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CHURCH LETTER
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
`I said what is past shall be no more . . . but lo, they have started to stir again'
This Letter was originally sent out in August 2014 as a Northern Style e-mail under the title `Reflections', and it is fitting that this title came from the pen of one of Russia's most famous poets and playwrights, Alexander Pushkin, born just as the Age was entering the 19th century, a time of great change in Western culture. Pushkin penned such well-known classical works as `Boris Godunov' and `Eugene Onegin', but after a short and tempestuous life he was killed at the age of 37 in a duel concerning the honour of his wife. Pushkin was politically very active during his short life, and inevitably at such a restive time in Europe Pushkin was a Freemason, and most certainly he would have been aware of the tensions over the continuous European wars and of the matters leading up to the Treaty of the Holy Alliance in 1815. This Treaty was a short-lived ideal which lasted no more than ten years and was brought down by the cynicism of two of the signatories of the Treaty. It is therefore possible that the political circumstances of that short-lived ideal caused Pushkin to write the words seen in the title for this Letter.
Change on a world scale takes decades to be seen in the affairs of nations, and this was certainly so in the turbulant 19th and 20th centuries. The wars of the 19th century were in the main concerning the freeing of small nations from the tyranny of the more powerful nations surrounding them - and resistance to those changes by those more powerful nations. The outcome of those conflicts gave rise to what we call the individual State Nations, and the many State Nations who were satisfied with their freedom and did not seek to impose their power on neighbouring States. The Treaty of the Holy Alliance ratified those ambitions and desires, but with it came the irony that the Treaty, which was signed to prevent local European wars, turned the warlike ambitions of those State Nations to seek `fame and fortune' beyond Europe. And so the concept of total war came into being - total in the understanding that the whole of a State's wealth together with its population was mobilised to war - the `War Effort' at home, with the manufacturing industries producing guns, bullets, bombs and uniforms, and increased food production to `feed our boys out there'. The small mobile army of the past became a total national effort involving the entire population and State, with the end result that for the first time the entire population of another State became the enemy!
The Treaty of the Holy Alliance, although short-lived, did give Europe a short time of peace, for European wars were at an end through a ratified Treaty. But as we have said, the very nature of Imperial Statehood had to reveal itself as State armies reached out beyond their boders in `peaceful Europe' to Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Far East, and so came the international, colonial and imperial wars of the 20th century, which satisfied a State's craving for power as each one reached out to carve a small empire for itself. From this outward thrust of power came the British Empire upon which `the sun never set', which lasted longer than many of its European neighbours but collectively this prepared the way for the geopolitical scene of today. Such matters form the great irony of mankind - as men become free from the tyranny of the daily toil for survival, and therefore free to build a better world, they also become free to wage universal war and so enslave others. At this stage of world history man was now in total control of his world through military, medical and technological advances. Added to this, if the State was powerful enough its own sense of superiority led it to believe in its moral authority over the `benighted heathen'! Western man was now `god', no longer in thrall to a spiritual dimension. Man was now in control of all things, and all this came through man's intellect and ability to harness the wealth of the world through universal conquest.
As we have noted, the Treaty of the Holy Alliance, although short-lived, caused this massive shift in Western thinking, and as Pushkin noted, `But lo, they have started to stir again'. The Great Powers within the Treaty block, stirred by a sense of national importance, began once again to impose their values and culture upon the weaker States they had conquered, for in the hearts of all men there is the drive to impose their will upon others. As we have seen, this impulse has led to the nationalism of modern times, with a superior or Super Power State claiming the right to impose its concept of Statehood upon others. Prior to the Western Industrial Revolution war was to a large extent limited to posturing by the elite of the nations, for the people's main concern was how to stay alive in order to produce food, fuel and shelter for themselves. Kings and Princes could not afford to lose armies in actual fighting, for to lose an army was to lose power and their own kingship. Kings went to war after the sowing of the seed and returned home with their armies hopefully intact to reap the harvest. An old nursery rhyme comes to mind concerning this: `The Grand old Duke of York' who in the rhyme marched his men up the hill and down the hill but never actively engaged the enemy! War was a time of the National Champion, and through him nationl posturing. By the 19th-20th century, through agricucltural and industrial innovation, all this had changed, for less labour was required for domestic purposes and was therefore available for war. Also by the 20th century war had become mechanised and a rail-road network was being built, with whole armies and their weaponry able to move easily across the landmass, thus opening up the means to wage war more easily, which eventually led to Continental wars and on to universal wars.
