THE CAMBRIAN PESHER
THE VOICE OF THE DESPOSYNI TO THE AMERICAN DISPERSION
The Day of St. Ignatius (October 17), 2003
Beloved:
The weight of the war on terrorism, the world recession, and the troubles in the Middle East are burdening the hearts of many of you. This letter is sent as one of encouragement over lessons learned.
My best suggestion is to avoid reading the papers and listening to the news on television or radio. They are full of lies anyway and always have been. Once or twice a week is enough.
You must always remember why they exist. They do not exist to inform but to promote the agenda of the partisans which own them. This is the first lesson about power which you would be wise to learn. There are only two parties in any country and at any time in history: the Ins (the ones which are in power) and the Outs (the ones which want power). It matters not what lable they carry - Jew/Arab, Conservative/Liberal, Republican/Democrat, Protestant/Catholic, Union/Confederate, Establishment/Populist, Calvinist/Arminian, and so on - the Ins and the Outs always act the same.
Each party owns its own papers through surrogates at the behest of wealthy sponsors. They all exaggerate each other's faults (or atrocities) and glorify their own virtues (real or imagined). The villains of history are usually the previous holders of power who have been replaced by their enemies. During the time of the Reformation, the Roman Catholics were the villains. All of the atrocities by tyrannical rulers - who often acted according to their own interests and not those of the Church - were blamed on Rome. Following Rome, the Protestants gained power and left a trail of injustices of their own. The Catholic empires were replaced by the British Empire, and Britain had its turn as the world's behemoth. In the latter part of the 20th Century, we saw the rise of the Jew to world power. Being few in number, Jews have preferred to operate through surrogates - usually American - using the institutionalized apparatus of modern society. For this reason, it has taken longer to perceive the reach of their power. But that has changed through the clever use of oil money by world Arabs. Now the Jews are being blamed for all of the ills of the world. Blame is heaped on the Ins when the Outs are becoming strong enough to challenge the power of the Ins.
I remember the doom and gloom of conservative publications during the 1960s and 70s (e.g. None Dare Call It Treason). They portrayed Soviet power as irresistable and menacing. According to them, our leaders were either inept or traitors for not pursuing policies which would "save" America from the clutches of Communism. It was all party propaganda; for we now know that the Soviets were never capable of world domination. But the menace was necessary for the election of Ronald Reagan and of future Establishment conservatives during the 1980s. People don't respond to facts and statistics. They don't base their decisions on rational thought. They respond to emotional issues which are often difficult to articulate. They respond to yellow journalism.
Today, the Jews are slowly losing power. They sense this. That is why they foolishly lash-out with irrational attacks on innocent portrayals of the Christian story (e.g. Mel Gibson's latest movie: The Passion).
Revisionist historians are being felt. With an agenda of their own (such as Michael Hoffman, a Lutheran of German descent, who understandably wants to exonerate his ancestors), they have caught the Jews in their own yellow journalism: the mythology surrounding the Holocaust. What began as a justified horror of Nazi cruelty to the Jews, which resulted in many hundreds of thousands of deliberate homicides, it was exaggerated first to two million and then finally to six million deaths. As Reformed theologian, R. J. Rushdoony, has noted, this demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of modern man. So jaded did 20th Century man become, so apathetic to massive death in war and famine, the deaths of a few hundred thousand Jews was an insignificant event in the story of that bloody century. The Jews had to exaggerate the figure to six million before it would have its desired moral effect.[1]
The modern state of Israel is in a desperate struggle for survival. The West ignores this and demands it fight a gentleman's war against a vast ocean of enemies. Our experience in Iraq will teach us the folly of this expectation. The Israelis cannot just pack up and leave town. There is no doctrine of forgiveness in Islamic theology, only retribution. The Arabs will carry a grudge to the end of time. With their current world view, they will never accept Israel's right to exist. For all of its faults and crimes, Israel is still a Western democracy and the only one in that part of the world. Would peace come to the world if the Arabs regained Palestine? I don't think so. Next would be Spain and then an attempt to re-fight the Battle of Tours, which stopped the march of Islam into Europe during the Middle Ages. Imagine that! Militant Muslims want to reverse a thousand years of history.
