was not possible for them amidst the conflux of strangers to the fairs to search out the genealogy of their customers, and to quarrel upon points of etiquette; thus gradually began equality. And the great Count of Champagne, too, sometimes King of Jerusalem, and sometimes of Navarre, found the friendship of these shopkeepers very convenient. It is true, that he was regarded with an evil eye by the lords, and often by the priests...This precocious degradation of feudalism, these grotesque transformations of knights into shopkeepers...The last of our poetical romances begins with "Chrétien de Troyes," and "Guyot de Provins."...History and satire are the vocation of Champagne...In this wine-bearing and literary zone, the mind of man has always advanced in precision and sobriety...Through the flat plains of Champagne wander, listlessly, the river of the Low Countries and the river of France, the Meuse, and the Seine with its acolyte the Marne; but as they advance, their volume swells, and they arrive with more dignity at the sea. The land itself, too, rises gradually into hills in the Isle of France, Normandy, and Picardy. France becomes more majestic, she does not choose to arrive in front of England with her head down; she decks herself in forests and superb towns; she augments the volume of her rivers; she flings out magnificent plains in long waves, and sets before her rival that other England of Flanders and Normandy. There is, here, an immense emulation; the two shores hate and resemble each other. On either side is hardness, avidity, a grave and laborious spirit. Old Normandy looks askance on her triumphant daughter, who looks down her nose with a smile of insolence. Yet the tables still exist on which we inscribed the names of the Normans who conquered England. Was not the conquest the point at which the latter began her soaring flight?...The wondrous cathedrals of England, what are they but an imitation, an exaggeration of the Norman architecture?...The warlike and captious spirit, foreign to the Anglo-Saxons, which has made England, since the conquest, a nation of fighting men and scribes, this belongs purely to the Norman temper; this sour sap is the same on both sides of the Straits...The men of Lorraine and Dauphiné, cannot compare with the Norman in litigious disposition...Bretagne is resistance, Normandy is conquest...witness so many heroic mariners, witness the great Corneille...Nevertheless, a grand and pregnant ideality has been, I know not why, refused to the Norman genius; it soars high, but soon falls. It falls into the penurious correctness of Malherbe, into the dryness of Mézerai, and the ingenious refinements of La Bruyère and Fontenelle...Neither subtle nor sterile, assuredly, is the genius of our good and stout Flanders...On its fat and plentiful champaignes, uniformly rich with manure, with canals, with exuberant and gross vegetation, herbs, men, and animals, all thrive prodigiously; the ox and the horse swell up as if they would play the elephant. The women are men in corporal development, and often, more than that. With all its bulk, however, the race is of a rather lax fibre...The athletes of our fairs often come from the department of the North. The prolific powers of the Bolg of Ireland are found in our Belges of Flanders and the Low Countries. In the thick alluvium of those rich plains, in the vast and gloomy trading and manufacturing communes of Ypres, Ghent, and Bourges, human beings swarmed like insects after a shower. It was not safe to set foot on those ant-hills; touch them, and fighting men instantly issued from them with pikes levelled, by tens of thousands, all strong and well fed...The feudal cavalry was ill-matched against masses like these...Champagne and Flanders were then the only countries that could contend with Italy for a place in history. Flanders had its Villani in Froissard, and its Machiavelli in Comines...As for their manners, they were little edifying, sensual and gross; and the further we advance northwards in this fat Flanders...the more voluptuous we find the country; the more does sensuality predominate...Sculpture begins in France itself, with the famous disciple of Michael Angelo, John of Boulogne...Flanders is a prosaic Lombardy, wanting the vine and the sun...there must be colours...Beyond the Scheldt, amid the dismal marshes, the deep waters, and lofty dykes of Holland, begins the sombre and serious school of painting; Rembrandt and Gerard Dow paint where Erasmus and Grotius write...the highest type of Belgian genius is found in Rubens...Spontaneity predominates in Belgium, reflection in Holland. Men of thought have been fond of the latter country. Thither, Descartes repaired to effect the apotheosis of man's personality, and Spinosa that of nature. But in Flanders, in the rich and sensual Antwerp, the rapid pencil of Rubens produces the bacchanals of painting. All the mysteries are parodied in his idolatrous pictures, that riot in all the fire and brutality of genius. We have here the fine