Man could save himself without the need of a spiritual God! `Traditional Religion' was only needed to bless the State's achievements through the winning of a `Just War' - which is another name for self-perceived moral superiority over lesser moral people. Thus the `Revolutions' of the Westernised Powers - the Enlightenment, the Liberal Social Democratic Revolution, and the unimaginable technology of the Military Revolution - all converged and confirmed that Western civilisation was anointed by a God they no longer believed in! Such geopolitical movements led to the permanent decline of Europe as the world's battle field, which it had been for the previous 500 years, and finally saw the rise of two Super Powers and their unchallenged domination over the whole world. In a wider sense Europe gave the world its political, technological and moral achievements and the world used them to bring to an end Europe's universal power by passing that power to the two Super Powers. This is fallen man's inheritance: The greater the achievements the more those achievements are used for the furtherance of State power by war. The world has indeed `unlocked the Beast' for End Time world domination, for man in his own estimation has become god. As we have previously said, the two Super Powers, that is, the USA and the former USSR, were the two legs of Nebuchadnezzar's dream - which was interpreted by Daniel as the four Great Empires that would rise and fall in the course of world history. With the fall of the USSR one leg was broken, leaving one Super Power, the USA, still standing - albeit standing unsteadily as it seeks to `stand' over the whole world with one leg. Politically, and with its unlimited military power, at present it stands all-powerful with its own perspective of its moral authority in its efforts to `nation build' others in its own image through war and conflict. But now we will leave this brief overview of modern times and step back some two thousand years and more, for we need to look at a much larger canvas than is usual in our fast-moving life. Only then shall we see that which Alexander Pushkin spoke of in the poem we use in our title, `. . . they have started to stir again'.
In his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream Daniel saw four great Empires which would affect his people - and here we need to note that Scripture is not a detailed recording of history but a detailed recording of the events God uses to outwork His Righteous acts towards His people Israel. These four great Empires were the `events' that have concerned our recent Letters - in particular the `event' known as the Fourth Beast which so terrified Daniel. This Fourth Beast is generally understood to be the imperial power which emanated from the early Roman Empire and will continue in some imperial form to the end of the Ages that have been allocated to the world. In the words of Helmuth Molke, Chief of Staff to Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm, when considering what is known as World War One:
" There is a desire to carve out a Mittel Europe. There has to be a Western and Eastern Europe in the Continaental land-mass, a central European Empire of Puppet States dependent on Germany. "
The key to this, said Kaiser Wilhelm's Chancellor Theobald von Bethmana-Hollweg, was a European war! Little did those men know that such words as these were already embedded in Scripture in the form of the Fourth Beast which so terrified Daniel!
And so we turn our thoughts to the `beginnings of the East' of this Fourth Beast of Nebuchadnezzar's statue to find information on its two legs. The Roman Empire was now at the height of its imperial power and had become unwieldy (both in governance and its maintenance) as one whole Empire, which finally led the Emperor Diocletian to elevate Maximian to the title of Augustus and co-Emperor. Diocletian also bestowed upon two of his most trusted generals, Galerius and Constantius, the Imperial title of Caesar and the secondary right to wear the Imperial regalia and the purple robes of Imperial authority. However this Tetrarchal did not last and led to dynastic wars of powerful Roman families and to the final victory of Constantine over his rival Maxentius. With Constantine now Emperor over the whole of the Roman Empire there came the need to establish a new Rome capable of reaching out with Imperial power over both the Western and Eastern domains of his Empire - and it is here we see the shadow of the beginnings of the two legs of Nebuchadnezzar's statue. Constantine chose for his second Rome the small town of Byzantium, which like the first Rome was built upon seven hills. It was situated on the edge of the `Golden Horn', reaching out into the Bosphorus and down into the Sea of Marmara, and was considered to be impregnable to hostile forces. Now the second leg of Nebuchadnezzar's statue was in place, with Latin Rome and Byzantine Rome established over the Western and Eastern halves of the Roman Empire.
