Podcasts about aesculapius

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2024 1:28

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2024

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

cross temple syria laodicea christian god diocletian vitalis presbyter aesculapius

521 The Deity of Christ from a Greco-Roman Perspective (Sean Finnegan)

Restitutio

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2023 56:33

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Let's face it the New Testament probably calls Jesus God (or god) a couple of times and so do early Christian authors in the second century. However, no one offers much of an explanation for what they mean by the title. Did early Christians think Jesus was God because he represented Yahweh? Did they think he was God because he shared the same eternal being as the Father? Did they think he was a god because that's just what they would call any immortalized human who lived in heaven? In this presentation I focus on the question from the perspective of Greco-Roman theology. Drawing on the work of David Litwa, Andrew Perriman, Barry Blackburn, and tons of ancient sources I seek to show how Mediterranean converts to Christianity would have perceived Jesus based on their cultural and religious assumptions. This presentation is from the 3rd Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference on October 20, 2023 in Springfield, OH. Here is the original pdf of this paper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Z3QbQ7dHc —— Links —— See more scholarly articles by Sean Finnegan Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan? Read his bio here Introduction When early Christian authors called Jesus “god” (or “God”) what did they mean?[1] Modern apologists routinely point to pre-Nicene quotations in order to prove that early Christians always believed in the deity of Christ, by which they mean that he is of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father. However, most historians agree that Christians before the fourth century simply didn't have the cognitive categories available yet to think of Christ in Nicene or Chalcedonian ways. If this consensus is correct, it behooves us to consider other options for defining what early Christian authors meant. The obvious place to go to get an answer to our initial question is the New Testament. However, as is well known, the handful of instances in which authors unambiguously applied god (θεός) to Christ are fraught with textual uncertainty, grammatical ambiguity, and hermeneutical elasticity.[2] What's more, granting that these contested texts[3] all call Jesus “god” provides little insight into what they might mean by that phrase. Turning to the second century, the earliest handful of texts that say Jesus is god are likewise textually uncertain or terse.[4] We must wait until the second half of the second century and beyond to have more helpful material to examine. We know that in the meanwhile some Christians were saying Jesus was god. What did they mean? One promising approach is to analyze biblical texts that call others gods. We find helpful parallels with the word god (אֱלֹהִים) applied to Moses (Exod 7.1; 4.16), judges (Exod 21.6; 22.8-9), kings (Is 9.6; Ps 45.6), the divine council (Ps 82.1, 6), and angels (Ps 8.6). These are texts in which God imbues his agents with his authority to represent him in some way. This rare though significant way of calling a representative “god,” continues in the NT with Jesus' clever defense to his accusers in John 10.34-36. Lexicons[5] have long recognized this “Hebraistic” usage and recent study tools such as the New English Translation (NET)[6] and the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary[7] also note this phenomenon. But, even if this agency perspective is the most natural reading of texts like Heb 1.8, later Christians, apart from one or two exceptions appear to be ignorant of this usage.[8] This interpretation was likely a casualty of the so-called parting of the ways whereby Christianity transitioned from a second-temple-Jewish movement to a Gentile-majority religion. As such, to grasp what early postapostolic Christians believed, we must turn our attention elsewhere. Michael Bird is right when he says, “Christian discourses about deity belong incontrovertibly in the Greco-Roman context because it provided the cultural encyclopedia that, in diverse ways, shaped the early church's Christological conceptuality and vocabulary.”[9] Learning Greco-Roman theology is not only important because that was the context in which early Christians wrote, but also because from the late first century onward, most of our Christian authors converted from that worldview. Rather than talking about the Hellenization of Christianity, we should begin by asking how Hellenists experienced Christianization. In other words, Greco-Roman beliefs about the gods were the default lens through which converts first saw Christ. In order to explore how Greco-Roman theology shaped what people believed about Jesus as god, we do well to begin by asking how they defined a god. Andrew Perriman offers a helpful starting point. “The gods,” he writes, “are mostly understood as corporeal beings, blessed with immortality, larger, more beautiful, and more powerful than their mortal analogues.”[10] Furthermore, there were lots of them! The sublunar realm was, in the words of Paula Fredriksen, “a god-congested place.”[11] What's more, “[S]harp lines and clearly demarcated boundaries between divinity and humanity were lacking."[12] Gods could appear as people and people could ascend to become gods. Comprehending what Greco-Roman people believed about gods coming down and humans going up will occupy the first part of this paper. Only once we've adjusted our thinking to their culture, will we walk through key moments in the life of Jesus of Nazareth to hear the story with ancient Mediterranean ears. Lastly, we'll consider the evidence from sources that think of Jesus in Greco-Roman categories. Bringing this all together we'll enumerate the primary ways to interpret the phrase “Jesus is god” available to Christians in the pre-Nicene period. Gods Coming Down and Humans Going Up The idea that a god would visit someone is not as unusual as it first sounds. We find plenty of examples of Yahweh himself or non-human representatives visiting people in the Hebrew Bible.[13] One psalmist even referred to angels or “heavenly beings” (ESV) as אֱלֹהִים (gods).