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[Hymn 42, cont'd.]
1. The Evil One wailed Where now, is there a place for me to flee to from the righteous? I stirred up Death to slay the Apostles, that I might be safe from their blows. By their deaths now more exceedingly am I cruelly beaten. The Apostle whom I slew in India is before me in Edessa: he is here wholly and also there. I went there, there was he: here and there I have found him and been grieved. R., Blessed is the might that dwells in the hallowed bones!
2. The bones that merchantmen carried, or was it then that they carried him? For lo! They made gain each of the other. But for me what did they profit me? Yea they profited each by each, while to me from both of them there was damage. O that one would show me that bag of Iscariot, for by it I acquired strength! The bag of Thomas has slain me, for the secret strength that dwells in it tortures me.
3. Moses the chosen carried the bones, in faith as for gain. And if he a great prophet believed, that there is benefit in bones, the merchant did well to believe, and did well to call himself merchant. That merchant made gain, and waxed great and reigned. His storehouse has made me very poor: his storehouse has been opened in Edessa, and has enriched the great city with benefit.
4. At this storehouse of treasure I was amazed, for small was its treasure at first; and though no man took from it, poor was the spring of its wealth. But when multitudes have come round it, and plundered it and carried off its riches, according as it is plundered, so much the more does its wealth increase. For a pent-up spring, if one seeks it out, when deeply pierced it flows forth mightily and abounds.
~Ephraim the Syrian (c.306–373), The Nisibene Hymns
"On Reason, Morality and the would-be gods" (rough draft) continued from earlier.
Although in speaking about high power criminal spirit people I have not been at a loss, and usually quite rightly, to characterize them as merely ridiculous and contemptible, it is nevertheless important to emphasize that in addition to taking on the guise of high authority and perhaps, in the case of some of them, perform miracle like wonders, the more high power and professional among them are in some ways as well cunningly subtle, extremely knowledgeable and sophisticated, and can be the most frightening and unbearable terrors, that is when and if they have a mind to it. Mind control, at which they are expert, and fear are, after all, their most powerful tools and weapons, and if they possess such extensive and enduring sway over multitudes and spans of generations, these strengths, in conjunction with feigning deity, act as their ultimate and winning cards where all other efforts at persuasion of might fail.
With respect to mind control, including psychological warfare, they are consummate and veteran experts. As part of which, it is customary among professional criminal spirit people to persistently insinuate themselves into whatever you are doing or whatever you are interested in, whether at home or at work, and in the process would create and have you believe the illusion that they are a necessary and ineluctable part of your life activities and concerns. One common form of this is slyly working their ways into families or businesses, seeking willing recruits and adherents, and perhaps at the same time foment enmity and strife between children and parents, employees and employer, quite methodically and deliberately. Of course, a similar thing is or might be done in the political realm. Where power worthy of their interest is or may be up for grabs, as likely as not they will be there putting in their bid for control of it.
With respect to fear, those who have experience their ruthless scare tactics first hand, will readily understand why it is that so many see no alternative but cowering and surrender in the face or threat of such. Just imagine, for one example, what medical terrorism (which they are not above resorting to) is or might be like in its various forms or manifestations. This capacity for methodical and horrific sadism is presumably one of the reasons why the act of Christ taking up and enduring the cross is intended to impart the message that it is far better to have faith and suffer even the very worst and unbelievable cruelties than to yield and give in to what might be the tyranny and brutality of criminals, no matter how bad or violent the treatment; a view also found in philosophy (Stoicism, for example) and other religions.
Some not so bright people will, and yet perhaps understandably, reason that if these high power criminal spirit people are the most dreadful when it comes to dealing out violence, and punishment, then it only makes sense to yield and acquiesce to them; that is, in order that the former, by giving in, will be treated more leniently. One problem with this argument is that one cannot always trust or rely on the word of these kinds of spirit people. Further, if some of the latter are, on a given occasion, excited or aroused in the heat of the moment, they will as likely rape, molest or otherwise violate a submissive follower as they would a physically vulnerable opponent. For some of these high power criminal spirit people are so preoccupied with degradation, humiliation and sundry forms of perversion and sadism that the fact of the matter is they cannot always help themselves. So while a submissive follower might, for instance, be formally guaranteed protection from theft, murder or formal torture, they still very well might be abused in a manner that is deemed as playing, or else is seen as only being "friendly." And there are other points worth making to refute this kind of false belief, i.e., that there is safety in surrender, but and and which we will touch on later.
If one were ask such "goomer" people how do they protect themselves against the threat of unknown and implacable terror, and if you could get them to admit the truth, many would tell you that they seek shelter in the safety of the herd, and this way of thinking not surprisingly is encouraged by professional criminal spirit people, being an easier and more cost effective way to corral masses of persons than protracted violence and terror. This kind of timidity and accommodating bamboozlement, when pervasive society wide, is made into a virtue; by which those who do not adopt said attitude are interpreted as being selfish and anti-social.
Although we can have spoken of professional criminal spirit people as being the very worst kinds of people, not everyone by any means see them this way at all. And to these others they are friendly people, gods, or other worldly persons possessed of seemingly elevated wisdom. Moreover, if it is suggested that God, that is, as founded in right, rational and just morals, is against such sociable sorts as these than God evidently doesn't really love or care, and God therefore must be a bad God, and those who believe in Him elitists or snobs. Even some who and otherwise essentially grasp and understand what I am warning about can or might still be caught unawares and fooled. Be that as it may, one can safely assume that in this life evil will never cease impersonating good; hence, one reason for the admonition in the gospels to be ever unweary and constant in one's vigilance.