Clearly space dictates brevity, suffice to say that all settled Communities, States and Empires need to be legitimised by a religious system, and the two Romes were no exception. The site chosen by Constantine for his second Rome was earlier known as Troy, the City State of the Trojans, springing from the Luwians who populated the area of the Hittite Empire. They built the city of Wilusa on the coast of the Hellespont, that is, the Sea of Helle, a small strait connecting the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean Sea. It was here that the City of Illium was built by Emperor Augustus, and it had been a flourishing community for it stood connecting the Black Sea to the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, on to the Aegean Sea and from thence into the Mediterranean Sea. Byzantium had declined in importance over the years but was now chosen by Constantine to be the site of his second Rome. It was on this site which separated Europe from Asia that the Trojans played their part in the forming of the two legs of Nebuchadnezzar's statue, the history of which was brought into Greek culture by Homer through his epic poems of the Illiad and the Odyssey.
Here it is important to remember that such poems and epic stories were about actual people of renown who had once lived in the area of the poems and stories but were now stylised into national heroes. There had also been in the past tremendous movements in the planets, causing havoc on the earth beyond anything we can imagine for such occurences are not in the `memory bank' of modern life. Those heroes of the old cosmic experiences were then elevated into the spiritual world `located' on Mount Olympus, in the heavens where the gods dwelt, and, it was hoped, no longer the problem of earthly people who pacified them through ongoing sacrifices. This brief historical background is important if we are to understand the unseen spiritual powers that govern the affairs of man through natural historical events, as revealed in Scripture. There is no need for Christians to be fearful of `touching' such things in order to seek to understand what they mean - an enquiring mind is quite in order provided your foundation in Christ Jesus and Scripture is secure!
As we have said, all political power needs to be legitimised by religion, and in Troy that religion centered on the cult of Athena, who was said to be the daughter of Zeus. In a fit of jealous rage this Athena killed her childhood friend Pallus who was then deified as Athena-Pallus and worshipped through a wooden statue known today as the Palladium. Athena was known for her wisdom and reason and the promotion of just wars, and so she became what today we would call Troy's patron Saint, a wooden image which symbolised the power and wisdom of Troy. It is said that Odysseus, looking for the downfall of Troy and knowing that its power lay in the cult of Athena-Pallus, stole the wooden image which was then taken to Greece and upon which was founded the City State of Athens. As it was believed that the possessor of the Palladium inherited the wisdom and power of Athena-Pallas, the Palladium was then taken to Latin Rome, with the result that the political power of Athens was reduced, therefore demonstrating to the surrounding countries the new power of Rome. Upon the foundation of Constantinople, the Second Rome, it is said that a Pontifex by the name of Praetestatus brought the Palladium to the new Rome and it was buried at the foot of the statue of Constantine in the Forum. This was a legitimate transfer, for unlike the action of Odysseus who stole the Palladium in order to cause the downfall of Troy, Praetestatus was a Pontifex of the Collegium. The Collegium was the Roman Council of Priests, whose members would have included the Vestals - more popularly known as the Vestal Virgins, the priestesses of Vesta, the Roman goddess of hearth and home. They were a small select group of women, sworn to celibacy and charged with keeping the sacred eternal flame alight. In AD 394 the Emperor Theodosius disbanded the Vestals, and this was said to lead to the downfall of Latin Rome.
All this is set out to show the tremendous spiritual importance of the actions of Odysseus and Pontifex Praetestatus in bringing the Palladium first to Latin Rome and then on to Byzantine Rome, signifying the power of the new Roman centre of Constantinople and therefore undermining the primacy of Latin Rome. The Palladium, which was now considered to be the sacred symbol of Roman rule and previously kept in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum, had now been officially taken to the new Rome by a Pontifex with all the authority of the religious establishment, thereby establishig the new sacral and secular power of the Second Rome. The Forum was more than a place of meeting for it was the centre of all Roman Commercial, Judicial, Political and Religious life, therefore the importance of the Palladium being taken by a high-ranking member of the religious establishment cannot be emphasised enough - for only here was the place of the power of the Roman world, State and Religion fused into one Power Centre.
