Thoughts on Christianity

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Flabbergasted
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

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How canonical is the Book of Esther?

Our member ICfreely wrote dozens of posts mentioning the Book of Esther and the celebration of Purim. I agree the story of the vengeful slaughter of 75,000 Persian citizens, if taken literally, has no place in Christian spiritual life. And it has certainly done enough harm to the minds of those under the yoke of Talmudic Judaism.
Judaism has a litany of personages who it is incumbent on the believer to hate, from Amalek to Jesus, an eternal train of loathing. What a terrible burden for the mind and spirit of the individual Judaic to bear - this religious obligation to hate!
- Michael Hoffman, Judaism Discovered, note on p. 585.
The book is inspired by a fierce nationalism and an unblushing vindictiveness which stand in glaring contradiction to the Sermon on the Mount.
- Bernhard W. Anderson, The place of the Book of Esther in the Christian Bible, 1950. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1198590
The story reads like a blueprint for the eternal Judaic persecution-revenge seesaw, the paradigm of intrinsic Judaic blamelessness, and the Trojan horse tactic of marrying one’s children into aristocracy as a way of directing events from the sidelines. As for persecution, real or imaginary, we have already seen how pivotal this paranoia is to the creation and survival of the Judaic identity. Prior to the advent of ‘atheistic Judaism’ and Holocaustianity, the Book of Esther no doubt ranked high as an identity booster.
The Book of Esther centers on the first explicit instance of anti-Semitism in recorded history.
- Rabbi Michael Knopf
The idea that Haman would plot to slaughter all the Jews in the empire simply because Mordecai refused to bow down to him is puerile at best. Haman himself gives a much more believable reason for restricting the Jews’ freedom, expelling them from the land or converting them (but obviously not for killing them), though it is supposed to be a mere pretext to conceal his ‘wrath’:
There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king’s laws: therefore it is not for the king’s profit to suffer them.
- Esther 3:8
Which of the two explanations fits the pattern of antagonism between Judaic minorities and the countries hosting them over the centuries? Another important point: why did Mordecai ‘smuggle’ his cousin/daughter into the king’s bed chamber well in advance of Haman’s evil scheme? Were the Persian Jews already threatened with extermination at this point? To avoid this embarrassing question, a prologue with a prophetic dream was added to the book centuries later (see further below).

In this post I will try to focus on the canonicity of the Book of Esther, something that has been missing from this thread, but I realize it’s not possible to limit the analysis to mere biblical study. Judaics seem to think that questioning the place of Esther in the Christian canon is in itself an act of anti-Semitism, something only ‘Amalekites’ would do. The Scroll of Esther (3:1) identifies Haman as the descendent of Agag, King of Amalek, but for the rabbis, punishing the ‘Amalek’ is not merely a thing of the distant past. Influential rabbis like Ovadia Yosef, the Rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu and Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba have all identified the Arabs in general as ‘Amalek’ (in other words, a nation that must be exterminated), and anybody strongly antagonized by the rabbinate (such as judeophobic Germans), or anybody “obstructing the building of the Third Temple”, may be labeled ‘Amalek’ -- and treated accordingly.

I have no scholarly pretensions, so by trying to discuss the canonicity of an Old Testament book I may be venturing out on thin ice. Thus, I will be content with summarizing and commenting the best-known arguments, aided by a couple of sources. In any case, before I get started, it is important to always keep Old Testament verses clearly separated from Talmudic glosses. The Renaissance-age belief that the Talmud is helpful (or even necessary) in interpreting the Bible is nonsense. There is no good reason why Christians should give their stamp of approval to what second-century Pharisees wrote in the Mishnah about Noah, Moses, Jesus, Haman or anyone else. It is these very same Pharisees Jesus upbraided for falsifying the legacy of Moses, comparing them to vipers, hypocrites and whited sepulchres.

Some have proposed that Mordecai’s killing spree was justified as a ‘purposive action of God’ towards the preservation of the Jewish people who would later be needed to bring forth the Messiah. After all, didn’t Jesus say that “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22)? There are several problems with that reasoning:
- Not all Jews lived under Ahasuerus. The extermination of the Jewish minority in Persia, if such an atrocity had occurred, would have prevented no prophecies or promises from being fulfilled.
- ‘Jew’ is an umbrella term for a quite diversified lot. The ‘Jews’ referred to by Jesus in this particular passage must have been those who had remained faithful to the Mosaic law, that is, the ‘peasantry’ (Am-ha-aretz), not any and all tribes and sects in the land, now referred to as ‘Jews’.
- God uses whom He wills. He of course keeps His promise, but does not ‘need’ the Jewish people; it’s the other way around (and no, God does not study the Talmud in His free time).
- The Judaics, whom the world still misidentifies as the spiritual heirs of the Old Testament Jews, can’t have it both ways. If the Jews were the people chosen by God to bring salvation into the world, they obviously became Christians as a result. Seen in this perspective, Judaics cannot reject Christ AND lay claim to the title of ‘the Chosen People’.

Canonicity
Canonicity means that a text is sanctioned by a cluster of religious authorities (bishops, theologians, saints) in time and space as orthodox and divinely inspired or revealed. It does not necessarily mean the account is historically true or accurate, although this is usually expected. For example, a wisdom tale could in theory become canonical based on its spiritual merits. Canonical or not, the Book of Esther reads more like a pagan fable than a historical account. Even the Wiki admits its fictional character:
The apparent historical difficulties, the internal inconsistencies, the pronounced symmetry of themes and events, the plenitude of quoted dialogue, and the gross exaggeration in the reporting of numbers (involving time, money, and people) all point to Esther as a work of fiction, its vivid characters (except for Ahasuerus/Xerxes) being the product of the author’s creative imagination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Esther
Esther’s canonicity has been questioned by both Christians and Judaics over the centuries.
Esther was not admitted to either the Jewish or the Christian canon without some hesitance. The rabbis seem to have been hesitant to canonize a book whose apparently vindictive spirit might be misunderstood by Gentiles, and which instituted a festival for which they found no explicit sanction in the Law. The first objection was overruled by the popularity of Purim among Jews; the second was easily met by ingenious rabbinical exegesis...
- Bernhard W. Anderson, The place of the Book of Esther in the Christian Bible, 1950. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1198590
Long before the Council of Jamnia (90 AD) had a chance to deliberate on the matter, the popularity of the Purim festival among Jews had ‘canonized’ Esther. Rabbis Simeon ben Lakish (ca. 300 AD) and Maimonides (ca: 1200 AD) put Esther on the same level as the Law and higher than the Prophets and the rest of Scripture, but there remained a strong tendency, especially in the churches of the West, to view the book with suspicion and to accord it only a deuterocanonical status. St. Athanasius (296-373 AD) did not scrap Esther but removed it from the canon proper in his 39th Festal Letter, and even St. Jerome had qualms about it. Martin Luther considered the Greek additions to Esther apochryphal (which of course they are) and very nearly ripped the whole book out of the Bible.
I am so hostile to the book [II Maccabees] and to Esther that I wish they did not exist at all; for they judaize too much and have much heathen perverseness.
- Martin Luther, Table Talk.
But with the Christian church, which has decisively broken all connections with cultural religion, the Book of Esther continues to present a problem. It has never been very highly regarded, and for many its presence in Scripture has been a stumbling block and an offense.
- Bernhard W. Anderson
It stands further from the spirit of the Old Testament revelation and the Gospel than any other book in the Old Testament.
- Ernst Bertheau.
Both festival and book are unworthy of a people which is disposed to bring about its national and moral regeneration under prodigious sacrifice.
- Shalom Ben­Chorin
Here are some of the reasons why scholars have questioned the canonicity of the Book of Esther:

The names of Ahasuerus’ wives are not backed up by historians
According to the Book of Esther, queen Vashti was king Ahasuerus’ first wife. When she refused to come and show her beauty at the king’s command, she was discrowned and made an example of (1:11-22). In the works of Herodotus and Ctesias (who are not exactly trustworthy), the only queen mentioned for that historical period (ca: 485 BC) is Amestris. Some researchers have stretched the imagination and the rules of etymology, equating ‘Vashti’ with ‘Amestris’, or ‘Amestris’ with ‘Esther’. I see no light at the end of the tunnel. The evidence is inconclusive, but should new records ever come to light, I’m inclined to think they will support the Greeks.