[14] The Greco-Roman world too told stories about divine entities coming down to interact with people. Euripides tells about the time Zeus forced the god Apollo to become a human servant in the house of Admetus, performing menial labor as punishment for killing the Cyclopes (Alcestis 1). Baucis and Philemon offered hospitality to Jupiter and Mercury when they appeared in human form (Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.26-34). In Homer's Odyssey onlookers warn Antinous for flinging a stool against a stranger since “the gods do take on the look of strangers dropping in from abroad”[15] (17.534-9). Because they believed the boundary between the divine realm and the Earth was so permeable, Mediterranean people were always on guard for an encounter with a god in disguise. In addition to gods coming down, in special circumstances, humans could ascend and become gods too. Diodorus of Sicily demarcated two types of gods: those who are “eternal and imperishable, such as the sun and the moon” and “the other gods…terrestrial beings who attained to immortal honour”[16] (The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian 6.1). By some accounts, even the Olympian gods, including Kronos and Uranus were once mortal men.[17] Among humans who could become divine, we find several distinguishable categories, including heroes, miracle workers, and rulers. We'll look at each briefly before considering how the story of Jesus would resonate with those holding a Greco-Roman worldview. Deified Heroes Cornutus the Stoic said, “[T]he ancients called heroes those who were so strong in body and soul that they seemed to be part of a divine race.” (Greek Theology 31)[18] At first this statement appears to be a mere simile, but he goes on to say of Heracles (Hercules), the Greek hero par excellence, “his services had earned him apotheosis” (ibid.). Apotheosis (or deification) is the process by which a human ascends into the divine realm. Beyond Heracles and his feats of strength, other exceptional individuals became deified for various reasons. Amphiarus was a seer who died in the battle at Thebes. After opening a chasm in the earth to swallow him in battle, “Zeus made him immortal”[19] (Apollodorus, Library of Greek Mythology 3.6). Pausanias says the custom of the inhabitants of Oropos was to drop coins into Amphiarus' spring “because this is where they say Amphiarus rose up as a god”[20] (Guide to Greece 1.34). Likewise, Strabo speaks about a shrine for Calchas, a deceased diviner from the Trojan war (Homer, Illiad 1.79-84), “where those consulting the oracle sacrifice a black ram to the dead and sleep in its hide”[21] (Strabo, Geography 6.3.9). Though the great majority of the dead were locked away in the lower world of Hades, leading a shadowy pitiful existence, the exceptional few could visit or speak from beyond the grave. Lastly, there was Zoroaster the Persian prophet who, according to Dio Chrysostom, was enveloped by fire while he meditated upon a mountain. He was unharmed and gave advice on how to properly make offerings to the gods (Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 36.40). The Psuedo-Clementine Homilies include a story about a lightning bolt striking and killing Zoroaster. After his devotees buried his body, they built a temple on the site, thinking that “his soul had been sent for by lightning” and they “worshipped him as a god”[22] (Homily 9.5.2). Thus, a hero could have extraordinary strength, foresight, or closeness to the gods resulting in apotheosis and ongoing worship and communication. Deified Miracle Workers Beyond heroes, Greco-Roman people loved to tell stories about deified miracle workers. Twice Orpheus rescued a ship from a storm by praying to the gods (Diodorus of Sicily 4.43.1f; 48.5f). After his death, surviving inscriptions indicate that he both received worship and was regarded as a god in several cities.[23] Epimenides “fell asleep in a cave for fifty-seven years”[24] (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 1.109). He also predicted a ten-year period of reprieve from Persian attack in Athens (Plato Laws 1.642D-E). Plato called him a divine man (θεῖος ἀνήρ) (ibid.) and Diogenes talked of Cretans sacrificing to him as a god (Diogenes, Lives 1.114). Iamblichus said Pythagoras was the son of Apollo and a mortal woman (Life of Pythagoras 2). Nonetheless, the soul of Pythagoras enjoyed multiple lives, having originally been “sent to mankind from the empire of Apollo”[25] (Life 2). Diogenes and Lucian enumerate the lives the pre-existent Pythagoras led, including Aethalides, Euphorbus, Hermotimus, and Pyrrhus (Diogenes, Life of Pythagoras 4; Lucian, The Cock 16-20). Hermes had granted Pythagoras the gift of “perpetual transmigration of his soul”[26] so he could remember his lives while living or dead (Diogenes, Life 4). Ancient sources are replete with Pythagorean miracle stories.[27] Porphyry mentions several, including taming a bear, persuading an ox to stop eating beans, and accurately predicting a catch of fish (Life of Pythagoras 23-25). Porphyry said Pythagoras accurately predicted earthquakes and “chased away a pestilence, suppressed violent winds and hail, [and] calmed storms on rivers and on seas” (Life 29).[28] Such miracles, argued the Pythagoreans made Pythagoras “a being superior to man, and not to a mere man” (Iamblichus, Life 28).[29] Iamblichus lays out the views of Pythagoras' followers, including that he was a god, a philanthropic daemon, the Pythian, the Hyperborean Apollo, a Paeon, a daemon inhabiting the moon, or an Olympian god (Life 6). Another pre-Socratic philosopher was Empedocles who studied under Pythagoras. To him sources attribute several miracles, including stopping a damaging wind, restoring the wind, bringing dry weather, causing it to rain, and even bringing someone back from Hades (Diogenes, Lives 8.59).[30] Diogenes records an incident in which Empedocles put a woman into a trance for thirty days before sending her away alive (8.61). He also includes a poem in which Empedocles says, “I am a deathless god, no longer mortal, I go among you honored by all, as is right”[31] (8.62). Asclepius was a son of the god Apollo and a human woman (Cornutus, Greek Theology 33). He was known for healing people from diseases and injuries (Pindar, Pythian 3.47-50). “[H]e invented any medicine he wished for the sick, and raised up the dead”[32] (Pausanias, Guide to Greece 2.26.4). However, as Diodorus relates, Hades complained to Zeus on account of Asclepius' diminishing his realm, which resulted in Zeus zapping Asclepius with a thunderbolt, killing him (4.71.2-3). Nevertheless, Asclepius later ascended into heaven to become a god (Hyginus, Fables 224; Cicero, Nature of the Gods 2.62).