I am fond of quoting Ezekiel's prophecy (21:26-27) on these matters, and I do so again:
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.
Our Lord said that "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom" (Matthew 24) until His reign shall prevail (1 Corinthians 15:24-26). So says Ignatius in his epistle to the Ephesians:
19. From that time forward [since our Lord's nativity and the appearance of the glorious star above Bethlehem] every sorcery and every spell was dissolved, the ignorance of wickedness vanished away, the ancient kingdom was pulled down, when God appeared in the likeness of man unto newness of everlasting life; and that which had been perfected in the counsels of God began to take effect. Thence all things were perturbed, because the abolishing of death was taken in hand.
That there is no longer any such thing as sorcery and "psychic powers" was the general view of the early Fathers. Christ's atonement disarmed the "principalities and powers" (Colossians 2:15) - i.e. the angelic hosts - which gave strength to the governments of men and their soothsayers.
Unregenerate man wants to indulge in the myth of magic. Even children's cartoons, refusing to give glory to God, teach our children that the wonders of creation are the result of magic. "Do you believe in magic" is the wearisome refrain of one popular fast-food chain's commercial.
Some Jews want a return to animal sacrifice. In this they are in league with satanists: to deny the efficacy of our Lord's death and resurrection. With the shedding of His precious blood, there is no longer any need for a sacrificial death and no demon which requires appeasement. The ancient kingdom of Satan was pulled down at the Cross. We only need the faith to believe. But books like the Harry Potter novels, and unfortunately, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, absorb the mind with the power of evil, when according to Christian doctrine, evil no longer has any power. These do not promote faith, but gloom and depression.
Today is the Day of St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (1st Century) and martyr. He is an important figure of the Early Church; for he was contemporary with the Apostles. There are seven of his epistles which have been validated by scholars. In his letter to the Philadelphians, he warns of faiths which do not speak concerning Jesus Christ "as tombstones and graves of the dead":
6. Shun ye therefore the wicked arts and plottings of the prince of this world, lest haply ye be crushed by his devices, and wax weak in your love.
The only power left to Satan is the power of illusion and delusion. When Christians indulge in unbiblical fantasies, they empower Satan's control over themselves and the world.
Ignatius teaches us that the only sanctified government in the world is the kingdom of Jesus Christ as it is mediated through His duly appointed bishops. Ignatius says this in a number of places:
If any one be not within the precinct of the altar, he lacketh the bread [of God]. For, if the prayer of one and another hath so great force, how much more that of the bishop and of the whole Church. Whosoever therefore cometh not to the congregation, he doth thereby show his pride and hath separated himself; for it is written, "God resisteth the proud." Let us therefore be careful not to resist the bishop, that by our submission we may give ourselves to God. And in proportion as a man seeth that his bishop is silent, let him fear him the more. For every one whom the Master of the household sendeth to be steward over His own house, we ought so to receive as Him that sent him. Plainly therefore we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself.
- to the Ephesians 5-6
I advise you, be ye zealous to do all things in godly concord, the bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the Apostles, with the deacons . . . having been entrusted with the diaconate of Jesus Christ . . . Therefore as the Lord did nothing without the Father [being united with Him], either by Himself or by the Apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and the presbyters.
- to the Magnesians 6-7
For when ye are obedient to the bishops as to Jesus Christ, it is evident to me that ye are living not after men but after Jesus Christ, who died for us, that believing on His death ye might escape death. It is therefore necessary, even as your wont is, that ye should do nothing without the bishop; but be ye obedient also to the presbytery, as to the Apostles of Jesus Christ our hope . . . In like manner let all men respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the council of God and as the college of Apostles. Apart from these there is not even the name of a church.
- to the Trallians 2-3
It is clear from the texts that bishops do not follow from a line of Apostolic succession with the presbytery, but rather, represent a Messianic office.