Mordecai, Esther and Haman are known only from the Book of Esther
The complete absence of these characters from all other biblical and extra-biblical sources is not proof they never existed, but it carries quite some weight if we consider their prominence and the potential historical impact of a massacre of 75,000 people, assuming it occurred. Much effort has been put into identifying historical ‘Marduks’ and ‘Ishtars’ that would fit the bill, and something tells me the search has not been fruitless for lack of funding.

The text describes improbable events and customs
We are told that, back then, women had to endure 12 months of pampering and cosmetic grooming before the king would see them. This is not credible and no extra-biblical documents describe such a custom. Another infamous yarn is Haman’s erection of a 25-m high gallows in a matter of hours. Wild exaggerations were the rule in Oriental fables and sagas. The Ramayana is a perfect example of this, and even the more recent and much adulated Josephus reported clearly unrealistic figures. Hoffman provides many instances of the rabbinic penchant for spinning tall tales:
The length of Sennacherib’s camp was four hundred Persian miles, the width of the necks of his horses when standing side by side was forty Persian miles, and the number of soldiers in his camp was two-hundred-and-sixty ten thousand thousands, minus one (BT Sanhedrin 95b).
Various official Jewish sources reveal that in the past prominent, highly regarded Jewish leaders have said that 800 million Jews were killed by enemies of the Jews. The Talmud [...] reports that the Roman Emperor Hadrian slaughtered 800,000,000 Jews (Herman Otten, The Christian News Encyclopedia).
Eighty thousand trumpeters besieged Bethar where Bar Kozeba was located, who had with him two hundred thousand men [...] He thereupon had two hundred thousand men of each class [...] And what used Bar Kozeba to do? He would catch the missiles from the enemy’s catapults on one of his knees and hurl them back, killing many of the foe....(Midrash Rabbah: Lamentations 2:4)
That other rabbinic fabrication - the cursed 6,000,000 figure - is still with us, and you can go to prison for questioning it. The claim that 75,000 Persians were massacred may belong in the same category, so it seems a waste of time to argue over the historicity of this point, other than to reiterate the fictional format of the text and the subversive nature of the plot.

The Book of Esther is missing from the Dead Sea scrolls and from Melito’s canon
Melito’s canon [ca: 170 AD] is the earliest recorded Old Testament canon we have in the Christian tradition. Recorded in Eusebius’ writings, Melito’s canon gives a picture of what some considered to be the Holy Scriptures for the early church fathers, since a New Testament Canon was not yet assembled. Many argue that because Melito lists all of the books we now accept as canonical except for Esther, Esther should not be included in the Canon.
- Stephen Curto, Should She Stay or Should She Go? http://mygiveonthings.com/should-she-st ... of-esther/
Since the canon of bishop Melito of Sardis (who took pains to check with authorities in the East) also contains a couple of books that are not included in today’s canon, one could argue that the absence of Esther from the list proves nothing. Indeed, this and several other objections to the canonicity of Esther are ‘arguments from silence’. Stephen Curto claims that many such arguments, when taken together, weaken the case against Esther. I don’t agree. As I see it, the greater the number of puzzling ‘silences’, the smaller the odds that “we simply haven’t found the records yet”.

The Dead Sea scrolls, the most comprehensive collection of Old Testament manuscripts ever found, prove that the Old Testament has remained virtually unchanged for millennia. Every canonical book of the Old Testament (or fragments thereof) has been identified among the Dead Sea scrolls, except the Book of Esther. The original custody of the scrolls is usually attributed to the Essenes. However, according to Curto, the Essenes were wackos who “did not hold the feast, or the events in Esther that established it, in high regard”:
The Essenes were, for lack of better phrase, the “religious wackos” of the day. While the Pharisees and Sadducees represented the more mainstream liberal and conservative Jewish equivalents of the first century, the Essenes were similar to the monastic orders of mid Christendom.
- Stephen Curto, Should She Stay or Should She Go? http://mygiveonthings.com/should-she-st ... of-esther/
In the above quote, Curto not only insinuates that the monastic orders of the golden age of Christian civilization were incubators of fundamentalism, but repeats the trite fallacy that the Pharisees and Sadducees were ‘mainstream’ at the time of Christ.
The Pharisees were originally only a sect within Israel. They were not the dominant force. The majority of the Israelites rejected the oral law which is what the Talmud is~the oral tradition of the elders committed to writing after the crucifixion of Christ and the destruction of the Temple. The great mass of Israelites (the Am-ha-aretz) were not Pharisees and were oblivious to the orally transmitted traditions of the elders and were thus regarded as ignoramuses by the Pharisees. The Pharisees did not yet have a hold over the majority of the people of Israel; though the Pharisees did represent a potent underground current of corruption that had existed within Israel since the time of the Golden Calf.
- Michael Hoffman, Judaism Discovered, note on p. 28
An analogy could be made between the Pharisees/Am-ha-aretz opposition of two thousand years ago and the modern-day opposition between the minority controlling the mass media (while passing off their peculiar perspective as ‘mainstream’) and the general population (who tend to be more conservative than not). The Pharisees rose to prominence from the second century on by virtue of their rejection of the Messiah and their organized opposition to Christianity, which to their chagrin the bulk of Israelites had willingly transitioned to. Today, rabbis become livid at the mention of ‘replacement theology’, albeit for the wrong reason. I agree the term is inaccurate: Christianity did not replace Old Testament monotheism; it assimilated it in the sense that a greater perspective subsumes a lesser perspective. Call it a ‘qualitative upgrade’, if you will. Phariseeism was eventually recast as ‘Judaism’, which explains why Christianity is in reality older than codified Judaism and why the two systems are by definition incompatible. Pope John Paul II was wrong: Judaics are not the Christians’ elder brothers in the faith (L’Osservatore Romano, 1986).

The author of Esther is unknown
I don’t see this as a significant problem, but it would certainly help Esther’s case to boast some credible authorship.

The book contains historical inaccuracies
There is no sound extra-biblical evidence for the claim in Esther that the Persian king was unable to annul a law he had himself promulgated. Such an arrangement sounds implausible, unless the text is reinterpreted to mean that the King’s edict could not be physically retrieved once the parchments had been dispatched to the four corners of the empire. However, that smells like a lawyer’s loophole since the day appointed for ‘the killing of the Jews’ (the thirteenth of the month of Adar) was 9 months into the future. Second issue: the number of satrapies (provinces governed by viceroys) given in Esther (n=20) is very different from that reported by Herodotus (n=127). Some have hypothesized that Herodotus referred to smaller administrative units by the same word. Who can say? Third issue: the objection that the Persian king could not take a Jewess for his wife seems irrelevant to me since Esther lied to Ahasuerus about her background (and intentions) until after the second banquet when she asked him “to grant her any request”. Unless one considers the king’s continued acceptance of Esther as his wife after he learned she was crypto-Jewish.

The book contains no mention of God or references to religion
Several pious passages were added by the Greeks to give the story a more scripture-like appearance and justify Mordecai’s Trojan Horse scheme, although some innocent minds believe these extensive changes were a natural process by which “further reflections on the story became part of the story itself”. The additions, the earliest of which date from the late 1st century AD, include an opening prologue describing a prophetic dream had by Mordecai, prayers for God’s intervention offered by Mordecai and Esther, a mention of God’s intervention when Esther appears before the king, and a passage in which Mordecai interprets his dream in terms of the events that followed. Reading Esther with these interpolations is a completely different experience. If they were necessary to sell the story as scripture, something is not right.

The New Testament makes no reference to Esther
Only the Book of Esther and the Song of Solomon are not referred to in the New Testament. This adds to the list of ‘arguments from silence’. As I have said, the sheer number of ‘silences’ makes it more difficult to dismiss this one as a coincidence. Even if the Christian canonization process for the Old Testament was not completed until after the time of the New Testament writings (actually, little is known about that), the book was well known at the time of the Apostles. While there was no obligation to refer to every single Old Testament book in the New Testament, one would expect that if the Jewish victory over the Persians was so providential, paving the way for the advent of the Messiah, as hebraist Wilhelm Vischer claims, it would have made a lot of sense to refer to it.
The elevation of Esther to the position of queen and her victory in behalf of her people are regarded as signs, manifested prematurely in the shadows of world history, of the resurrection of Christ and the ultimate glorious triumph at his Second Coming [...] All victories which the Lord gave the people of the Old Covenant in their history have, according to the Biblical witness, this meaning as signs of the final Victory.
- Anderson on Vischer (Das Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments, vol 2, 1942)
The book does not refer to Mosaic Law or the return to Jerusalem
Just as the book makes no mention of God or religion, it also completely ignores Mosaic Law. In this respect, it is almost as if the Jewish identity had been grafted a posteriori onto a pagan template. As for the missing context of the Jews’ return to Jerusalem, waves of which were occurring at the time of Xerxes, I don’t see that as a significant problem. However, some who are vexed by this ‘silence’ have chosen the easy way out by invoking the ‘purposive action of God’ argument:
The truth is very likely that God kept Esther and Mordecai in Persia specifically so that they could work against Haman’s plan to wipe out the Jews.
- Stephen Curto, Should She Stay or Should She Go? http://mygiveonthings.com/should-she-st ... of-esther/
Arguments in favor of Esther’s canonicity
The fact that most of the Church Fathers, all the way up to the Council of Trent, accepted the Book of Esther as part of the canon carries much weight. On the other hand, since the version they knew had been repackaged by the Greeks (the pious additions were translated by St. Jerome in separate), it raises the question of whether they would have viewed the undoctored pagan original in the same light.