[33] Apollonius of Tyana was a famous first century miracle worker. According to Philostratus' account, the locals of Tyana regard Apollonius to be the son of Zeus (Life 1.6). Apollonius predicted many events, interpreted dreams, and knew private facts about people. He rebuked and ridiculed a demon, causing it to flee, shrieking as it went (Life 2.4).[34] He even once stopped a funeral procession and raised the deceased to life (Life 4.45). What's more he knew every human language (Life 1.19) and could understand what sparrows chirped to each other (Life 4.3). Once he instantaneously transported himself from Smyrna to Ephesus (Life 4.10). He claimed knowledge of his previous incarnation as the captain of an Egyptian ship (Life 3.23) and, in the end, Apollonius entered the temple of Athena and vanished, ascending from earth into heaven to the sound of a choir singing (Life 8.30). We have plenty of literary evidence that contemporaries and those who lived later regarded him as a divine man (Letters 48.3)[35] or godlike (ἰσόθεος) (Letters 44.1) or even just a god (θεός) (Life 5.24). Deified Rulers Our last category of deified humans to consider before seeing how this all relates to Jesus is rulers. Egyptians, as indicated from the hieroglyphs left in the pyramids, believed their deceased kings to enjoy afterlives as gods. They could become star gods or even hunt and consume other gods to absorb their powers.[36] The famous Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great, carried himself as a god towards the Persians though Plutarch opines, “[he] was not at all vain or deluded but rather used belief in his divinity to enslave others”[37] (Life of Alexander 28). This worship continued after his death, especially in Alexandria where Ptolemy built a tomb and established a priesthood to conduct religious honors to the deified ruler. Even the emperor Trajan offered a sacrifice to the spirit of Alexander (Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.30). Another interesting example is Antiochus I of Comagene who called himself “Antiochus the just [and] manifest god, friend of the Romans [and] friend of the Greeks.”[38] His tomb boasted four colossal figures seated on thrones: Zeus, Heracles, Apollo, and himself. The message was clear: Antiochus I wanted his subjects to recognize his place among the gods after death. Of course, the most relevant rulers for the Christian era were the Roman emperors. The first official Roman emperor Augustus deified his predecessor, Julius Caesar, celebrating his apotheosis with games (Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar 88). Only five years after Augustus died, eastern inhabitants of the Roman Empire at Priene happily declared “the birthday of the god Augustus” (ἡ γενέθλιος ἡμέρα τοῦ θεοῦ)[39] to be the start of their provincial year. By the time of Tacitus, a century after Augustus died, the wealthy in Rome had statues of the first emperor in their gardens for worship (Annals 1.73). The Roman historian Appian explained that the Romans regularly deify emperors at death “provided he has not been a despot or a disgrace”[40] (The Civil Wars 2.148). In other words, deification was the default setting for deceased emperors. Pliny the Younger lays it on pretty thick when he describes the process. He says Nero deified Claudius to expose him; Titus deified Vespasian and Domitian so he could be the son and brother of gods. However, Trajan deified Nerva because he genuinely believed him to be more than a human (Panegyric 11). In our little survey, we've seen three main categories of deified humans: heroes, miracle workers, and good rulers. These “conceptions of deity,” writes David Litwa, “were part of the “preunderstanding” of Hellenistic culture.”[41] He continues: If actual cases of deification were rare, traditions of deification were not. They were the stuff of heroic epic, lyric song, ancient mythology, cultic hymns, Hellenistic novels, and popular plays all over the first-century Mediterranean world. Such discourses were part of mainstream, urban culture to which most early Christians belonged. If Christians were socialized in predominantly Greco-Roman environments, it is no surprise that they employed and adapted common traits of deities and deified men to exalt their lord to divine status.[42] Now that we've attuned our thinking to Mediterranean sensibilities about gods coming down in the shape of humans and humans experiencing apotheosis to permanently dwell as gods in the divine realm, our ears are attuned to hear the story of Jesus with Greco-Roman ears. Hearing the Story of Jesus with Greco-Roman Ears How would second or third century inhabitants of the Roman empire have categorized Jesus? Taking my cue from Litwa's treatment in Iesus Deus, I'll briefly work through Jesus' conception, transfiguration, miracles, resurrection, and ascension. Miraculous Conception Although set within the context of Jewish messianism, Christ's miraculous birth would have resonated differently with Greco-Roman people. Stories of gods coming down and having intercourse with women are common in classical literature. That these stories made sense of why certain individuals were so exceptional is obvious. For example, Origen related a story about Apollo impregnating Amphictione who then gave birth to Plato (Against Celsus 1.37). Though Mary's conception did not come about through intercourse with a divine visitor, the fact that Jesus had no human father would call to mind divine sonship like Pythagoras or Asclepius. Celsus pointed out that the ancients “attributed a divine origin to Perseus, and Amphion, and Aeacus, and Minos” (Origen, Against Celsus 1.67). Philostratus records a story of the Egyptian god Proteus saying to Apollonius' mother that she would give birth to himself (Life of Apollonius of Tyana 1.4). Since people were primed to connect miraculous origins with divinity, typical hearers of the birth narratives of Matthew or Luke would likely think that this baby might be either be a descended god or a man destined to ascend to become a god. Miracles and Healing As we've seen, Jesus' miracles would not have sounded unbelievable or even unprecedent to Mediterranean people. Like Jesus, Orpheus and Empedocles calmed storms, rescuing ships. Though Jesus provided miraculous guidance on how to catch fish, Pythagoras foretold the number of fish in a great catch. After the fishermen painstakingly counted them all, they were astounded that when they threw them back in, they were still alive (Porphyry, Life 23-25). Jesus' ability to foretell the future, know people's thoughts, and cast out demons all find parallels in Apollonius of Tyana. As for resurrecting the dead, we have the stories of Empedocles, Asclepius, and Apollonius. The last of which even stopped a funeral procession to raise the dead, calling to mind Jesus' deeds in Luke 7.11-17. When Lycaonians witnessed Paul's healing of a man crippled from birth, they cried out, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men” (Acts 14.11). Another time when no harm befell Paul after a poisonous snake bit him on Malta, Gentile onlookers concluded “he was a god” (Acts 28.6). Barry Blackburn makes the following observation: [I]n view of the tendency, most clearly seen in the Epimenidean, Pythagorean, and Apollonian traditions, to correlate impressive miracle-working with divine status, one may justifiably conclude that the evangelical miracle traditions would have helped numerous gentile Christians to arrive at and maintain belief in Jesus' divine status.