Now the Lord forgiveth all men when they repent, if repenting they return to the unity of God and to the council of the bishop.
- to the Philadelphians 8
Do ye all follow your bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the Father, and the presbytery as the Apostles; and to the deacons pay respect, as to God's commandment. Let no man do aught of things pertaining to the Church apart from the bishop. Let that be held a valid eucharist which is under the bishop or one to whom he shall have committed it. Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be; even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal Church. It is not lawful apart from the bishop either to baptize or to hold a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve, this is well-pleasing also to God; that everything which ye do may be sure and valid.
- to the Smyrnaeans 8
He instructs Polycarp that when men and women marry, they should "unite themselves with the consent of the bishop, that the marriage may be after the Lord and not after concupiscence" (to Polycarp 5). Here we find an allusion to hierogamy.
While Ignatius did not commit to writing the mysteries of the Church, he strongly hinted at them. To the Magnesians, he said, "It is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism. For Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity, wherein every tongue believed and was gathered together unto God." (10)
Such a statement makes no sense if we understand Christianity without the context of the Messianic office. Ignatius is referring to the shepherds of Israel who were of the royal house of David and were priests "after the order of Melchizedek". This is the Christianity which existed before Judaism.[2]
Referring in his epistles several times to our Lord's Davidic origins, he identifies three of the Church's mysteries: "the virginity of Mary and her child-bearing and likewise also the death of the Lord" (Ephesians 18). Only masters of the Torah can understand these mysteries.
17. For this cause the Lord received ointment on His head, that He might breathe incorruption upon the Church.
18. . . and He was born and was baptized that by His passion He might cleanse water.
20. . . who after the flesh was of David's race, who is Son of Man and Son of God, to the end that ye may obey the bishop and the presbytery without distraction of mind; breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die but live for ever in Jesus Christ.
None of this makes sense unless you understand the doctrine of covenantal unity, and that unity is maintained, from the ancient times until now, in the Messianic office of the bishops.[3]
The frequent meetings of the saints with their bishop "cast down the powers of Satan" (13). Christians are known by their actions (14).
The prophets of old were Christians and not followers of Judaism (Magnesians 8). Because of their faith, "and for this cause He whom they rightly awaited, when He came, raised them from the dead" (9). This was the resurrection of Matthew 27:52-53 in fulfillment of Daniel 12:2.
Finally, I call attention to his warning, first to rulers who are not in fellowship with the blood of Christ (the Smyrnaeans 6) which is the Desposyni and to all who have no care for the widow, the orphan, the afflicted and so on. In so doing they fail to discern the Lord's body, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which now lives in His people. Churchianity, in putting organization ahead of people, has defiled its Eucharist.
The joy which we share, however, is that our Father has not left us to ourselves, but has sent us His Spirit, through which we are partakers of His Divine nature. While the corrupt nature of fallen man continues to plague the world, let us take comfort in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is the great instructor of mankind, and that she will not suffer evil to prevail. History marches on toward the Messianic kingdom.
a servant of Jesus,
James
Collect for the Day:
Almighty God, who gave to your servant Ignatius boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Footnotes:
[1] It is also helpful to understand how the Holocaust fits into modern Jewish theology. For modern Judaism, at least for Zionism, the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament are intrepreted to refer to all of the Jewish people in a collective sense and not to a single heroic individual who comes as a savior of the people. Thus, the term "holocaust" is used describe the sufferings of the Jews during the Second World War. "Holocaust" is based upon the Hebrew concept for a burnt sacrifice (hence, the Nazi ovens) and the Jews themselves are represented as the atoning sacrifice for the Jewish people. This self-atonement is then understood to have the effect of sanctifying the Jewish people and entitling them to return to Palestine to restore the Holy Land and the service of the Temple.
[2] "Christian" comes from "Christ" which means "anointed one". The Old Testament faithful which followed the "anointed ones" - the kings of Israel - were following the christs.
[3] If you want to enroll as a catechumen in our discipling program, please contact us at overseer@grailchurch.org