It may also be argued that Esther is part of “the five Megillot” (the other four are the Song of Songs, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes) which have been used in Judaic ceremonies probably since the first century. The Jewish Encyclopedia says that “it is doubtful when the custom of reading the roll of Esther publicly was introduced, but it was at all events before the destruction of the Temple” (70 AD). I am not disputing the popularity of Purim/Esther among Jews before Christ, but when you search for a justification of the canonicity of the book, you inevitably end up in the meanders of the Talmud. Our concern here is not with Midrashic fantasies and Talmudic glosses, but whether or not the Book of Esther belongs in the Christian Old Testament canon.

The New Testament makes no mention of potential problems with any Old Testament book. This ‘argument from silence’ has led some people to assume Jesus considered Esther holy scripture.
If the Hebrew Canon as it stands today is the wrong one, it seems almost impossible that Christ would have let it slip by. The Son of God through whom everything was made, certainly would have ensured that any errors in the texts being used to teach God’s will would be corrected.
- Stephen Curto, Should She Stay or Should She Go? http://mygiveonthings.com/should-she-st ... of-esther/
So references to Esther are conspicuously absent from the New Testament, and that’s just a coincidence, but the fact that Jesus is not on record disapproving specific books or scriptural passages (the oral traditions of the ‘Elders’ do not count as scripture) is evidence that Esther is canonical? Curto goes as far as to say that if Jesus Himself raised no fuss about Esther being in the wrong place, then neither should we. Oh well...

Another argument adduced in favor of the historicity of Esther is that the writer supposedly had intimate knowledge of the Persian courts. This clashes with the historical inaccuracies mentioned earlier and supports the notion that the original author was more akin to a playwright. Didn’t Shakespeare have a surprisingly detailed (though not perfect) knowledge of Italian court customs although he almost certainly never left England, nor was himself a court official? Curto also argues that some phrases are compatible with historical literature (contradicting the predominant view that Esther is written in the style of a historical novella) and that the inclusion of “pleas to search the historical records” suggests the events in Esther are historically accurate. Three verses in the book allegedly invite the reader to search the historical records:
And when inquisition was made of the matter, it was found out; therefore they were both hanged on a tree: and it was written in the book of the chronicles before the king. (2:23)

Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king’s gate: let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. (6:10)

And all the acts of his power and of his might, and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai, whereunto the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? (10:2)
The last verse is actually a question. Ok, I’m joking. It is not a bad argument ... if only those chronicles had been found.

Note on Anderson
The above quotes by Bernhard Anderson may give the impression that he supports the decanonization of Esther, but he actually favors keeping it in the Christian canon. However, as is almost always the case, he does not understand the distinction between Biblical Jews and Talmudic Judaics, repeating the misconception that “Judaism cradled Christianity”. In other words, he conflates the struggle of the Old Testament Hebrews against tyrannical idolaters with the struggle of idolatrous rabbis against the Christian and Islamic nations, seeing in it “the eternal miracle of Jewish survival”. Writing in 1950, this mental confusion could easily have been compounded by war-time propaganda. So, while he correctly points out that...
The church should recognize the book for what it is: a witness to the fact that Israel, in pride, either made nationalism a religion in complete indifference to God or presumptuously identified God’s historical purpose with the preservation and glorification of the Jewish people.
...he defends preserving Esther for theological reasons:
[Jesus] came, as he said, not to destroy but to fulfil the Law and the Prophets. Yet, paradoxically, only as he destroyed a community circumscribed by the barrier of the Law, and only as he shattered a messianism which hoped for the preservation and the glorification of the Jewish people, did he bring the promise to its fulfilment. Thus Jesus Christ both unites inseparably and at the sarne time draws the sharpest cleavage between the Old and the New Covenants. ln this theological context the Book of Esther has a significant place in the Christian Bible.
Note on Curto
Stephen Curto thinks the Book of Esther definitely belongs in the Christian canon. Those who are interested can read for themselves how he counters each formal objection by clicking on the link in the quotes posted above. He admittedly makes some good observations, and his essay was very useful in putting this post together, but his defense is frankly biased, which is all right. He would probably say I am biased in the opposite direction, but if we go beyond the domain of biblical scholarship and contemplate the greater spiritual picture, and if St. Matthew heard right when Jesus declared that “by their fruits ye shall know them”, the Book of Esther fails the test.

Fruits
What do you do when you find a rotten apple in a basket?
Purim enshrines the role of the hereditary oppressor (in this case “Haman”) as part of a function of keeping Judaic people subservient to Judaism’s religious and political rabbinic overseers. In the arcane Talmudic and Kabbalistic ‘Hester Panim’ psychology of Purim, a certain amount of violent persecution of Judaic people is regarded as desirable for maintaining the loyalty of Judaics to their duplicitous and corrupt leaders. The rabbis believe that without such anti-Judaic violence, Judaic people will wander from the rabbinic fold, marry a shiksa (‘female abomination’, i.e. a gentile woman) or one of the shkotzim (male gentiles of a kind sometimes used for sex by Orthodox Judaic homosexuals), and assimilate gentile ways, all of which are regarded as calamities.

This hidden aspect of Purim can be traced to the Talmudic command to get drunk on Purim. This injunction is an allusion to the revelation of a secret. The Talmud observes that “when wine goes in, secrets come out”. The esoteric Kabbalistic understanding is that the Judaic is to become ‘intoxicated’ on the secret within Purim itself, i.e., the conjunction of opposites, the occult union of Mordechai (the advocate for Judaism) and Haman (the would-be exterminator of Jews). Judaics are commanded to blur the distinctions between the two as a lesson in the arcane truth that both Haman and Mordechai serve the purposes of Judaism.
- Michael Hoffman, Judaism Discovered, p. 825.
ICfreely wrote: Tue Jul 30, 2019 2:42 amI think Jews and Christians should, once and for all, do away with the Godforsaken Book of Esther.
Flabbergasted
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

Unread post by Flabbergasted »

Muhammad's Covenants with the Christians

Christianity is extremely difficult to organize into a mental scheme and comprehend. This is because the esoteric dimension of Christianity is not inherently "intellectual" like that of Islam or Hinduism, but is expressed in beauty, virtue and hesychasm.

However, if, as a philosophical experiment, one is willing to immerse oneself in the spiritual economy of Islam long enough, many loose chips of doctrine and practice fall into place with regard to religion as such, and to Christianity in particular. Now, of course, when I say Islam I mean traditional Sunni or Shi’ite Islam, not the modern, aggressive and shallow reform movements associated with Wahhabi and Salafi.

I am not pushing an agenda here, or trying to sift the good guys from the bad guys. But, looking back over the past 14 centuries, Islam and Christianity have generally been on much friendlier terms than we are made to think by today’s media pundits and historians who usually zoom in on armed conflicts, persecutions and iconic events like the crusades. Who would want to write or read thousands of boring pages on peaceful coexistence?

Muhammad started receiving his revelations in 610 AD, when he was 40 years old. Before that, he was most likely not an idolater, but one of a small number of surviving Abrahamic monotheists in Mecca. In his youth he was in frequent contact with Christians, including monks, most importantly when working for and staying at St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. Interestingly, in the late 6th century many Christians in the Middle East were open to the idea of the coming of a prophet after Christ. This notion implies a deviation from, or heresy in relation to, Catholic and Orthodox teaching as it formed over the centuries, but to understand what happened back then requires stepping out of our current mental shoes and putting on the spirit or ethos of another time and place. Not easy, I know.