series of pictures painted by Rubens, for Marie de Medicis...It is from the pictures in Antwerp and Brussels that we comprehend the character of Rubens. See his Holy Family, in Antwerp...His Flagellation is horrible from the brutality of its details. One of the flagellants, in order to strike harder, puts his foot on the calf of the Saviour's leg; another looks under his hand and grins at the spectator's face...In the Museum of Brussels, there is the Carrying of the Cross, bewildering with its vigour and movement. Mary Magdalen wipes away the Saviour's blood with as much coolness as a mother cleans her infant. In the same museum is to be seen the martyrdom of St. Liévin, a scene of shambles. You see them snipping up the martyr's flesh, a piece of which one of the executioners holds out in his pincers to his dogs, whilst another holds his dagger, dropping with blood, in his teeth. In the midst of these horrors, we have the usual display of beautiful and immodest carnations. The Battle of the Amazons afforded him an opportunity of painting a great number of female figures in impassioned attitudes; but his chef-d'oeuvre is, perhaps, that terrible column of human bodies he has piled up in his Last Judgment. This terrible man, sprung from the Slavonic blood, reared in the passionate vehemence of the Belgians, born at Cologne, but a foe to German idealism, has flung into his pictures a licentious apotheosis of nature...Here the great strife of peoples and of races is for ever fought...This corner of Europe is its common battle-field; and, therefore, are the plains so fat; the blood poured upon them, has not had time to dry up...On our side were gained the battles of Bouvines, Rosebeke, Lens, Steinkerque, Denain, Fortenoi, Fleurus, Jemmapes; on theirs, those of The Spurs, of Courtrai. Must I name Waterloo?...All those who have ever fled from servitude, Druids persecuted by Rome, Gallo-Romans driven out by the barbarians, Saxons proscribed by Charlemagne, famished Danes, greedy Normans, persecuted Flemish industry, and vanquished Calvinism, all have crossed the sea and taken the great island for their country...Thus England has fattened on sorrows, and grown great by ruins. But, in proportion as all these outlaws huddled together in that narrow asylum...Kymry, Gauls, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, hatred and strife has arisen among them...And whenever these amphibious races have bitten and torn each other long enough in their seagirt circus, they have flung themselves into the sea and fastened their teeth on France...The war of wars, the fight of fights, is between England and France, all the rest is episodical...The Seine is, in every sense, the first of our rivers; the most civilisable, the most perfectable. It has neither the capricious and perfidious gentleness of the Loire, nor the abruptness of the Garonne, nor the terrible impetuosity of the Rhone, that plunges, like a wild bull, from the Alps...The Seine early receives the impress of civilisation...Behold it between Pont de l'Arche and Rouen, the beautiful river! how it wanders among its countless islands laved at sunset with waves of gold, whilst all along the whitish masses of its banks, the apple-trees mirror in it their yellow and red fruit. I know nothing to compare to this spectacle, but that of the Lake of Geneva. The lake, it is true, has, in addition, the vineyards of Vaud, Meillerie, and the Alps; but the lake has no current...the Seine flows, and carries with it the mind of France from Paris to Normandy, to the ocean, to England and far America...The Capetian France of the King of St. Denys, between feudal Normandy and democratic Champagne, extends from St. Quentin to Orleans and Tours; the king is Abbot of St. Martin de Tours, and first canon of St. Quentin...The names of Caesar, Attila, Joan of Arc, and the Guises, remind us of the many wars and sieges that city has beheld. The grave Orlean is near Touraine, near the voluptuous and laughing country of Rabelais...The history of ancient France seems heaped up in Picardy. Royalty under Fredegonde and Charles the Bald resided at Soissons, Crépy, Verbery, and Attigny; when vanquished by feudalism it took refuge on the mountain of Laon. Laon, Peronne, and St. Medard de Soissons, alternately asylums and prisons, received Louis le Débonnaire, Louis d'Outremer, and Louis XI...The monstrous feudal castle of Coucy. "No king, duke, prince, nor count am I, I am the lord of Coucy." The castle of Coucy is 172 feet high, and 305 in circumference. The walls are 32 feet thick. Mazarin blew up the outer wall in 1652, and on the 18th of September, 1692, an earthquake split the tower from top to bottom...Enguerrand VII...fought at Nicopolis...Thomas de Marle, author of the Laws of Vervins (favourable to vassals)...died in 1130: Raoul I., the trouvère and lover, real or pretended, of Gabrielle de Vergy...died a crusader in 1191: Enguerrand VII...died in 1397...The monarchy of Louis XIV. Was narrated and judged by the Picard St. Simon. This recent family, which pretended to trace its lineage back to Charlemagne, may very well content itself with having produced one of the greatest writers of the seventeenth century, and the boldest thinker of ours. Strongly feudal, strongly communal and democratic, was that fiery Picardy. The first communes of France were the great ecclesiastical towns of Noyon, St. Quentin, Amiens, and Laon...A hermit of Amiens carried away all Europe, princes and p