[43] Transfiguration Ancient Mediterranean inhabitants believed that the gods occasionally came down disguised as people. Only when gods revealed their inner brilliant natures could people know that they weren't mere humans. After his ship grounded on the sands of Krisa, Apollo leaped from the ship emitting flashes of fire “like a star in the middle of day…his radiance shot to heaven”[44] (Homeric Hymns, Hymn to Apollo 440). Likewise, Aphrodite appeared in shining garments, brighter than a fire and shimmering like the moon (Hymn to Aphrodite 85-89). When Demeter appeared to Metaneira, she initially looked like an old woman, but she transformed herself before her. “Casting old age away…a delightful perfume spread…a radiance shone out far from the goddess' immortal flesh…and the solid-made house was filled with a light like the lightning-flash”[45] (Hymn to Demeter 275-280). Homer wrote about Odysseus' transformation at the golden wand of Athena in which his clothes became clean, he became taller, and his skin looked younger. His son, Telemachus cried out, “Surely you are some god who rules the vaulting skies”[46] (Odyssey 16.206). Each time the observers conclude the transfigured person is a god. Resurrection & Ascension In defending the resurrection of Jesus, Theophilus of Antioch said, “[Y]ou believe that Hercules, who burned himself, lives; and that Aesculapius [Asclepius], who was struck with lightning, was raised”[47] (Autolycus 1.13). Although Hercules' physical body burnt, his transformed pneumatic body continued on as the poet Callimachus said, “under a Phrygian oak his limbs had been deified”[48] (Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis 159). Others thought Hercules ascended to heaven in his burnt body, which Asclepius subsequently healed (Lucian, Dialogue of the Gods 13). After his ascent, Diodorus relates how the people first sacrificed to him “as to a hero” then in Athens they began to honor him “with sacrifices like as to a god”[49] (The Historical Library 4.39). As for Asclepius, his ascension resulted in his deification as Cyprian said, “Aesculapius is struck by lightning, that he may rise into a god”[50] (On the Vanity of Idols 2). Romulus too “was torn to pieces by the hands of a hundred senators”[51] and after death ascended into heaven and received worship (Arnobius, Against the Heathen 1.41). Livy tells of how Romulus was “carried up on high by a whirlwind” and that immediately afterward “every man present hailed him as a god and son of a god”[52] (The Early History of Rome 1.16). As we can see from these three cases—Hercules, Asclepius, and Romulus—ascent into heaven was a common way of talking about deification. For Cicero, this was an obvious fact. People “who conferred outstanding benefits were translated to heaven through their fame and our gratitude”[53] (Nature 2.62). Consequently, Jesus' own resurrection and ascension would have triggered Gentiles to intuit his divinity. Commenting on the appearance of the immortalized Christ to the eleven in Galilee, Wendy Cotter said, “It is fair to say that the scene found in [Mat] 28:16-20 would be understood by a Greco-Roman audience, Jew or Gentile, as an apotheosis of Jesus.”[54] Although I beg to differ with Cotter's whole cloth inclusion of Jews here, it's hard to see how else non-Jews would have regarded the risen Christ. Litwa adds Rev 1.13-16 “[W]here he [Jesus] appears with all the accoutrements of the divine: a shining face, an overwhelming voice, luminescent clothing, and so on.”[55] In this brief survey we've seen that several key events in the story of Jesus told in the Gospels would have caused Greco-Roman hearers to intuit deity, including his divine conception, miracles, healing ministry, transfiguration, resurrection, and ascension. In their original context of second temple Judaism, these very same incidents would have resonated quite differently. His divine conception authenticated Jesus as the second Adam (Luke 3.38; Rom 5.14; 1 Cor 15.45) and God's Davidic son (2 Sam 7.14; Ps 2.7; Lk 1.32, 35). If Matthew or Luke wanted readers to understand that Jesus was divine based on his conception and birth, they failed to make such intentions explicit in the text. Rather, the birth narratives appear to have a much more modest aim—to persuade readers that Jesus had a credible claim to be Israel's messiah. His miracles show that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power…for God was with him” (Acts 10.38; cf. Jn 3.2; 10.32, 38). Rather than concluding Jesus to be a god, Jewish witnesses to his healing of a paralyzed man “glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Mat 9.8). Over and over, especially in the Gospel of John, Jesus directs people's attention to his Father who was doing the works in and through him (Jn 5.19, 30; 8.28; 12.49; 14.10). Seeing Jesus raise someone from the dead suggested to his original Jewish audience that “a great prophet has arisen among us” (Lk 7.16). The transfiguration, in its original setting, is an eschatological vision not a divine epiphany. Placement in the synoptic Gospels just after Jesus' promise that some there would not die before seeing the kingdom come sets the hermeneutical frame. “The transfiguration,” says William Lane, “was a momentary, but real (and witnessed) manifestation of Jesus' sovereign power which pointed beyond itself to the Parousia, when he will come ‘with power and glory.'”[56] If eschatology is the foreground, the background for the transfiguration was Moses' ascent of Sinai when he also encountered God and became radiant.