In fact, Islamic sources document two specific encounters between the young Muhammad and noted Christian mystics who were not only expecting the coming of a prophet but knew what signs to look for. In other words, it was Christian monks who originally identified and testified to Muhammad as a messenger of God, decades before he received the first verses of the Qur’ān. Indeed, if we consider Monotheism from the perspective of Islam, i.e. as the legacy of Abraham restored or readapted by Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, the incongruence (resulting from the merging of theology with history) of the existence of two or more legitimate divine revelations is simply not there.

There is abundant documentation for how the emerging civilization of Islam under Muhammad dealt with “the People of the Book” (Ahl al-Kitāb, a term primarily applied to Christians), and vice-versa. Generally speaking, those who declined conversion to Islam were allowed to keep their lands and subjects, but had to pay a tax (jizyah) and enter a mutual non-hostility and assistance agreement. Islam spread like wildfire in the first two centuries and Muhammad’s diplomatic rules could easily have been flouted on many occasions, just as Muslims were sometimes bullied by Christian rulers on the margins of the new empire. But what interests us here is what happened within the 22-year window of Muhammad's reign as a prophet and lawgiver. Muslims are bound (down to the smallest detail) by what Muhammad said and did, so his dealings with Christian communities in this period is not a trivial matter. In fact, Muslims today are obligated to emulate it.
Qur’ān 64:12
And obey Allah and obey the Messenger; but if you turn away, then upon Our Messenger is only [the duty of] clear notification.
The two foundational sources of Islam are the Qur’ān and the Sunnah (hadīth literature). One could add the writings of the twelve Shi’ite imams, and those of Ibn Arabī, Mulla Sadra and other spiritual titans, but sources contemporary with and endorsed by the Prophet himself take precedence. One such contemporary source (actually a third foundational source), which is hardly ever spoken of, happens to be a collection of solemn covenants between Muhammad and Christian communities within the sphere of nascent Islam.

Covenants were made with 1) the monks of Mount Sinai, 2) the Christians of Persia, 3) the Christians of the world, 4) the Christians of Najran, 5) the Assyrian Christians, and 6) the Armenian Christians of Jerusalem. Some academics have predictably declared the Covenants to be forgeries, not based on any evidence of forgery, but on the not-so-scholarly prejudice that they cannot possibly be genuine. The fact of the matter is that the Covenants have been referred to and, at least in one case, reaffirmed hundreds of times over the centuries (even by Napoleon Bonaparte), and both Sunnis and Shi’ites accept them (a rather unusual thing). The discussion is miles too long to go into here, and the bias on either side is naturally very strong, but I am inclined to think they do go back to Muhammad’s time. The fact that St. Catherine’s Monastery, which harbors a small mosque, has existed without interruption for 14 centuries on Muslim territory, protected against invasion and relieved of taxes and other annoyances, is hardly a coincidence. The monastery library actually holds a total of 1,742 Arabic and Turkish renewals of the Covenant of the Monks of Mount Sinai, including decrees from 21 Ottoman sultans in succession.

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First page of a copy of the “Covenant with the Christians of the World”. Lugduni Batavorum, 1655. The screenshots and much of the historical information in this post are from “The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World, by John Andrew Morrow.

The following is a selection from the Covenant of the Monks of Mount Sinai, originally drafted by ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib in the second year of the Hegira (623-4 AD):

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And here is a selection from the “Covenant with the Christians of the World”:

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One could argue that if over the centuries Muslims had been as obsessed with persecuting or converting Christians and Judaics as they are reported to be now, Spain and Portugal wouldn’t have remained Christian after many centuries of Islamic rule, nor would the southeastern corner of Europe. On the other hand, maybe today’s Christians are no longer Christians in any meaningful sense, and so actually fit the definition of ‘infidels’. And maybe today’s overpoliticized, myopic and obdurate jihadists have lost sight of the Muhammedan spirit embodied in the Covenants.
Flabbergasted
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

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Flabbergasted wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 4:13 pmInterestingly, in the late 6th century many Christians in the Middle East were open to the idea of the coming of a prophet after Christ.
As a mere curiosity, I want to mention the different interpretations Christians and Muslims have regarding the passages in the New Testament in which Jesus instructs his followers about the advent of the Paraclete. These are the relevant verses:
John 14:10
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
John 14:16
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.
John 14:17
Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
John 14:26
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 15:26
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.
John 16:7
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
John 16:8
And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.
According to the Qur’ān, Jesus Himself prophesied the coming of Muhammad, then called by his heavenly name “Ahmad”.
Qur’ān 61:6
And when Jesus, the son of Mary, said, “O children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allah to you confirming what came before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad [...]”
Seen in this ternary perspective of past-present-future, Jesus confirms the Mosaic Law of the Pentateuch, teaches the specifically Christian law, and prepares the people for the advent of Islam.

The Greek term ‘Paraclete’, which theologians consider synonymous with the Holy Spirit, is often translated as ‘comforter’, but it literally means ‘advocate’, ‘helper’, ‘teacher’ and ‘intercessor’. In any case, no one can say for sure which Hebrew word Jesus used in his sermon.

In Islamic hermeneutics, the verses in the Gospel of John point to Muhammad as the Paraclete to come:

- "He will abide with us forever"
In fact, the Law of the Prophet was the last to be promulgated.
- "He will teach us all things"
The Qur’ān is the only book that claims to be the perfect Law, capable of guiding everyone. Jesus’ teachings were specifically for the reformation of the Israelites. Also, the Qur’ān repeatedly refers to Muḥammad as ‘the truth’.
- "He will not speak for himself, but will say what he hears"
This would suggest a human messenger, not an invisible Holy Spirit. The expression “another Paraclete” could be taken to mean “another person in flesh and blood, like Jesus”. This recalls the Mosaic promise in Deuteronomy 18, 18:
I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
Some Muslims have argued that the difference between Moses’ and Jesus’ prophethood is a matter of emphasis: Moses highlights the aspect of glory (jamāl, Muḥammad) while Jesus highlights the aspect of beauty (jahāl, Ahmad), coinciding with the two names of the Prophet.

Now, the New Testament does explicitly identify the Paraclete with the Holy Ghost, however one defines that. The “breath of truth that travels out from the Father” which “stays with you and will continue to be in you”, as it literally says in the original Greek text (The Unvarnished New Testament, by Andy Gaus), sounds rather incorporeal and holy-ghosty. Also, if the Second Person of the Holy Trinity (Jesus) did not speak of Himself but relayed what he heard from the Father, wouldn’t the same apply to the third Person of the Holy Trinity (the Holy Ghost)? Or would the Holy Ghost have to appear in the form of a human messenger for this to make sense?
John 14:10
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
John 12:49
For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
John 8:26
I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.
John 8:28
Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
At this point you may think “Who cares about all that theological hair-splitting?” That may be so, but, historically speaking (with the exception of the post-industrial era), civilizations have sprung from revelations, beliefs, transcendental concepts and holy covenants, before the first building stone was ever quarried.
Flabbergasted
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

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Flabbergasted wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 4:13 pmSome academics have predictably declared the Covenants to be forgeries, not based on any evidence of forgery, but on the not-so-scholarly prejudice that they cannot possibly be genuine.
While little is known with absolute certainty about Muhammad´s whereabouts before 610 AD, and especially before his first marriage in 595 AD, the centuries that followed the signing of the Covenants show that the terms of the Covenants were widely acknowledged, executed and reaffirmed. Some find it difficult to believe Muhammad would be so protective of Christians, and consider his early contact with the Monks at Mount Sinai a pious legend. It is a tough question to settle because obviously countless anecdotes (some of which very silly) have been added to the original account (assuming it's true). Curiously, certain unlikely elements in these anecdotes actually suggest they were based on something other than sheer imagination.

Be that as it may, the Qur’ān speaks very highly of Jesus and Mary, so why wouldn´t Muhammad? When he finally took Mecca and had the opportunity to destroy the idols erected around the Kaa'ba and erase the mélange of idols painted on the inside, he ordered one specific painting to be left untouched: the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus, surrounded by saints and angels. The icon happens to be a reproduction of an icon belonging to St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai.

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Icon of the enthroned Virgin and Child with St. Theodore and St. George, and angels, and the Hand of God above. 6th century, Saint Catherine's Monastery. Perhaps the earliest iconic image of the subject to survive.