eoples, to Jerusalem, by the impulsive force of religion. A legist of Noyon changed that religion in one half of the Western countries. He founded his Rome in Geneva, and introduced Republicanism among the principles of faith. Republicanism was hurried forward in its wild career by Picard hands, from Condorcet to Camille Desmoulins, from Desmoulins to Gracchus Baboeuf. It was sung by Bérenger...let us place in the foremost rank our illustrious General Foy, the man of pure soul, the incarnation of the noble sentiments of our army...To this list of those who have shed lustre on this land, fruitful of every species of glory, let us add, Anselme, of Laon; Ramus, killed at the massacre of St. Bartholomew...Eloquence, we see, is not the exclusive privilege of the south, and of the wine-growing countries; Picardy is fully equal to Burgundy; here, there is wine in the heart. We may lay it down as an established fact, that we find the blood grow livelier, as we advance from the centre towards the Belgian frontier, and that the temperament increases in warmth toward the north. I say the same of Artois, which has produced so many mystics; Arras is the native place of the Abbé Prevost. The Boulonnais has produced in one and the same man, a great poet and a great critic; I speak of our Sainte Beuve. Most of our great artists, Claude Lorrain, Poussin, Lesueur, Goujon, Cousin, Mansard, Le Nôtre, David, belong to the northern provinces...As for the centre of the centre, Paris and the Isle of France, there is but one way of making them known, and that is by relating the history of the monarchy...The very feudalism of the Isle of France expresses general relations. Speak of the Montforts, and you speak of Jerusalem, the crusade of Languedoc, the commons of France and of England, and the wars of Bretagne. Name the Montmorency, and you call to mind feudalism attached to royal power...As for the numerous writers born in Paris, they owe much to the provinces from which their kindred come; they belong, above all, to the universal mind of France, which shines in them. In Villon, Boileau, Molière, Régnard, and Voltaire, we discern the French genius in its most general form...not so much comprehensive as judicious, critical, and sarcastic, which first grew up out of Gaulish good-humor and the steps of La Sainte Chapelle...In France, the first of glories is to be a Frenchman...The first impression produced on one who crosses the frontiers, and compares France with the countries round her, is not favourable. There are few sides on which the foreigner does not seem superior; from Mons to Valenciennes, from Havre to Calais, the difference is painful. Normandy is an England, a pale England. What are Rouen and Havre for trade and manufactures compared with Manchester and Liverpool? Alsace is a Germany, all but what makes the glory of Germany, omniscience, philosophic depth, poetic naïveté. But we do not take France to pieces in this way...The fatality of place was overcome; men escaped from the tyranny of material circumstances; the Frenchman of the north tasted the pleasures of the south, and was cheered by its sunshine; the men of the south adopted something of the tenacity, the gravity, and reflection of the north. Society and freedom subdued nature, history effaced geography...Individual man is materialist, he is prone to attach himself to local and private interests; human society is spiritualist, and tends ceaselessly to emancipate itself from petty things of local existence, and to attain the lofty abstract unity of the fatherland...The idea of that country, an abstract idea which owes little to the senses, will lead him by a new effort of thought to the idea of a universal country, of the city of Providence. At the period which this history is arrived, the tenth century, we are very far remote from the light of modern times. Humanity must suffer and have patience; it must deserve to reach the desired consummation. Alas! how long and how painful an initiation must it yet endure! What rude trials it has yet to undergo! Through what painful travail must it bring forth new birth! With bloody sweat it must toil to bring the middle ages to light, and it must see them die after so long rearing, nursing, and caressing them. Unhappy progeny! torn from the very bowels of Christianity, brought forth in tears, reared in prayer, and revery, and anguish of heart, and doomed to die without accomplishing anything. But they have left us so poignant a memory of themselves, that all the joys, all the grandeurs of modern ages will not suffice to console us.'