[57] Viewed from the lenses of Moses' ascent and the eschaton, the transfiguration of Jesus is about his identity as God's definitive chosen ruler, not about any kind of innate divinity. Lastly, the resurrection and ascension validated Jesus' messianic claims to be the ruler of the age to come (Acts 17.31; Rom 1.4). Rather than concluding Jesus was deity, early Jewish Christians concluded these events showed that “God has made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2.36). The interpretative backgrounds for Jesus' ascension were not stories about Heracles, Asclepius, or Romulus. No, the key oracle that framed the Israelite understanding was the messianic psalm in which Yahweh told David's Lord to “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110.1). The idea is of a temporary sojourn in heaven until exercising the authority of his scepter to rule over earth from Zion. Once again, the biblical texts remain completely silent about deification. But even if the original meanings of Jesus' birth, ministry, transfiguration, resurrection, and ascension have messianic overtones when interpreted within the Jewish milieu, these same stories began to communicate various ideas of deity to Gentile converts in the generations that followed. We find little snippets from historical sources beginning in the second century and growing with time. Evidence of Belief in Jesus' as a Greco-Roman Deity To begin with, we have two non-Christian instances where Romans regarded Jesus as a deity within typical Greco-Roman categories. The first comes to us from Tertullian and Eusebius who mention an intriguing story about Tiberius' request to the Roman senate to deify Christ. Convinced by “intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ's divinity”[58] Tiberius proposed the matter to the senate (Apology 5). Eusebius adds that Tiberius learned that “many believed him to be a god in rising from the dead”[59] (Church History 2.2). As expected, the senate rejected the proposal. I mention this story, not because I can establish its historicity, but because it portrays how Tiberius would have thought about Jesus if he had heard about his miracles and resurrection. Another important incident is from one of the governor Pliny the Younger's letters to the emperor Trajan. Having investigated some people accused of Christianity, he found “they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god”[60] (Letter 96). To an outside imperial observer like Pliny, the Christians believed in a man who had performed miracles, defeated death, and now lived in heaven. Calling him a god was just the natural way of talking about such a person. Pliny would not have thought Jesus was superior to the deified Roman emperors much less Zeus or the Olympic gods. If he believed in Jesus at all, he would have regarded him as another Mediterranean prophet who escaped Hades to enjoy apotheosis. Another interesting text to consider is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This apocryphal text tells the story of Jesus' childhood between the ages of five and twelve. Jesus is impetuous, powerful, and brilliant. Unsure to conclude that Jesus was “either god or angel,”[61] his teacher remands him to Joseph's custody (7). Later, a crowd of onlookers ponders whether the child is a god or a heavenly messenger after he raises an infant from the dead (17). A year later Jesus raised a construction man who had fallen to his death back to life (18). Once again, the crowd asked if the child was from heaven. Although some historians are quick to assume the lofty conceptions of Justin and his successors about the logos were commonplace in the early Christianity, Litwa points out, “The spell of the Logos could only bewitch a very small circle of Christian elites… In IGT, we find a Jesus who is divine according to different canons, the canons of popular Mediterranean theology.”[62] Another important though often overlooked scholarly group of Christians in the second century was led by a certain Theodotus of Byzantium.[63] Typically referred to by their heresiological label “Theodotians,” these dynamic monarchians lived in Rome and claimed that they held to the original Christology before it had been corrupted under Bishop Zephyrinus (Eusebius, Church History 5.28). Theodotus believed in the virgin birth, but not in his pre-existence or that he was god/God (Pseudo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 7.35.1-2; 10.23.1-2). He thought that Jesus was not able to perform any miracles until his baptism when he received the Christ/Spirit. Pseudo-Hippolytus goes on to say, “But they do not want him to have become a god when the Spirit descended. Others say that he became a god after he rose from the dead.”[64] This last tantalizing remark implies that the Theodotians could affirm Jesus as a god after his resurrection though they denied his pre-existence. Although strict unitarians, they could regard Jesus as a god in that he was an ascended immortalized being who lived in heaven—not equal to the Father, but far superior to all humans on earth. Justin Martyr presents another interesting case to consider. Thoroughly acquainted with Greco-Roman literature and especially the philosophy of Plato, Justin sees Christ as a god whom the Father begot before all other creatures. He calls him “son, or wisdom, or angel, or god, or lord, or word”[65] (Dialogue with Trypho 61). For Justin Christ is “at the same time angel and god and lord and man”[66] (59). Jesus was “of old the Word, appearing at one time in the form of fire, at another under the guise of incorporeal beings, but now, at the will of God, after becoming man for mankind”[67] (First Apology 63). In fact, Justin is quite comfortable to compare Christ to deified heroes and emperors. He says, “[W]e propose nothing new or different from that which you say about the so-called sons of Jupiter [Zeus] by your respected writers… And what about the emperors who die among you, whom you think worthy to be deified?”[68] (21). He readily accepts the parallels with Mercury, Perseus, Asclepius, Bacchus, and Hercules, but argues that Jesus is superior to them (22).[69] Nevertheless, he considered Jesus to be in “a place second to the unchanging and eternal God”[70] (13). The Father is “the Most True God” whereas the Son is he “who came forth from Him”[71] (6). Even as lates as Origen, Greco-Roman concepts of deity persist. In responding to Celsus' claim that no god or son of God has ever come down, Origen responds by stating such a statement would overthrow the stories of Pythian Apollo, Asclepius, and the other gods who descended (Against Celsus 5.2). My point here is not to say Origen believed in all the old myths, but to show how Origen reached for these stories as analogies to explain the incarnation of the logos. When Celsus argued that he would rather believe in the deity of Asclepius, Dionysus, and Hercules than Christ, Origen responded with a moral rather than ontological argument (3.42). He asks how these gods have improved the characters of anyone. Origen admits Celsus' argument “which places the forenamed individuals upon an equality with Jesus” might have force, however in light of the disreputable behavior of these gods, “how could you any longer say, with any show of reason, that these men, on putting aside their mortal body, became gods rather than Jesus?”