I believe religions coexist more easily when they are spiritually alive and well defined. Despite non-negotiable differences in religious doctrine, sincere faith and nobility of heart is the same no matter what tribe you are born into. A Christian knight is really no different from a Muslim knight. This contrasts starkly with today's fake and watered-down ecumenism, which require religions to give up essential aspects of their identity and principles in order to "come together".
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

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Mental reservation
Matthew 5:37
Let your yes be yes, and your no be no; anything else is of the devil.
The Father of Lies (John 8:44) has been around since Adam was fresh out of the oven, so one cannot say lying is a recent invention. But the practice has certainly been getting commoner and craftier in the latter times. Especially since the 16th century.
Matthew 18:7
Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come...
In all the ancient and orthodox traditions I can think of, man’s primordial condition is understood as one of purity and unveiled truth. But since manifestation is not a static phenomenon, civilization degenerates at an ever-increasing pace, until the lowest point in the cycle is reached, when evil and corruption hold sway. Thus, in Hinduism, the first era of humanity, Satya Yuga, happens to be known as ‘the age of truth’, while the fourth and last era, Kali Yuga, is referred to as ‘the age of strife’ or ‘the dark age’, characterized by trickery, lying, fear and violence. According to that world view, we are now going through the dreariest moments of the dark age. Of course, it’s not so simple. There are cycles within cycles, temporary local restorations of order and dignity, eruptions of barbarism, ups and downs which blur the perception of a declining humanity, assuming it’s not just a romantic fantasy.
Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote.
- Voltaire.
But I digress.

So what happened in the 16th century? Christianity was infected with situation ethics and casuistry. Theology became an occupation for lawyers. Originally, casuistry meant bringing general moral principles to bear upon particular cases. So far, so good. But in the Renaissance, casuistry became the art of hiding the truth without appearing to be lying. This ‘new Christianity’ was a departure from that of the Middle Ages (800-1300 AD), not because people didn’t lie in St. Bernard’s day, but because a lie was simply a lie. We all break the law and lie, but we know when we do it and assume the risk and the consequences if we are caught at it. Now, if you can change the definition of lying, twist legal definitions and Scripture and create loop holes, you can persuade yourself and others that you are not really lying when in fact you are.

The same could be applied to stealing.
Thou shalt not steal.
- God (Exodus 20:15)

Theft is the secret and unjust taking-away of a thing belonging to another, when the owner is reasonably unwilling.
- Alphonsus Liguori (Theologia Moralis, IV, 518).
Using the second definition, it’s up to the thief to decide whether the taking-away is just or unjust, and how unwilling the owner appears to be. Or one could split the forbidden category (‘theft’) up into two subcategories, one of which can be argued to be acceptable.

- stealing a personal object vs. stealing an object of uncertain or collective ownership
- stealing an object the owner needs vs. stealing an object the owner does not need
- stealing out of necessity vs. stealing out of greed
- stealing something the thief believes he is owed vs. stealing something undeserved
- stealing out of compulsion vs. stealing contrivedly, etc.

Paraphrasing Fr. Frederick Meyrick (1827-1906), once you have divided the thing condemned into two species, distinguished from each other by a distinction without a difference, you assume that the rule (or religious condemnation) applies to either one of these species, but not to the other. Then you range everything you wish to do under the uncondemned head, and whatever you have no temptation towards under the other.

In order to dissemble or lie with a clean conscience, one can resort to techniques like equivocation and mental reservation. The former consists of using words with double meanings so the statement is literally true while the deeper meaning is concealed. Champions of equivocation, such as Azpilcueta, Garnet and Persons, say that an equivocal statement can be distinguished from a lie because in it the whole truth is present in the speaker’s mind and is indeed communicated to the primary audience of all discourse (God). It is not the producer of the utterance but the recipient who is ultimately responsible for making it conform to a truth. In other words, by allowing the recipient to deceive himself, the equivocator assigns responsibility for the lie to the victim.

To gain acceptance for the practice of equivocation, supporters have often resorted to the Old testament account of Abram (Abraham) and Sarai (Sarah):
Genesis 12:11-13
And when he was near to enter into Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife: I know that thou art a beautiful woman, and that when the Egyptians shall see thee, they will say: She is his wife: and they will kill me, and keep thee. Say, therefore, I pray thee, that thou art my sister: that I may be well used for thee, and that my soul may live for thy sake.
Sarai was indeed Abram’s half-sister, in addition to being his wife, so the statement qualifies as equivocation. What should be kept in mind is that Abram knew what information was requested and that his ambiguous answer would be interpreted in his favor. The reason given is selflessness: Abram would be “well used” to meet Sarai’s needs and his soul would be around for her sake.
Genesis 12:15-13
And the princes told Pharao, and praised her before him: and the woman was taken into the house of Pharao. And they used Abram well for her sake. And he had sheep and oxen, and he-asses, and menservants and maidservants, and she-asses, and camels.
Abram’s equivocation did not go down too well with Pharaoh:
Genesis 12:17 - 13:2
And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. And Pharaoh called Abram, and said: “What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidst thou “she is my sister” so I might have taken her to me to wife? Now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.”
And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had. And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
The Spanish Jesuit priest Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) did not shy away from accusing Jesus of practicing mental reservation. He claimed that when Jesus told the disciples that only the Father knows when Judgment Day is, he was lying because the disciples didn’t deserve to know the truth. Another example would be in John 7:8-10 (the story about Jesus not going up the Festival of Tabernacles), but the claim is too ridiculous to merit discussion.

Suarez affirmed that a lie is that which is contrary to one’s own mind, rather than contrary to the mind of one’s interlocutors. In other words, truth is subjective and dependent on intent. The usual argument in favor is that it is not sinful to lie to avoid unjust persecution or ‘a greater evil’, when “all possible true replies have potentially negative consequences, yet a reply is still expected”. In the latter part of his life, St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) objected vehemently to this reasoning. In his De Mendacio, he wrote that a man must not slay his own soul by lying in order to preserve the life of another, and that it would be a most perilous doctrine to admit that we may commit a lesser evil to prevent another from committing a greater one:
Suppose a man should seek shelter with you, who by your lie may be saved from death. For that death which men are foolishly afraid of, who are not afraid to sin, kills not the soul but the body, as the Lord teaches in the Gospel; whence He charges us not to fear that death: but the mouth which lies kills not the body but the soul.
With a sleight of hand, Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787 AD) actually invoked St. Augustine in defense of equivocation - the very man who had declared that “if there are just lies, there are just sins”. This is another clever technique: making it seem like your opponent supports your position. However, shortly before Liguori was born, Pope Innocent XI (d. 1689 AD) had forbidden clerics to teach equivocation and mental reservation (which had gotten quite out of hand) on pains of excommunication.

But what is mental reservation and how does it differ from equivocation?

Mental reservation (sometimes called mental restriction) proceeds from equivocation. Though more mendacious than the latter, it’s easier to detect. Essentially, it’s a verbal lie followed by a mental escape clause. The speaker mentally adds some qualification to the words uttered; taken together, the words and the mental qualification make a true assertion in accordance with fact. Martín de Azpilcueta (1491-1586 AD) explained that mental reservation involves truths expressed partly in speech and partly in the mind (or with an inaudible whisper) so that God hears what is in one’s mind while human beings hear only what one speaks. Azpilcuetans consider the practice morally acceptable, as long as the speaker isn’t trying to lie to God!

In 1590, mental reservation was deemed ‘permissible’ or ‘tolerable’, but not ‘recommended’. It should not be used if it led to “bad publicity for the Church and the priests”, and the practice initially remained a clerical secret. Historians often attribute it to the Jesuits, although they were too late on the scene to have pioneered it. In 1585, when the Jesuits were outlawed by Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603 AD), they continued trying to reconvert the English population and some were arrested and tortured. The show trials held by the Anglicans drew attention to the Jesuits’ mental reservation and equivocation used to protect fellow priests from persecution. Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth I used mental reservation herself when she was accosted by Queen Mary I (1516-1558 AD) but was never stigmatized for it, like the Jesuits were.
Reservatio mentalis becomes the more serious the higher the truth upon which it sets a new interpretation and the more solemn the occasion at which it occurs.
- Pastor Schrempf.
Another offshoot of theological casuistry is the system of Catholic probabilism, according to which, when two theologically conflicting views are advanced, the perspective that has the least amount of support in the Bible, and is thus the least probable, can be accepted as grounds for Catholic judgment, direction and action. Liguori, a probabilist, tried to get around the widespread resistance to this underhanded practice by inventing ‘equiprobabilism’, another subcategory with a ‘distinction without a difference’.