Michelet (trans. By Walter K. Kelley) continues in `History of France',

`BOOK THE FIFTH...The history of the university is this: in the twelfth century it comes forth from its cradle, the school of Notre Dame, and contends against the Bishop of Paris; in the thirteenth century it wages war against the mendicant agents of the pope; in the fourteenth against the pope himself. This body formed a rude and robust democracy in which from 15,000 to 20,000 young men of all nations were trained to dialectic exercises; a wild city within a city, which they disturbed by their riotous behavior and shocked by their morals. Yet this had been for some time the great intellectual arena of the world; it produced in the thirteenth century alone, seven popes and a host of cardinals and bishops. The most illustrious foreigners, Raymond Lully the Spaniard, and Dante the Italian, came and seated themselves at thirty and forty years of age at the foot of the chair of Duns Scotus. They deemed it an honour to have disputed at Paris...In the present day we are habituated and hardened to the torments of doubt; its sting has become blunted. But let us carry ourselves back in imagination to the first moment in which the soul, still living and warm with faith and love, feels the cold steel striking into it; there was sharp pain, but still more was there horror and surprise. Would you know what was the feeling of that ingenious and believing soul, call back to mind the moment when faith failed you first in love, when the first doubt arose in your mind respecting a beloved object. To set ones life on an idea, to suspend it on an infinite love, and to see that passing away from you; to love, to doubt, to feel oneself hated for that doubt, to feel that the ground is passing from beneath your feet; that you are plunging deep in your impiety into that icy hell where divine love never shines - and then to clutch at the branches that float on the gulf; to strive to believe that one still believes, to fear being afraid, and to doubt ones own doubts. But if doubt is uncertain, if thought is not sure of thought, does this not open a new region of doubt, a hell beneath hell!...Luther is a great master in this respect; no one had a more horrible experience of these tortures of the soul...Christ himself, of whom Job was a type, knew that anguish of doubt, that night of the soul in which no star appears on the horizon. This is the last term of the Passion, the summit of the cross...In this vast deep lies the soul of the middle ages...Eternal mystery, which for all had its ideal in Calvary, not the less continues still. Yes, Christ is still on the cross, and he will not descend from it; the Passion endures and will endure. The world has its own, and so has mankind in its long historical life, and every human heart in the few moments that it beats. To each his cross and his stigmates. Mine date from the day when my soul fell into this miserable body which I use up in writing this; my Passion began with my incarnation. Poor soul! What hadst thou done to bear this load of flesh. A virgin thou was sent forth, like Eve, into the garden of seductions, ignorant and impassioned, eager and timid; ready formed for temptation and downfall. To live is in itself one degree in the Passion...I read the gospel, and it draws tears from my eyes even at this day. That God had doubts of God! that the holy victim cried out: "Father, Father! hast thou forsaken me?" ...But to be forsaken by God, to be abandoned to ones end, to ones own strength, to the idea of duty opposed to the shock of the world, this is a colossal greatness. This is to learn the very secret of man's nature, it is to taste the bitterness of that fruit of knowledge of which it was said in the beginning of the world: "You will know that you are gods, you will become gods." Here is the whole mystery of the middle ages, the secret of their exhaustless tears and their profound genius. Precious tears, they have flowed in limpid legends in marvelous poems, and gathering up towards heaven, they have crystallised themselves in gigantic cathedrals that aspire to ascend to the Lord!...Europe knew herself for Europe in waging war with Africa and Asia: thence Homer and Herodotus; thence our Carlovingian poems, with the holy wars of Spain, the victory of Charles Martel, and the death of Roland. Literature is, at first, the consciousness of a nationality. The nation is made one, in the person of a man. Roland dies in the solemn passes of those mountains that separate Europe from African Spain. Like Philenae deified in Carthage, he hallows the limits of the fatherland by his tomb. Great as the strife, lofty as the heroism it evolved, is the tomb of the hero, his gigantic tumulus, it is the Pyrenees themselves...The fact is, that in those days the people and the Church, which was recruited from the ranks of the people, were the same thing, like mother and child. Both