A History Lesson

Somewhere around/just short of midway in my adulthood I had had enough of this veil of tears, and started checking out monasteries to retreat to for a remaining life of contemplation and release from the insane world around me.  First i tried on a Vedanta monastery, deep in the barren hills of Orange County in southern California; but that didn’t feel like the right fit.  So I 'gave it’ a go for a while longer; until my ’unfitness’ into the world around me got oppressive/just too much again.  And I had to look at the reality of the matter.  Which was that the Roman Catholic Church was the premier outfit for just such a life.  I had long given The Church1 credit for keeping alive the idea of a life dedicated solely to Spirit, through all the so-called Dark Ages and down to our day’s darkness.  And though I had by then serious questions regarding the truth of the Christian take on things itself, my need for some pure dedication to Spirit prompted me to check out The Church’s monastic orders.  First I ‘tried on’ a - somewhat modernized, by then (the spirit of Vatican II at work) - Trappist monastery in northern California, via a weekend Retreat; and then, a few weeks later, another weekend Retreat in a Cistercian monastery in the hills of Big Sur country, on the coast south of San Francisco.  But neither spoke to me sufficiently to attempt to fit myself into their format, and thus submit myself, to whatever extent, to the authority of the Catholic Church in the process.              

I’m glad I didn’t force the matter.  For a number of reasons.  But - well, for quick example:

First (for the sake of this short blog on this subject) there was the book ’In God’s Name: An investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I’ by David Yallop (1984).  And then (again, for this take on the matter) there was the work of fiction, but barely disguised fact, ‘Windswept House: A Vatican Novel’ by an ex-Jesuit priest named Malachi Martin (1996).  A ‘novel’ about Satanism practiced in the Vatican, including pedophilia.

So.  Something dark had entered the Roman Catholic Church.  Either somewhere along the way.

Or from the beginning.

Enter Josephus Flavius into this saga. 

Josephus ben Matthias was a Jewish general-cum-governor (of Galilee) involved in the Jewish revolt of 66 CE against the yoke of Rome, which led to the siege and sacking of Jerusalem and the utter and lasting destruction of the temple there by Titus in 70 CE.  Facing death, he had an inspiration: to ask for a personal audience with Vespasian, the father of Titus, and a man about whom there were rumors, of the nature of prophecy, that he would become emperor in his time.  Whatever all that Josephus talked to Vespasian about in that audience, and promised, it worked: for Josephus, who also (not so incidentally) happened to be in the priestly lineage of the Jewish religion (and of royal blood as well, being related to the Hasmoneans), ended up being adopted into the Vespasian imperial household, called the Flavians (and thus his assumed name, Josephus Flavius).  And not only himself, but quite a number of his fellow priestly-line Jews; who all saw the writing on the wall, and realized that occasional revolts against the might of Rome were not going to do the trick.  The trick, of overcoming their enemy.

Obviously, not by frontal force.

But by maneuvering within.

And thus was born the Christian Church.  With Josephus (and undoubtedly with the help of others of the 'sophisticated' Flavian household) coming up with a fable about a pacifistic Messiah figure who had been rejected by the Jews, and, because of their stiffneckedness in thinking to be able to stand up to the power of the Roman Empire, they were subjected to the fiery (literally) lash of a figure made out to be, according to Jewish religious literature, the Son of Man, in the form of said Titus; who fulfilled prophecy on that hand, and concocted ‘prophecy’ on the other hand by the thus cleverly-crafted pacifistic forerunner to the might of the chastising Son of Man; the point being to teach the Jews to ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,’ and thus to stop with their incessant rebelling against that yoke already.  

And with the new religion as cover, the priestly line of Judaism lived to fight another day; in the form of the first bishops of the new (cover) religion, and then members of the (large land-holding) senatorial class, and emperors themselves as well, and, in addition, the founders of the royal family lines of Europe.  With their control over The Church cemented by a) their changing Jewish law regarding priestly hierarchy by instituting the ‘spiritual’ practice of celibacy for their bishops; and by b) maneuvering to make the Roman bishop the authority figure of all the bishops of the various Christian churches sprouting up around the Empire.2  

And just so did Jews control the Christian religion - and the secular realm - for many years, secretly.  And guarded their ‘possession’ jealously.  Which was why the Roman Catholic Church (the 'good news' preached to all peoples) hierarchy defended their position so fiercely against the ‘apostasy’ of the Reformation, and the rise of Protestantism.  Because this was not really about religion.  (In the meantime, Judaism continued on its own, albeit subordinate/highly diminished, way.)3  It was - and is - about power.

Power Over.

Power Over Others.

POO for short.

And it is time to set the record straight. 

And almost past time.

But

all in good time.   

In a universe with Purpose.  And Plan.

The ultimate point of which is for us facets, fractals, aspects, points of view, projections of The All That Is to come to the realization that:    

As you do unto others, so do you do unto yourself - literally.  For, We Are All One.  And All IS

One.

And you do a terrible injustice to the One when you deny - turn your back on -

your true Self.  

Quite a lesson.

Fit for those of royal blood.

So to speak.               

—

footnotes:

1 In my life there was also another capitalized Church, in the form of the ‘Mormon’ (LDS)  Church; which I was born into.  And had an on-again, off-again relationship with over the years, as my reading led me first out of it, then back into it, then back out of it, finally for ‘good’.

   All, another story.

2 Members of the Flavian household being among the firs members of the new religion (deifying the Son Titus, and the Father Vespasian as a temporal god), and Flavians being among the first bishops of the new religion.  (As attested to by such archaeological evidence as tombstones.)

   Incidentally, as to the Church and this new religion on the block: A clever maneuver was engaged in by Josephus - among his other such accomplishments - when he wrote himself into his own creation, in the form of his alter ego, Saul become Paul.  ‘Paul’s’ life amazingly paralleling Josephus’s, including a shipwreck, and specific time spent in Rome, etc. etc.

   There is no actual evidence that any Christian church was established before the advent of Josephus’s creation of ‘books’ in what has come to be known as the New Testament.  Which is a testament, rather, to the ingenuity of designing men.

   For all of this relationship between Josephus Flavius and Paul, see the various works of Ralph Ellis       

regarding this time period, and Joseph Atwill’s ‘Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus’ in particular.

3 Unfortunately with the inclusion of elements of/from the Babylonian Exile.  Which was when such attitudes as pedophilia crept into that religion.

   A shame.  Which needs to be corrected; along with all these other aspects of history that need to be cleaned up/corrected.

   So that our past History does not becloud our future reality.