Such matters may seem archaic in our modern world but in medieval times they led to Latin Roman Popes of that time claiming authority over the Roman world through such forged documents as `the Donation of Constantine' and `the Pseudo Isidorias Decretals' in an attempt to claw back legitimised power from Byzantine Orthodox Rome. It was suggested through those forged documents that `Latin Rome may not have the Palladium, but we have the written Decretals to establish our claim to universal power centered on Latin Rome'. This may seem archaic until we consider the Roman Eagles of the legions, sacred images blessed by the priests and carried into battle with the certainty of victory for they carried the `gods' with them, and once conquest was completed the Eagles were taken back to the Forum to rest in the Temple of the gods (and we need not record the Ark of the Covenant being carried into battle by the Israelites). As we move on through the centuries we see again the `Eagles', this time called Regimental Flags, blessed by the priests and carried into battle towards certain victory, carrying the very gods of modern `Rome' and afterwards resting in the Regimental Chapels of the Cathedrals of the land and in the care of the priests of the State. Consider the annual national religious rituals that speak of the nation's `glorious dead' and their supreme sacrifice - and if we read through the religious establishment's Ancient and Modern hymnal we will find many hymns glorifying the imperial victories of an Empire `upon which the sun never sets'. Today's world is not very far removed from the ancient Trojans with the wooden images of their god endorsing a `just war' - and we shall not delve too deeply into our `Judaic-Christian Heritage' for we should indeed find the shadow of the Palladium lurking there!
However we are now entering into more modern times - into the early medieval period where in the West the Royal dynastic Houses ruled. The ruling power at that time came through the French line of the Merovingians, descending from Clovis the first-known King of the Franks who had overun Western Europe centuries earlier. Such a vast Empire needed to be governed by vassal princes loyal to the king, and so the old Roman Province of Gaul was entrusted to the royal family of Arnulfings, from whom came the Mayors of Austrasia, as the old province was then known. As the Merovingians began to weaken and lose their power Charles Martel, son of Pepin of Herstal, rose to power and usurped the Meroginvians' right to rule by giving his name to the usurping power of the Carolingians. It ended in AD 800 with a usurping Pope Leo the Third, under the title of Pontifex Maximus, crowning the usurping Charlemange `Charles Augustus, crowned by God Emperor of the Romans'. In the Eastern Leg the Emperors had taken on the mantle of Christianity as the legitimising religious authority, its Emperors ruling as Emperor of all Rome. Following the formation of the Holy Roman Empire in the West, the Emperors of the East took on the title of (the Emperor's name) followed by `Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans' with its ancient power centered on the Palladium located in the Forum, the centre of all Roman power. The claim of `Emperor of Christ' was further legitimised by its authority over the universal Christian religious establishment - and the Emperor had been greatly offended by the Bishop of Latin Rome's claim to be Pontifex Maximus, an Imperial title! This would lead to years of strife between the `Two Legs'.
To digress for a moment: For those readers who may be puzzled by the use of such expressions as `the usurping (German) Carolingian's dynastic house, and the (French) Merovingians' a more full account of the formation of Europe, which includes these two Royal Houses can be found on our web-sight in the `Winds of Change' section entitled `Beyond the Storm . . a Ripened Harvest'. We continue: In AD 988 Prince Vladimir the Second, Grand Prince of Kiev and all Russia, was baptised into Orthodox Christianity by Bishop Kersun. This was said to be `the Baptism of Russia', and through these two acts of baptism Kievan Russia took on a pseudo-mystical dimension, a Holy Nation with a spiritual destiny. Following the conquest of Contantinople by the Ottomans in AD 1453 eastern Orthodoxy was pushed up into Kievan Russia, and this fusing of State and Religion confirmed to its ruling Tzar his spiritual inheritance. This became Messianic in nature, looking as it did to the eventual re-conquest of Constantinople so as to achieve its destiny of Emperor and Autocrat of all Rome, with all that ancient title meant with its universal imperialist rule, undergirded by Christian Orthodoxy. Since those times all Russian Tzars have had this interest in Russia's destiny and have looked eastwards in their pursuit of that destiny. The claim to be the `Third Rome' was not just a claim to the greatness seen in ancient Rome but a claim of an Emperor, a Tzar, with the `God-given right' to rule the whole of the Roman Empire. When the Russian Orthodox Church came into being some five hundred years after `the Baptism of Russia' it laid claim to the Kievan inheritance - and modern Russia has resisted all rival claims to that inheritance.