North of the Alps, Martin Luther (1483-1546 AD) is said to have employed ‘accommodations’ (lying) to win over people to Christ. This may be seen in his many contradictory statements about his religious intentions in letters written in the same period.
Luther maintains that in answer to a request for a loan of money anyone may say with a clear conscience that he has none, even if he actually is in possession of money, with the meaning: I have none to give you (Tischreden (Förstemann), I, 278.). In his parochial sermons of 1528, hitherto unknown (Weimar ed., XXVII, 12), Luther asserts, in opposition to the ‘monks’ who declare all lying to be sinful, that lies told out of love and for some advantage, proceeding from a good heart, are not sins. “How I would glory”, he exclaims, “in deception, if thus I deceived men for their own good!”
https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/cmt04b.htm#n_17
Using the trick of dividing sins into subcategories, Liguori bypassed Pope Innocent XI’s prohibition against mental reservation by creating the concepts of pure and non-pure mental reservation, the difference being that the former can be discovered from outward circumstances, while the latter takes place solely in the mind. According to Liguori...
For the licit use of a mental reservation, an absolutely serious cause is not required; any reasonable cause is enough, for instance to free oneself from the inconvenient and unjust interrogation of another [..] We do not deceive our neighbor, but for a just cause we allow that he deceive himself.
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Liguori, who was a lawyer before embracing the religious life, was beautified in 1816 by Pope Pius VII, canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI, made a Doctor of the Church in 1871 by Pope Pius IX, and declared ‘Heavenly Patron of Confessors and Teachers of Moral Theology’ in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. His most famous work is The Glories of Mary. Michael Hoffman has pointed out that when a church figure wants to modernize doctrine or introduce a heresy, it is a common ruse to declare himself a devotee of Our Lady. Mariologists are protected by an impenetrable shield of pious admiration. Much more importantly, Liguori spent almost four decades writing his 9-volume magnum opus Theologia Moralis, a work not intended for preachers, but for confessors who, according to Cdl. Newman, “need to be indulgent with small sins to win over sinners”. By the way, Cdl. Newman never openly admitted endorsing Liguori’s position, but confirmed it indirectly by saying that we should go to the Catechism for Catholic teaching on lying, not to works of pathology, something for which he was taken seriously to task by Fr. Meyrick. In Hoffman’s opinion, having two books of religious teaching is like having two books of accounting.
The Glories of Mary is the most wideliy distributed Marian book of all time. It has gone through over 800 editions and been translated into dozens of languages.
- Donald H. Calloway, Champions of the Rosary: The History and Heroes of a Spiritual Weapon
In contrast, Liguori’s major works on moral theology have never been translated from Latin. Translated summaries and excerpts have as a rule left out the thorny parts. On the other hand, the Church was unusually emphatic in its endorsement of Theologia Moralis, almost as if it was expecting forceful objections from both Catholics and Protestants. In 1803, the Sacred Congregation of Rites proclaimed that Liguori’s writings were error-free to the last letter:
His whole teaching is altogether free from all error. In the whole of his moral theology not one principle is disapproved of. There is not in it any opinion contrary to faith and good morals, new, opposed to the sense of the Church, heretical, erroneous, approaching on error, savoring of heresy or error, suspected of error, rash, scandalous, offensive to pious ears, ill-sounding, such as to lead the simple astray, schismatical, harmful, impious, or blasphemous.
In 1831, the Sacred Penitentiary of the Apostolic See reaffirmed the Church’s position regarding Liguori’s moral theology. In fact, the Church has never censored Liguori in any respect. It is worth mentioning that the Sacred Penitentiary also issued a directive saying that no Catholic usurer is obliged to confess or seek absolution. The synchronicity between the legalization of usury in 1515, the Vatican’s new-found enthusiasm for the Talmud, and the institutionalization of mental reservation and casuistry is difficult to ignore.

I would say some passages in Theologia Moralis might be ill-sounding to pious ears. For example, Protestants claim the work provides 30 different ways of swearing falsely without guilt (this I have not tried to verify). There is also a passage on the restitution of stolen goods, in which repentant (or exposed) thieves of objects of uncertain ownership (i.e. when the damaged party is difficult to define) are advised to make restitution by having masses celebrated, or by giving alms to the poor, or - if they are poor in their own judgment - apply the stolen goods to themselves and their families! Moreover, servants can in good conscience steal small amounts of food and drink from their masters as long as the items are not locked up and are not stolen with the purpose of resale. Servants considering their wages too low (and the wives of penny-pinching husbands) can also secretly recompense themselves through ‘just stealing’. Liguori also tacitly permitted contraception and bribery:
Does a man commit sin who offers a bribe to a judge or to his ministers? [...] If he gives without good reason, he commits sin by cooperating in an unlawful receiving, but not if he gives with a reason, namely, to free himself from annoyance which he does not deserve [...] what the laws intend is to provide against men giving money, and so corrupting the judges by bribes, not to prevent them from getting a just sentence.
These new teachings were introduced slyly through the confessional, and not by some “abstract theological treatise issued by an ivory tower dissident” (Hoffman's words). Sort of like the way laws are changed by judicial activism.

Of course, one understands the right to privacy and to self-defense, especially when threatened by thugs. As they say, “when there is a conflict between justice and veracity, it is justice that should prevail”. The examples of equivocation and mental reservation given in encyclopedias are usually benign cases, which can be extrapolated to all sorts of situations, as when equivocators “sacrifice themselves to save another”. It is held that a sin is only committed if mental reservation is used without a just cause, or in cases when the questioner has a right to the naked truth. The thing is, if a crime suspect or defendant thinks the police inspector or judge questioning him is unjust, biased or hostile (acting as a private individual and not in his official capacity, therefore not entitled to the truth), he may feel free to lie without guilt.

The sanctioning of intentionally deceptive statements has serious implications for trials and oath-taking in general. For example, to Dr. Sello lying in court is a necessary evil to balance out abuse:
If you tear down the barriers which knowledge based on the experience of centuries has set up against the arbitrary action of judges, if you tear them down for the sake of so-called higher, moral and political considerations, then every one of us will find himself with his neck in the noose once his turn comes (Zukunft, 1904, No. 12).
According to the modern system, no defendant is bound to acknowledge his guilt, far less to take an oath, no matter whether the offence with which he is charged involves the penalty of death or a trifling fine. To require a defendant to swear that he is innocent would be regarded nowadays as unnatural brutality and as an unheard-of constraint upon his conscience.
- German lawyer, in Nachrichten für Stadt und Land, Oldenburg, 1903.
Do we have an alternative to lying? St. Augustine was adamant that the solution was to invoke the right to silence. Jesus used his right to remain silent before the Jewish court and before Pilate, and up until the Renaissance silence was the only possible option for Christians. Commonly, defendants are bullied into answering “no” to indiscreet questions, but from the psychological standpoint this is generally understood by both parties as a refusal to give information and a means of averting the question.

As for solemn promises, mental reservation has become a serious enough problem to merit mention in the US oath of office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
But Catholic equivocation did not fall out of sky, in a historical vacuum. Scripture-twisting, casuistry and lying are intrinsic to the Talmud. The quintessential oath terminator is the Kol nidrei of Yom Kippur, which is a declaration of intent for the anticipatory invalidation of future vows, as Hoffman puts it. Despite attempts to whitewash the rite, the Kol nidrei does in fact refer to future promises, the breaking of which is absolved in advance as long as the vow-breaker remembers the rite at the time of the promise.
And he who desires that none of his vows made during the year shall be valid, let him stand at the beginning of the year and declare “Every vow which I make in the future shall be null”, provided that he remembers [the stipulation] at the time of the vow”.
- Mishnah Nedarim 3:1
Liguori did not propose to formally nullify promises in advance but, all the same, made “changes in circumstances” a sufficient reason to break them in good conscience:
We must mark here as certain that no promise binds although it has been accepted by the other party, if afterwards it becomes impossible, or very harmful, or unlawful, or inexpedient, and, generally speaking, whenever any notable change of circumstance takes place, so that if it had been foreseen, the promise would not have been made; because a promise is always supposed to be made under such a tacit condition.
The Talmud specifies three categories about which lying is permissible: scholarship, sexuality and hospitality. The first would include the entire Talmud. The second comprises marriage, adultery, fornication, molestation, predation, seduction, sodomy, abortion and contraception, just for starters. The third would allow one to slander or cajole not only one’s host, but an entire host nation. Actually, other categories are added throughout the Talmud, such as lying to a Gentile (Baba Kamma 113a) and lying for the sake of peace (Yevamot 65b), whatever that implies. Hoffman aptly observes that affirming that lying is restricted to a few categories is in itself a lie. In reality, the Talmudic categories open up countless possibilities of ‘virtuous deception’, making a witness testimony utterly worthless.