were still without distrust or suspicion...sometimes, too, the Church made herself little, she the Great, the Learned, the Eternal, and lisped and stammered with her child...the feast of the idiots, fatuorum. This imitation of pagan orgies, tolerated by Christianity as man's farewell to the sensuality he abjured, was exhibited at the feasts pertaining to the infancy of Christ...the canons played ball in the church, there the hateful Lent herring was dragged about with insult and derision. Animal nature, as well as human, was admitted to honour. The humble witness of the Savour's birth, the faithful brute whose breath warmed him in his cradle, that carried him and his mother into Egypt, and bore him triumphant into Jerusalem, had his part in the rejoicing. Sobriety, patience, firm resignation, these, and I know not how many other Christian virtues, the middle ages, more just than we, distinguished in the ass. Why should they have blushed for him. The Saviour had not blushed for him...So little did the Church take offence at these popular dramas, that she represented their boldest points on her walls. At Rouen, on the north portal of the cathedral, a pig plays the violin, an ass holds a sort of harp at Chartres on a counterfort of the old belfry, and a bishop a fool's baubel at Essonne. On the church of St. Guenault rats are represented gnawing the globe of the world...The intrepid artist has not recoiled from portraying the incest of Lot or the infamies of Sodom. This was the subject of a bas relief on the outside of the cathedral of Reims which has been effaced. There dwelt in the Church, in those days, a marvelous dramatic genius, bold and hearty, often marked with a touching puerility. No one laughed in Germany when the new parish priest, in the middle of his installation mass, led out his mother by the hand and danced with her...The love of mother and son, of Mary and Jesus, was for the Church a rich source of pathos...Men of gross imagination, who think that these stones are stones, and know not of the sap and the life that circulates through them!...Not in vain did Christ say: "Let these stones become bread!" The stone did become bread, the bread became God, and matter spirit, from the day when they were honoured, justified, transfigured, transubstantiated by the sacrifice...The nave with its two arms outstretched, is the Man on the cross; the crypt, the subterraneous Church, is the Man in the tomb; the pointed spire is still He, but erect and ascending to heaven...How did mankind attain to this marvelous symbolism? How did art journey through its long route to reach so high a point?...The middle ages, and the France of the middle ages, have expressed their inmost thought in architecture. The cathedrals of Paris, St. Denis, and Reims, these three words tell more of the matter than long narratives. What ought I to do? Describe them and compare them with analogous edifices of other countries? This description, and even this comparison, would convey but an outward, superficial, and confused knowledge of the subject...That inert matter may become spirit, action, art, that it may be humanised and incarnated, it must be quelled and must suffer; It must suffer to be divided, torn, beaten, carved, and turned; it must endure the hammer, the chisel, the wedge, must shriek, hiss, and groan. This is its Passion. Read in the English ballad John Barleycorn, the martyrdom it suffered from the flail, the kiln, and the vat. So, likewise, the grape in the press. On a painted window in St. Etienne du Mont, Christ is represented under the wine-press. From his body flows a wine which is collected in vats. Man, grape, and barley, all acquire under torture their most exalted form; but lately rude and material, they become spirit. The stone, too, assumes life, and is spiritualized under the steel, under the ardent and severe hand of the artist. The artist makes life gush forth from it. He was very appropriately named in the middle ages: "The Master of the Living Stones," Magister de vivis lapidibus...It is a matter of tradition that the most illustrious bishops of the middle ages were architects and built. It was Lanfranc who constructed the magnificent church of St. Etienne in Caen...A hundred thousand men worked together on that of Strasburg, and such was their zeal, that night could not interrupt their labours, but they continued them by torchlight. Often, too, the Church lavished ages upon her performance, slowly accomplishing a perfect work. Renaud de Montauban carried stones to the cathedral of Cologne, and they are at work upon it at this day...Our Norman cathedrals are singularly numerous, beautiful, and varied; their English daughters are prodigiously rich, delicately and subtly wrought. But the mystic genius is most strongly marked, it seems, in the churches of Germany. There is there a land well prepared, a soil made expressly to bear Christ's flowers. Nowhere