This semi-mystical claim to be a `Righteous Nation' can be seen in the many antichrists who have come and then gone into the dustbin of history. Hitler, when declaring Germany to be the Third Reich, spoke of the coming Barbarossa, who awakening from his sleep in the mountains would come to claim his inheritance. This Barbarossa was an Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and such claims as his (and other claimants, such as Napoleon, who had similar thoughts) reveals the strong spiritual hold that controls the affairs of ambitious men with Messianic dreams. Those who undestand the prophetic nature of Scripture will wait and watch as they see history unfolding in the Statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream with its two legs, which we see in the forms of Latin and Byzantine Rome as they still confront one another - the one with its forged Decretals claiming Universal Authority, the other claiming the same Universal Authority through the presence of the Palladium which still lies in the ruins of the Forum in Constantinople.
This, then, is the battle ground for the coming conflict: The usurping power of the Carolingians, now seen in the European nations of the West under the domination of Germany, with authority undergirded by Latin Catholicism, moving against the self-perceived destiny of Kievan Russia . . . `the land of Magog, the chief prince (that is, the leader of Rosh) of Meshech and Tubal'. . . undergirded by the Byzantine Orthodox religious establishment. If we understand and accept the logical sequence of the events recorded in the Book of Ezekiel, the so-called `38-39 Ezekiel wars', they speak of an Eastern Federation of nations coming `against the mountains of Israel', preceeding the establishment of the Kingdom of God in Jerusalem in the Land of Israel. These wars will result in `the Abomination of Desolation' (spoken of in Daniel 7:26-27) being set up in the Temple in Jerusalem - which points to a Western Federation of nations also bent on conquest. The Treaty of the Holy Alliance of 1815, which was but a transition, a short-lived thing, had the purpose of bringing together the Western Kingly States into a union with the declared intent to respect each other's territories. This would finally become the revival of the Holy Roman Empire of a Federation of Western States, and it is this Federation we see in the events mentioned above in the Book of Daniel.
Confronting the Western Federation is `the chief prince of Meshach and Tubal' together with the Eastern Federation of States (as mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel) in the re-conquest of its `Seat of Power', with its buried Palladium spiritually drawing them on to their destiny. Like all good generals when preparing their battle plans, there is the need to secure its flanks before the final onslaught to achieve its main objective - which for the Eastern prince of Meshech is Constantinople. The Land of Israel, and the islands close to it, is central to the control of the Mediterranean Sea and must be taken before his move to claim his inheritance. The securing of Israel and its surrounding areas will ensure that the Dardanelles and the Straits leading into the Black Sea are closed to any interference from the Western powers by denying the area of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to their forces, leaving the Eastern Federation's forces able to re-take and retain Constantinople. We see this in the words of Ezekiel (38:4): `I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole armies'. And again Ezekiel says (39:2): `I will turn you around and drag you along . . . I will bring you from the north and send you against the mountains of Israel'.
It is worth noting that Togarmah - that is, old Armenia and part of modern-day Turkey -is mentioned in the names of the Eastern Federation forces, which geographically is located just north of Israel, its southern borders touching the Mediterranean Sea. The destruction of the armies of the Federation of Kievan Russia on the `mountians of Israel' - which will have brought the Western Federation States into the area in order to resist the closing of the Mediterranean Sea to its commercial interests - will now bring it into the final conflict of `the Day of Jacob's Trouble'. And so Judgement will fall on the three great usurping Powers - the Carolingian Federation, under the control of Germany; the Latin Roman Church, under the control of a Pontifex Maximus, who as the Vicar of Christ, the Vicarious Presence of the Christ, knows that Christ Jesus is prophesied as coming again to Jerusalem; and last there is the spiritual power that drives all people, `the anointed cherub' Ezekiel speaks of as seeking to recover his position which he lost when he was `driven out in disgrace from the mount of God, and so I expelled you, O covering cherub'.
And so we come to the end of this Letter which were not originally intended to be an extended history lesson. But in these uncertain times with `wars and rumours of wars' abounding, and with the world's media in a feeding frenzy moving from one outbreak of trouble to another - and, sadly, with many Christian Ministries falling into the same feeding frenzy - this Letter has looked on the wider canvas of history `sieving historical events through the Scriptures which are spread over a very long period of time in order to see that the Hand of God is very much upon what is unfolding and which is within His perfect Plan of Redemption. We commend to you the words of the Apostle Paul when writing to the Thessalonians all those years ago:
"But of the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you know perfectly well that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that Day should overtake you as a thief . . . . Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober. "
Selah
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