Ecclesiastical permission to break promises and cover up sexual misconduct provides a cloak of impunity for predators. In England, nobles who broke their marriage promises to young peasant girls they had preyed on were let off the hook by laying the blame on the victim. It was argued that the girl should have known better than to accept a marriage promise from someone from a completely different social class and deserved to be punished for her levity of conduct. Making God a party to the falsification of Scripture, the Talmud also protects sexual predators:
There was once an incident involving a certain woman who came to the Academy of Rabbi Meir and said to him, “Master, one of you in this academy betrothed me last night through an act of intercourse, and then disappeared. I ask that he who betrothed me either conclude the marriage or grant me a divorce so that I may marry another man”. Wishing not to embarrass anyone who may have engaged in the unseemly practice of betrothal through intercourse, Rabbi Meir rose and wrote out for the woman a bill of divorce, and gave it to her. Recognizing the signal, all the other members of the Academy rose and wrote out a bill of divorce for her as well, and gave it to her. As a result, the identity of the wrong-doer was never revealed
- The Talmud. The Steinsaltz Edition, Vol XV, p. 104, cited by Hoffman.

Like disciplined members of a crime cartel, the Talmidei chachamim at the academy all participated in the protection of the guilty party. This cover-up is justified in the next section of BT Sanhedrin 11a, by a falsification of the text of Joshua 7:10-11, in which words are put into God's mouth and a completely asinine interpretation is spun from whole cloth. (The Talmud and Midrash are infamous for inventing Biblical passages).

Here the tractate has the Old Testament Joshua ask God, “Master of the Universe, who in actuality are the ones that sinned?” God says to him in return: “Am I an informer for you, that you ask me to reveal the identity of wrongdoer!” These words attributed to God are not in Joshua chapter 7. BT Sanhedrin 11a deduces from its own simulacra of Joshua 7 that, “Since God wanted to spare wrongdoers public humiliation, it is certainly proper for humans to act likewise”. The lesson being that the rabbis, by not becoming ‘informers’, were right to deceive the girl who had been sexually wronged by one of their brotherhood.
- Michael Hoffman. Judaism Discovered, p. 601-2
The sexual abuse culture or ‘epidemic’ which has taken hold of the Catholic Church relies on a similar crime cartel mentality, which could not have developed and survived for centuries without the grafting of casuistry onto theology and the sanctioning of ‘virtuous deception’.

A recent example of lying or mental reservation to cover up sexual exploitation: Cdl. Kevin Farrell was ordained by uber-predator Cdl. Theodore McCarrick (now defrocked), and was his housemate for six years. McCarrick was in his youth recruited by the Soviets and trained in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and went on to become a very powerful mole in the Catholic Church in the US. Along with abuser-and-satanist Cdl. Bernardin, he set up gay seminarian pipelines (young men brought in from South America and farmed out to dioceses around the country), put in place most of the current US Church nomenklatura (Cupich, Tobin, Dolan, Mahoney, Farrell, O’Malley, Malone, Gregory, and many others), and brokered the infamous (and still classified) Vatican-China deal of 2018. Being a cog in the criminal machinery and having shared living quarters with McCarrick for years, Farrell shamelessly claims to be shocked and utterly surprised by the 2018 revelations of decades-long sexual abuse of teenage boys and seminarians:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DcnV-R2im0

Farrell issued similar denials when asked about the predatory behavior of Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ. Farrell used to be a member of the organization, spent plenty of time with Fr. Maciel, and is reported to have participated in pillow fights with other Legionaries to entertain his superior (you will take the hint). Nevertheless, he claimed he knew absolutely nothing about the founder’s sexual misconduct.

So, is this straightforward lying? Or is it deep-rooted proficiency in mental reservation? Does Farrell sincerely believe that his circumstances and position justify lying to the public for the ‘noble’ cause of protecting the reputation of the hierarchy and the Church and/or because the reporter “doesn´t deserve to know the truth”? Is this a late product of Alphonsian moral theology and casuistry? One is tempted to answer in the affirmative, considering that not a single one of the 273 active bishops in the US is willing to say a word about this rot. Obviously, many bishops are not personally engaged in abuse and embezzlement, but the ‘good bishops’ are just as mum as the ‘bad bishops’.

Despite the many shocking revelations of organized sexual predation and financial malfeasance made since 2002, and even more explicitly since the 2018 ‘summer of shame’, it is business as usual in the Catholic hierarchy, with no sign of the bishops mending their ways.
Revelation 9:21
They did not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood, that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murder, sorcery, sexual immorality and theft.
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A considerable part of the material for this post was derived from the book “The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome”, by Michael Hoffman.
Mansur
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

Unread post by Mansur »

Flabbergasted wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 10:56 pm…… Canonicity ……
The post has been written obviously in the name or in defense of Christianity or of its truth. Or not so obviously, - and that is the problem. You don't seem to have made a single reference to what is the most important or even the only important thing here, namely what is meant by Christianity - according to you, or, in other words, what is YOUR Christianity? Nothing is less evident than that! And so we in truth can't know what these 'canonicity' issues actually are supposed to refer to. In other words, it is not clear where your personal interests (not biases) lie. To talk about ‘spiritual life’ where the very fundament is lacking is much more than a simple nonsense, and if this nonsense is proliferating itself in thousands and hundred of thousands of periodicals and websites etc. that will not make it less nonsense. So one is forced to guess.
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What the 'official' Church or 'official' Christianity has done throughout the centuries - in terms of destroying the community - with its power structure, including its colossal dogmatic and canonical superstructure, can be (at least while we are at it) regarded indeed as the spirit of the Talmud and its associated power structure being placed to work on a much-much higher level. The concept of Pharisaism, the very meaning of the word, is entirely a product of the Christian era and environment. So in a general indictment, the old Pharisaic caste could only occur as a 'bad example' or such like, or as a historical precedent maybe, and certainly not as the main accused.

(But anyway, nowadays both are already almost anachronisms; today's life is organized entirely by science - and what belongs to it, democracy. Our situation might be summed up thus: 'You can be religious or esoteric or traditionalist or whatever you like, and indeed it is best if you are one of these, but you have to believe in and obey science, i.e. the reality and objectivity of the world it describes, - and democracy. Otherwise, you will most probably have to expect simply not to get fed.' Without truth, there is no human life, - and when 'there is no more truth on Earth', this function is performed by a fiction that is made appear to be the will of the majority. There is no modern science without modern democracy and vice versa. But I digress.)

If we take, however, the word ‘clericalism’ instead of ‘pharisaism’, and they are pretty much synonyms – we are getting I think into our own time in a moment, I mean when history is not words and papers (and movie screen) but our very flesh and blood; the word is to be applied to matters really on the table, to things quite far away from any religious issue so-called, - and can be said really to be the very source of such a conceptions as ‘canonicity’ - and thousands of likes. The meaning of the latter being simply ‘officiality’ or such not even touching the meaning and import of the Greek word canon.
Flabbergasted wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 10:56 pmCanonicity means that a text is sanctioned by a cluster of religious authorities (bishops, theologians, saints) in time and space as orthodox and divinely inspired or revealed. It does not necessarily mean the account is historically true or accurate, although this is usually expected. For example, a wisdom tale could in theory become canonical based on its spiritual merits. Canonical or not, the Book of Esther reads more like a pagan fable than a historical account.
Don’t you think the really and only important thing being not ‘canonicity’ but the canon itself, what it is and what it means and without which ‘canonicity’ is but a construction of ‘pure’ reason absolutely senseless and lifeless, and of which there is unfortunately hardly a reference in the post?

Clericalism is common today (any intellectual move in the social spheres must by necessity imply it in one form or another), as Pharisaism was common among the ancient Hebrews in the Middle East two thousand years ago. (I think THAT is analogy! Modern media/propaganda, maybe no parts of our entire modern world by now, has absolutely no parallel in any previous ages; if there was something really analogous to that it’s vanished long ago and left no trace…)

[Sharpstuff’s recent post (‘Science is Religion’) could make any sense, I think only if viewed on this way, i.e. that modern days’ clericalism is nothing else than the old one having ‘only’ succeeded in jettisoning all the spiritual ballast the Middle Ages sustained and which we call Christianity; or else his post is a rather confused though popular enough, reasoning about our situation not being particularly happy with science and scientists and with their hands having free access to any issue in public life, including ‘opinions’.