have man and nature, the brother and sister, enacted a purer and more childlike love under the Father's eye. The German soul conceived a kindly love, for flowers, trees, and God's beautiful mountains, and built of them in its simplicity miracles of art; as at the birth of the child Jesus they arrange the handsome Christmas tree, all loaded with garlands, ribbons, and candle-branches for the delight of children. Herein it was that the middle ages produced golden souls, at once puerile and profound, that scarcely had a notion of time, buried as they were in the bosom of eternity, and letting the world sweep on before them without discerning any thing in its stormy waves except the blue of heaven...They had their lodges in Cologne and Strasburg. Their emblem, as ancient as Germany, was Thor's hammer. With the pagan hammer, sanctified in their Christian hands, they continued throughout the world the great work of the New Temple, the renovation of Solomon's Temple...Alexander III. laid the first stone of Notre Dame de Paris, in 1163...If I looked on the church, it would be as a book of history, as the great register of the destinies of the monarchy. We know that its portal, formerly covered with the images of all the kings of France, is the work of Philip Augustus; the south-eastern portal owes its origin to St. Louis, the northern to Philip the Fair; the latter was constructed out of the spoils of the templars, no doubt to avert the malediction of Jacques Molay. This melancholy portal has in its red door the monument of Jean sans Peur, the murderer of the Duc d'Orleans...Notre Dame de Paris is the church of the monarchy; Notre Dame de Reims, that of the royal consecration. The latter is finished, contrary to the usual condition of cathedrals. Rich, transparent, spruce and fine in its colossal coquetry, it seems decked out for a fête; it is but so much the sadder to look on, the fête returns no more. Loaded all over with sculptures, covered more than any other church with emblems of the priesthood, it symbolises the alliance between the king and the priest. On the outer stairs of the transept, devils disport themselves, gambol down the rapid slopes, and make faces at the town, whilst the people is pilloried at the foot of the Clocher à l'Ange...At the epoch at which we are arrived, Gothic architecture had reached its plenitude, it was in the severe beauty of virginity, that brief adorable moment in which nothing can abide here below. That moment of pure beauty was succeeded by another which is also well known to us. You know that second youth when the weight of life has already been felt, when the knowledge of good and evil reveals itself in a sad smile, when a piercing glance escapes from beneath the long eyelashes, then is the time all the fêtes that can be had will hardly suffice to beguile the troubled heart; then is the time for gorgeous garments and ornaments. Such was the Gothic church in the second ages; it displayed a delicious coquetry in its dress: rich windows capped with imposing triangles, charming tabernacles attached to gates and towers, like catkins of diamonds, a fine and transparent lace-work of stone, spun by the fairies' spindle. Thus it went on increasing in bravery and gorgeousness in proportion as the evil within was augmenting. You strive in vain, suffering beauty; the bracelet hangs loosely round your emaciated arm; you know too much, thought devours you, you are languishing under a powerless love. Art sank deeper and deeper every day into this state of emaciation. It grew envenomed against the stone it wrought, wreaked on it its anger at feeling its own life-springs drying up, and hollowed and ransacked, and attenuated and subtilised it. Architecture became the sister of scholastic philosophy, like which it divided and subdivided. Its scheme was Aristotelic, its method that of St. Thomas. It was like a series of stone syllogisms that did not reach that conclusion. People think there is coldness in all these refinements of Gothic art, in the subtleties of the schools, and in the scholastic lore of the troubadours and of Petrarch. This comes of not knowing what passion is, how ingenious, obstinate, intent, subtle, and keen in its pursuits. Thirsting for the infinite of which it has briefly beheld a fugitive gleam, it gives the senses an extraordinary vivacity, it becomes a magnifying glass that exaggerates and distinguishes the least details. It pursues the infinite in the imperceptible globule of air in which floats one ray of heaven, it seeks it in the thickness of a single glossy hair, in the last fibre of a beating heart. Dissect, dissect, keen scalpel! thou mayest pierce and cut, thou mayest split the hair and the atom, thou wilt not find thy God there...Architecture rests on two ideas: one natural that of order; one supernatural, that of infinity. In Greek art the former prevails...Gothic art is supernatural, superhuman...In all