Such who give in then become submissive and obedient vassals. And yet others might go on further to be enlisted as career or semi-career criminals, and this kind of move might be based in part on the (mention here earlier) that, again, acting badly is or can be seen as a form of being sociable, and or a necessary aspect or trait of worldly success.
From time immemorial secret or privileged knowledge has ever been promoted as something of highest value among persons given to believing criminal spirit people. And they see such knowledge, no matter how flagrantly irrational in character as implying deeper wisdom and understanding. They "know" or "know" things in a way you (who are not such a possessor) don't. One phrase, for instance I encountered is, the given person "knows about [these things] in a certain way."
But this idea that secret knowledge or occult gnostic learning, and when it isn't entirely an outright lie, falsehood or absurdity, while it does or might contain some grain or measure of truth, necessarily translates into wisdom or deeper understanding is by no means true. A "modern," for example, might know about rockets and men traveling in space, while a primitive tribesman in some far off bushland is ignorant of such things. And yet despite the great disparity, the "modern" could still very well qualify as a rather dumb, childish and stupid person; that is despite possessing that knowledge. And not only is this the case with "goomer" people, but same as well be true of some spirit people themselves, even the professional sorts; namely because THEY possess the (given) secret knowledge, it supposedly follows that they are wise or understand more deeply. All of which is to say that high power or professional criminal spirit people, for all their often real knowledge and expertise, can be as delusional and puffed with false pride, and end up believing nonsense as well as anyone.
Again, it is all too common for many to think that what others believe, particularly when those others are a seeming majority, is the truth, and for some indeed the only truth there is; when and of course (as I am sure more intelligent and reflective persons will agree), it is not at all necessarily a matter of what people or even most people think that properly decides the validity or in validity of an assertion or belief, but and rather what an honest, objective, informed, and rationally consistent judgment is in a position to make of the matter.
In sum, herd-like appeasement of high power criminal spirit people, in its many, diverse, and myriad forms, is engaged in in the seeming interest of security, wealth and safety. And yet be it noted, just as herds and their members can be calmed by the mutual cooperation of the larger group, they can also be easily driven into panics in consequence of the same association. Such then is one of the several risks or serious disadvantages of being unduly credulous and semi-rational.
[To be resumed next week.]
"Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini."
This is one of a set of 24 panels depicting the passion of Christ done by Venetian artist Valerio Belli (1468–1546). Among the things that makes these works so remarkable is that they are etched and carved out of (what were originally) single blocks of rock crystal. The front is polished smoothly; while the flat backside is where the engraving is done. In size, that backside engraving is about half the scale of how it appears, but is magnified when seen through the front. (Pretty neat, eh?)
[Hymn 41 cont'd.]
10. The servants of the Evil One disputed with him, and they refuted his words with their rejoinder. But lo! Elisha brought the dead to life, and conquered death in the upper chamber, and brought to life the widow's son. Lo! now is he in bondage in Sheol. But because the reasoning of the Evil One was very powerful, with their own words he refuted their words. How has Elisha been overcome? Lo! In Sheol he brought the dead to life by his bones.
11. If Elisha, who was of small power, was great in might in the midst of Sheol, and if so be he brought one dead to life therein, how many dead then will be raised therein, by the death of Jesus the mighty! Hence even from this consider how much greater therefore is Jesus, than we my comrades. For lo! By His craftiness He deceived you, and you sufficed not to determine His greatness when you compared Him to the prophets.
12. Your consolations are of small power, said the Evil One to them of his company. For He Who brought Lazarus to life though dead, how can Death suffice against Him? And if Death conquers Him, it is that He wills to be subdued unto him; and if so be He wills to be subdued, fear greatly, for He dies not in vain. He has wrought in us great terror, lest when dying He may enter in to raise Adam to life.
13. Death looked forth from within his den, and marvelled when he saw our Lord crucified, and he said O raiser of the dead to life where are you! You shall be to me for meat, instead of the sweet Lazarus, whose savour lo! It is still in my mouth. Jairus' daughter shall come and see this Your cross. The widow's son gazes on You. A tree caught Adam for me: blessed be the Cross which has caught for me the Son of David!
14. Death opened his mouth and said, Have You not heard, O Son of Mary, how Moses was great and excellent above all? Became a God and wrought the works of God? slew the first-born and saved the first-born? Turned aside the pestilence from the living? To the mount I went up with Moses, and He Whose glory be blessed gave him to me from hand to hand. For however great the son of Adam becomes, dust he is and to his dust returns, because he is of the ground.
15. Satan came with his servants, that he might see our Lord cast into Sheol, and might rejoice with Death his Counsellor; and he saw Him sorrowful and mourning, because of the dead who at the voice of the Firstborn, lived and came forth thence even from Sheol. The Evil One arose to console Death his kinsman. You have not destroyed as much as you were able. Even as Jesus is in your midst, to your hand shall come they that have lived and that live.
16. Open for us to see Him, yea and mock Him: let us answer and say, 'Where is Your power? For lo! Three days have passed for Him, and let us say to Him, O You of three days, Who raised Lazarus, when he had lain four days, raise Your own self.' Death opened the gates of Sheol, and there shone from it the splendour of the face of our Lord; and like the men of Sodom they were smitten; they groped and sought the gate of Sheol, which they had lost.
~Ephraim the Syrian (c.306–373), The Nisibene Hymns