(Even a Chesterton had to say ‘We have actually not yet tried Christianity’ or something like that)]

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Now:
Flabbergasted wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 10:56 pm Judaics seem to think that questioning the place of Esther in the Christian canon is in itself an act of anti-Semitism, something only ‘Amalekites’ would do.
That's exactly what this is all about! Absolutely no one in the whole world would be interested in these businesses of Talmud anymore or in that of the Book of Esther, or most possibly in any other Jewish things, if there were not Hoffmans by dozens and lesser ones by thousands drilled and launched to keep the iron hot all the time.

Among other anti-Semitic/Semitic propaganda themes and projects, why should this one be an exception?

The question is all the more legitimate and pressing in view of your having been very clear and explicit as to their real nature (in the very first paragraphs of your post).
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Flabbergasted wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 10:56 pm … The Judaics, whom the world still misidentifies as the spiritual heirs of the Old Testament Jews, can’t have it both ways. If the Jews were the people chosen by God to bring salvation into the world, they obviously became Christians as a result. Seen in this perspective, Judaics cannot reject Christ AND lay claim to the title of ‘the Chosen People’…
-- That’s, besides it is a nonsense - and a lie,* - an anti-Semitism. And, what kind of theology is that? What kind of logic? Provided you are a faithful Jew you are bound to become immediately a Christian, or what is more, you are already one (by the very fact that you are faithful). Jews cannot be the chosen people because – because Christians are the chosen ones… who bring salvation into the world, obviously.

* Sorry, please, it may be cheeky but I assume you are here simply paraphrasing Hoffman, - as I think, to be even cheekier, you are doing pretty much in everything here.

A sort of evolutionism seems lurking and working here at the background. Evolutionary thinking is perhaps the number one characteristics or dogma or axiom of our days without which it seems there is no scholarly presentation today. If there is an official theory called "replacement theology", why should one feel obliged to assimilate it? I’m not acquainted with the business but could imagine it as the highest possible grade of anti-Semitism pushed right from the Vatican wrapped thickly in the craftiest way into the most pious cover.

-- I don’t know either whether the ‘chosen people’ was ever doctrinal or simply ‘Talmudic’, but certainly Christianity became the heir even in this (how she could possibly have avoided it?) and it is culminating now on level poor rabbis (including media-rabbis of today) never even dared to dream of!

You don’t need to believe that, just take a try at the next time you meet a ‘Christian.’ You’ll find them all no doubt ‘qualitatively upgraded’ – at least in theory. One is really tempted to think these things are to be explained quite satisfactorily even on psychological level.

-- We know very few people are capable of or willing at all to independent reflections, but: the first logical consequences of any kinds of ''being chosen'' are not - as journalism treats it, whether for or against - privileges and prerogatives, but precisely a sense of responsibility and of bearing the burden, and of consciously and freely embracing it. And with that the ‘reflections’ are just beginning…

-- NB, a Jew cannot possibly ‘reject’ Christ – no more than a Hindu or an old Chinese for example. Do you ‘reject’ Buddha or Vishnu or any savior of other doctrines? One can reject only what one does already know, so who are really in the position to do it, are Christians, ipso facto.

-- Then, when and where was the ‘world’ in such a relation to ‘salvation’ or to its equivalent, in any doctrine religious or otherwise? The world is, in Christianity, pretty much the ‘outer darkness’. The Hebrews too had probably their own term for it.


Now, considering 1) that disgraceful details, or at least what might appear to be so, can be found in numerous, or rather countless, places in the Bible, including the Gospel texts, 2) that it seems safe enough to say that there is no corner in the Scriptures whose 'canonicity' has not been the subject of various debates over the centuries; 3) given the general practice of the method of what you term, in relation to the Book of Esther, 'pious additions' into the text of revelation (which is naturally and obviously supplemented by similarly pious removal of certain details from it), (- etc. etc…)
- the 'broad context' of the post as a whole begs the question:

From a burning house or a whole conflagration (if it is still burning or smoldering anywhere at all and not cold ashes all over the place) do you really and truly want to rescue just that damned Book of Esther – just in order that after rescuing it to put it most ceremoniously to the stake?

That seems to be the overall picture of the post - and in fact of the whole business or project ‘Should She Stay or Should She Go?’, - which latter is a ‘poetic’ question indeed, in more than one sense.
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Maybe even a simple list of problems with the post would be as long as the post itself (about twenty pages if printed) or even longer... - and among them it would certainly not the last one to say a word or two about conspiracy author Michael A. Hoffman (former colleague of the notorious Zündel, both ‘member’ of the holocaust gate-keeping group in the ’90s and after), whom to ‘expose’ would be I think hundred times more fitting in the forum than to push him in this rather roundabout way.
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That Hoffman is a ‘conspiracy’ author (i.e. a propagandist) is a thing easily demonstrable on every single page of his. Or let’s say, on any three consecutive pages. Provided of course the ‘mass deception’ filter is still living and working in us in some measure at least.

In a word, this man deserves pretty much to be given some marked place in the forum. The deception of the intellectual classes being far more serious and unspeakably more harmful to the society (and presumably enjoy the highest priority protocol of the power) than the deception of the ‘great masses'.) And since it is a class, at least formally or nominally, the 'mass deception' clause would in no way be violated...
Flabbergasted
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

Unread post by Flabbergasted »

Mansur wrote: Sat Jun 11, 2022 9:29 pmEven a Chesterton had to say ‘We have actually not yet tried Christianity’ or something like that
"Something like that" is not good enough, Mansur. You misrepresent Chesterton by truncating a famous quote it would have taken you ten seconds to find on the internet.

Image
Flabbergasted wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 10:04 pmThis is another clever technique: making it seem like your opponent supports your position.
Mansur
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

Unread post by Mansur »

It doesn't seem very thoughtful what you write, dear sir. Firstly, the quote was based entirely on a reminiscence and I noted that. Secondly, it was merely a third-rate comment within the post, parenthetical within parenthetical. Thirdly, I don't see indeed much difference between ‘We have actually not yet tried Christianity’ and 'The Christian ideal had not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried'. (Isn't the bold red frame theatrical a little bit?) If you see any significant difference here in the context of what I was saying, please point it out.

And then, this one is completely incomprehensible, at least to me; who is who and who is the opponent of whom:
Flabbergasted wrote: Fri Jun 17, 2022 2:08 pmThis is another clever technique: making it seem like your opponent supports your position.
I don't write books and so I don't publish books to gain a following and so it is more than an exaggeration to call it a 'position' from which I have tried to make a point.
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As for the Chesterton quote again, I seem to recall wanting to add that it was probably just a weak imitation of what several others before him had already noted, e.g. 'The Church is precisely that against which Christ has preached', etc. But as I said, it only touches on the matter at hand.


I have no interest whatsoever in the Christ who is or isn't at work in the brains of the Clergy (which is the exclusive domain of a Hoffman). People have lived before us 'with Christ in their hearts', and if there is indeed any 'progress', well it is, in my opinion (or let it be a position if you please so), that there is no longer any need to listen to 'official authorities' as to what is true and what is not - in this matter either. Of course in this world nothing is given for nothing...
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

Unread post by Flabbergasted »

Ok, Mansur, I will put in plain English what Chesterton is saying in that quote:
People who claim the Christian ideal is faulty and inadequate are not people who have tried it and become disappointed with it, but people who have refrained from trying it because they were unwilling to make the necessary effort.
I displayed the quote visually not for your sake but because of its linguistic refinement and power of synthesis. I couldn´t have written a sentence like that myself.

Chesterton (one of the most influential apologists of the 20th century) is not referring to the history of "the Church" or "Christianity". If he meant that "Christianity had never been tried", then what on earth is the Communion of Saints? Did Francis of Assisi fail to attain the Christian ideal? By the way, Chesterton's book on Francis of Assisi is a masterpiece.
Mansur
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Re: Thoughts on Christianity

Unread post by Mansur »

Thank you very much, but the request was as follows:
If you see any significant difference here in the context of what I was saying, please point it out.
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I think the ‘Christian ideal’ is not a fortunate term for the imitatio Christi. When you have in mind a Gospel saying, it is not an ‘ideal’ you are meditating upon, is it?

And, by the way, Christ had quite a few things to say to men of ‘linguistic refinement and power of syntesis’ if my memory serves.

Lastly, when you say ‘one of the most influential apologists of the 20th century’, it seems to me you apply to him quite an abusing term. Did he deserve it?
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