Gothic art, sculpture, and architecture, there was, we must confess, something complex, old, and importunate. The enormous mass of the church is propped by innumerable counterforts...It is wearisome to see it surrounded by countless struts and stays that give it the appearance of an old house that threatens to topple down...Yes, the house was toppling, it could not be finished. This art, assailable in its form, failed also in its social principle. The form of society whence it sprang was too unequal and too unjust. The system of castes, however attenuated by Christianity, still subsisted. The Church, sprung from the people, was soon afraid of the people, shunned it, and made alliance with its old enemy feudalism, and then with royalty when this was victorious over feudalism. It took part in the melancholy victories of royalty over the communes, to the birth of which itself had lent its aid. The cathedral at Rheims displays at the foot of one of its belfries the image of the bourgeois of the fifteenth century punished for having resisted the imposition of a tax. This image of the pilloried people is a brand upon the Church herself. The voice of the sufferers rose with the chants. Did God glady accept such homage? I know not; but it seems to me that churches built by corvées [forced labours] raised out of the tithes of a famishing people, all blazoned with the pride of bishops and lords, and filled with their insolent tombs must have become day by day less pleasing to Heaven. Beneath these stones there were too many tears...Mankind was to recognize Christ in itself; to perceive in itself the perpetuity of the Incarnation and the Passion. It remarked it in Job and Joseph, it traced it again in the martyrs. This mystic intuition of an eternal Christ, ceaselessly renewed in humankind, presents itself everywhere in the middle ages...appears in Louis le Débonnaire, spat on by the bishops; in the good king Robert, excommunicated by the pope; in Godefroy of Bouillon, a warrior and a Ghibelline, but dying chaste in Jerusalem as a plain baron of the Holy Sepulchre. The ideal takes still loftier proportions in St. Thomas of Canterbury, forsaken by the Church and dying for Her...realised in the fifteenth century...by...La Pucelle [Joan of Arc]...This transfiguration of the human race, which recognized in itself the image of its God, which generalised what had been individual, which fixed in an eternal present what had been regarded as temporary and past, and placed a heaven on earth, was the redemption of the modern world; but it appeared the death of Christianity and of Christian art. Satan set up a shout of scornful laughter at the unfinished church, a laughter embodied in the grotesques of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He thought he had won the fight; fool that he is, he has never been able to perceive that his apparent triumph is always but a means. He saw not that God is not less God for having made himself humanity, that the temple is not destroyed for having become co-extensive with the world. He saw not, that, however motionless divine art is not dead, but that it is only recovering breath; that, before re-ascending to God, humanity has been obliged once more to descend into itself, to undertake the task of self-examination and complete itself in the foundation of a juster, more equal, more divine system of society. Meanwhile, the old world must pass away, the last trace of the middle ages must become fully effaced, we must behold the death of all we loved, of what suckled our infancy, of what was our father and mother, of what sang to us so sweetly in our cradle. In vain the old Gothic church lifts ever more to heaven its suppliant towers; in vain its storied windows weep, its saints do penance in their stone niches. "Though the waters of the deep overflow they will not reach the Lord." This condemned world will pass away with the Roman, the Greek, and the Oriental worlds. It will lay its bones by theirs. God will grant it at the most, as to Hezekiah, one round of the dial. Alas! then, is it all over? Will there be no mercy? Must the tower halt in its soaring toward the sky? Must the spire fall back, the dome toppled down to the sanctuary? Must this stone heaven sink down and press on those who adore it? Is all at end when the form is at an end? Is there nothing for religions after death? When the cherished remains snatched from our trembling hands descend into the grave, is there nothing left? Oh, I put my trust in Christianity and Christian art, in that phrase which the Church addresses to her dead: "He who believes in me shall never die." Lord, Christianity has believed, loved, comprehended; God and man have met in it. It may change its garb, but perish -never. It will become transformed to live again. It will appear one morning before the eyes of those who think they are gazing on its tomb, and will rise again the third day.'

The End