[72] (3.42). Origen's Christology is far too broad and complicated to cover here. Undoubtedly, his work on eternal generation laid the foundation on which fourth century Christians could build homoousion Christology. Nevertheless, he retained some of the earlier subordinationist impulses of his forebearers. In his book On Prayer, he rebukes praying to Jesus as a crude error, instead advocating prayer to God alone (10). In his Commentary on John he repeatedly asserts that the Father is greater than his logos (1.40; 2.6; 6.23). Thus, Origen is a theologian on the seam of the times. He's both a subordinationist and a believer in the Son's eternal and divine ontology. Now, I want to be careful here. I'm not saying that all early Christians believed Jesus was a deified man like Asclepius or a descended god like Apollo or a reincarnated soul like Pythagoras. More often than not, thinking Christians whose works survive until today tended to eschew the parallels, simultaneously elevating Christ as high as possible while demoting the gods to mere demons. Still, Litwa is inciteful when he writes: It seems likely that early Christians shared the widespread cultural assumption that a resurrected, immortalized being was worthy of worship and thus divine. …Nonetheless there is a difference…Jesus, it appears, was never honored as an independent deity. Rather, he was always worshiped as Yahweh's subordinate. Naturally Heracles and Asclepius were Zeus' subordinates, but they were also members of a larger divine family. Jesus does not enter a pantheon but assumes a distinctive status as God's chief agent and plenipotentiary. It is this status that, to Christian insiders, placed Jesus in a category far above the likes of Heracles, Romulus, and Asclepius who were in turn demoted to the rank of δαίμονες [daimons].[73] Conclusion I began by asking the question, "What did early Christians mean by saying Jesus is god?" We noted that the ancient idea of agency (Jesus is God/god because he represents Yahweh), though present in Hebrew and Christian scripture, didn't play much of a role in how Gentile Christians thought about Jesus. Or if it did, those texts did not survive. By the time we enter the postapostolic era, a majority of Christianity was Gentile and little communication occurred with the Jewish Christians that survived in the East. As such, we turned our attention to Greco-Roman theology to tune our ears to hear the story of Jesus the way they would have. We learned about their multifaceted array of divinities. We saw that gods can come down and take the form of humans and humans can go up and take the form of gods. We found evidence for this kind of thinking in both non-Christian and Christian sources in the second and third centuries. Now it is time to return to the question I began with: “When early Christian authors called Jesus “god” what did they mean?” We saw that the idea of a deified man was present in the non-Christian witnesses of Tiberius and Pliny but made scant appearance in our Christian literature except for the Theodotians. As for the idea that a god came down to become a man, we found evidence in The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Justin, and Origen.[74] Of course, we find a spectrum within this view, from Justin's designation of Jesus as a second god to Origen's more philosophically nuanced understanding. Still, it's worth noting as R. P. C. Hanson observed that, “With the exception of Athanasius virtually every theologian, East and West, accepted some form of subordinationism at least up to the year 355.”[75] Whether any Christians before Alexander and Athanasius of Alexandria held to the sophisticated idea of consubstantiality depends on showing evidence of the belief that the Son was coequal, coeternal, and coessential with the Father prior to Nicea. (Readers interested in the case for this view should consult Michael Bird's Jesus among the Gods in which he attempted the extraordinary feat of finding proto-Nicene Christology in the first two centuries, a task typically associated with maverick apologists not peer-reviewed historians.) In conclusion, the answer to our driving question about the meaning of “Jesus as god” is that the answer depends on whom we ask. If we ask the Theodotians, Jesus is a god because that's just what one calls an immortalized man who lives in heaven.[76] If we ask those holding a docetic Christology, the answer is that a god came down in appearance as a man. If we ask a logos subordinationist, they'll tell us that Jesus existed as the god through whom the supreme God created the universe before he became a human being. If we ask Tertullian, Jesus is god because he derives his substance from the Father, though he has a lesser portion of divinity.[77] If we ask Athanasius, he'll wax eloquent about how Jesus is of the same substance as the Father equal in status and eternality. The bottom line is that there was not one answer to this question prior to the fourth century. Answers depend on whom we ask and when they lived. Still, we can't help but wonder about the more tantalizing question of development. Which Christology was first and which ones evolved under social, intellectual, and political pressures? In the quest to specify the various stages of development in the Christologies of the ante-Nicene period, this Greco-Roman perspective may just provide the missing link between the reserved and limited way that the NT applies theos to Jesus in the first century and the homoousian view that eventually garnered imperial support in the fourth century. How easy would it have been for fresh converts from the Greco-Roman world to unintentionally mishear the story of Jesus? How easy would it have been for them to fit Jesus into their own categories of descended gods and ascended humans? With the unmooring of Gentile Christianity from its Jewish heritage, is it any wonder that Christologies began to drift out to sea? Now I'm not suggesting that all Christians went through a steady development from a human Jesus to a pre-existent Christ, to an eternal God the Son, to the Chalcedonian hypostatic union. As I mentioned above, plenty of other options were around and every church had its conservatives in addition to its innovators. The story is messy and uneven with competing views spread across huge geographic distances. Furthermore, many Christians probably were content to leave such theological nuances fuzzy, rather than seeking doctrinal precision on Christ's relation to his God and Father. Whatever the case may be, we dare not ignore the influence of Greco-Roman theology in our accounts of Christological development in the Mediterranean world of the first three centuries. Bibliography The Homeric Hymns. Translated by Michael Crudden. New York, NY: Oxford, 2008. Antioch, Theophilus of. To Autolycus. Translated by Marcus Dods. Vol. 2. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001. Aphrahat. The Demonstrations. Translated by Ellen Muehlberger. Vol. 3. The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings. Edited by Mark DelCogliano. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2022. Apollodorus. The Library of Greek Mythology. Translated by Robin Hard. Oxford, UK: Oxford, 1998. Appian. The Civil Wars. Translated by John Carter. London, UK: Penguin, 1996. Arnobius. Against the Heathen. Translated by Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell. Vol. 6. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995. Arrian. The Campaigns of Alexander. Translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt. London, UK: Penguin, 1971. Bird, Michael F. Jesus among the Gods. Waco, TX: Baylor, 2022. Blackburn, Barry. Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions. Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991. Callimachus. Hymn to Artemis. Translated by Susan A. Stephens. Callimachus: The Hymns. New York, NY: Oxford, 2015. Cicero. The Nature of the Gods. Translated by Patrick Gerard Walsh. Oxford, UK: Oxford, 2008. Cornutus, Lucius Annaeus. Greek Theology. Translated by George Boys-Stones. Greek Theology, Fragments, and Testimonia. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2018. Cotter, Wendy. "Greco-Roman Apotheosis Traditions and the Resurrection Appearances in Matthew." In The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study. Edited by David E. Aune. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001. Cyprian. Treatise 6: On the Vanity of Idols. Translated by Ernest Wallis. Vol. 5. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995. Dittenberger, W. Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae. Vol. 2. Hildesheim: Olms, 1960. Eusebius. The Church History. Translated by Paul L. Maier. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007. Fredriksen, Paula. "How High Can Early High Christology Be?" In Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Edited by Matthew V. Novenson. Vol. 180.vol. Supplements to Novum Testamentum. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Hanson, R. P. C. Search for a Christian Doctrine of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007. Hart, George. The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2005. Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York, NY: Penguin, 1997. Iamblichus. Life of Pythagoras. Translated by Thomas Taylor. Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras. Delhi, IN: Zinc Read, 2023. Justin Martyr. Dialogue with Trypho. Translated by Thomas B. Falls. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003. Laertius, Diogenes. Life of Pythagoras. Translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library. Edited by David R. Fideler. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988. Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Pamela Mensch. Edited by James Miller. New York, NY: Oxford, 2020. Lane, William L. The Gospel of Mark. Nicnt, edited by F. F. Bruce Ned B. Stonehouse, and Gordon D. Fee. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974. Litwa, M. David. Iesus Deus. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. Livy. The Early History of Rome. Translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt. London, UK: Penguin, 2002. Origen. Against Celsus. Translated by Frederick Crombie. Vol. 4. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Pausanias. Guide to Greece. Translated by Peter Levi. London, UK: Penguin, 1979. Perriman, Andrew. In the Form of a God. Studies in Early Christology, edited by David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022. Philostratus. Letters of Apollonius. Vol. 458. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2006. Plutarch. Life of Alexander. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert and Timothy E. Duff. The Age of Alexander. London, UK: Penguin, 2011. Porphyry. Life of Pythagoras. Translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library. Edited by David Fideler. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988. Pseudo-Clement. Recognitions. Translated by Thomas Smith. Vol. 8. Ante Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Pseudo-Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies. Translated by David Litwa. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2016. Pseudo-Thomas. Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Translated by James Orr. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1903. Psuedo-Clement. Homilies. Translated by Peter Peterson. Vol. 8. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1897. Siculus, Diodorus. The Historical Library. Translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Vol. 1. Edited by Giles Laurén: Sophron Editor, 2017. Strabo. The Geography. Translated by Duane W. Roller. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020. Tertullian. Against Praxeas. Translated by Holmes. Vol. 3. Ante Nice Fathers. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Tertullian. Apology. Translated by S. Thelwall. Vol. 3. Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Younger, Pliny the. The Letters of the Younger Pliny. Translated by Betty Radice. London: Penguin, 1969. End Notes [1] For the remainder of this paper, I will use the lower case “god” for all references to deity outside of Yahweh, the Father of Christ. I do this because all our ancient texts lack capitalization and our modern capitalization rules imply a theology that is anachronistic and unhelpful for the present inquiry. [2] Christopher Kaiser wrote, “Explicit references to Jesus as ‘God' in the New Testament are very few, and even those few are generally plagued with uncertainties of either text or interpretation.” Christopher B. Kaiser, The Doctrine of God: A Historical Survey (London: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1982), 29. Other scholars such as Raymond Brown (Jesus: God and Man), Jason David BeDuhn (Truth in Translation), and Brian Wright (“Jesus as θεός: A Textual Examination” in Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament) have expressed similar sentiments. [3] John 20.28; Hebrews 1.8; Titus 2.13; 2 Peter 1.1; Romans 9.5; and 1 John 5.20. [4] See Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians 12.2 where a manuscript difference determines whether or not Polycarp called Jesus god or lord. Textual corruption is most acute in Igantius' corpus. Although it's been common to dismiss the long recension as an “Arian” corruption, claiming the middle recension to be as pure and uncontaminated as freshly fallen snow upon which a foot has never trodden, such an uncritical view is beginning to give way to more honest analysis. See Paul Gilliam III's Ignatius of Antioch and the Arian Controversy (Leiden: Brill, 2017) for a recent treatment of Christological corruption in the middle recension. [5] See the entries for אֱלֹהִיםand θεός in the Hebrew Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon (BDB), Eerdmans Dictionary, Kohlenberger/Mounce Concise Hebrew-Aramaic Dictionary of the Old Testament, the Bauer Danker Arndt Gingrich Lexicon (BDAG), Friberg Greek Lexicon, and Thayer's Greek Lexicon. [6] See notes on Is 9.6 and Ps 45.6. [7] ZIBBC: “In what sense can the king be called “god”? By virtue of his divine appointment, the king in the ancient Near East stood before his subjects as a representative of the divine realm. …In fact, the term “gods“ (ʾelōhı̂m) is used of priests who functioned as judges in the Israelite temple judicial system (Ex. 21:6; 22:8-9; see comments on 58:1; 82:6-7).” John W. Hilber, “Psalms,” in The Minor Prophets, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, vol. 5 of Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament. ed. John H. Walton (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 358. [8] Around a.d. 340, Aphrahat of Persia advised his fellow Christians to reply to Jewish critics who questioned why “You call a human being ‘God'” (Demonstrations 17.1). He said, “For the honored name of the divinity is granted event ot rightoues human beings, when they are worthy of being called by it…[W]hen he chose Moses, his friend and his beloved…he called him “god.” …We call him God, just as he named Moses with his own name…The name of the divinity was granted for great honor in the world. To whom he wishes, God appoints it” (17.3, 4, 5). Aphrahat, The Demonstrations, trans., Ellen Muehlberger, vol. 3, The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2022), 213-15. In the Clementine Recognitions we find a brief mention of the concept: “Therefore the name God is applied in three ways: either because he to whom it is given is truly God, or because he is the servant of him who is truly; and for the honour of the sender, that his authority may be full, he that is sent is called by the name of him who sends, as is often done in respect of angels: for when they appear to a man, if he is a wise and intelligent man, he asks the name of him who appears to him, that he may acknowledge at once the honour of the sent, and the authority of the sender” (2.42). Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions, trans., Thomas Smith, vol. 8, Ante Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [9] Michael F. Bird, Jesus among the Gods (Waco, TX: Baylor, 2022), 13. [10] Andrew Perriman, In the Form of a God, Studies in Early Christology, ed. David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 130. [11] Paula Fredriksen, "How High Can Early High Christology Be?," in Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity, ed. Matthew V. Novenson, vol. 180 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 296, 99. [12] ibid. [13] See Gen 18.1; Ex 3.2; 24.11; Is 6.1; Ezk 1.28. [14] Compare the Masoretic Text of Psalm 8.6 to the Septuagint and Hebrews 2.7. [15] Homer, The Odyssey, trans., Robert Fagles (New York, NY: Penguin, 1997), 370. [16] Diodorus Siculus, The Historical Library, trans., Charles Henry Oldfather, vol. 1 (Sophron Editor, 2017), 340. [17] Uranus met death at the brutal hands of his own son, Kronos who emasculated him and let bleed out, resulting in his deification (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 1.10). Later on, after suffering a fatal disease, Kronos himself experienced deification, becoming the planet Saturn (ibid.). Zeus married Hera and they produced Osiris (Dionysus), Isis (Demeter), Typhon, Apollo, and Aphrodite (ibid. 2.1). [18] Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, Greek Theology, trans., George Boys-Stones, Greek Theology, Fragments, and Testimonia (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2018), 123. [19] Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology, trans., Robin Hard (Oxford, UK: Oxford, 1998), 111. [20] Pausanias, Guide to Greece, trans., Peter Levi (London, UK: Penguin, 1979), 98. [21] Strabo, The Geography, trans., Duane W. Roller (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020), 281. [22] Psuedo-Clement, Homilies, trans., Peter Peterson, vol. 8, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1897). Greek: “αὐτὸν δὲ ὡς θεὸν ἐθρήσκευσαν” from Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologia Graeca, taken from Accordance (PSCLEMH-T), OakTree Software, Inc., 2018, Version 1.1. [23] See Barry Blackburn, Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions (Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991), 32. [24] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, trans., Pamela Mensch (New York, NY: Oxford, 2020), 39. [25] Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Thomas Taylor, Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras (Delhi, IN: Zinc Read, 2023), 2. [26] Diogenes Laertius, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988), 142. [27] See the list in Blackburn, 39. He corroborates miracle stories from Diogenus Laertius, Iamblichus, Apollonius, Nicomachus, and Philostratus. [28] Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988), 128-9. [29] Iamblichus, 68. [30] What I call “resurrection” refers to the phrase, “Thou shalt bring back from Hades a dead man's strength.” Diogenes Laertius 8.2.59, trans. R. D. Hicks. [31] Laertius, "Lives of the Eminent Philosophers," 306. Two stories of his deification survive: in one Empedocles disappears in the middle of the night after hearing an extremely loud voice calling his name. After this the people concluded that they should sacrifice to him since he had become a god (8.68). In the other account, Empedocles climbs Etna and leaps into the fiery volcanic crater “to strengthen the rumor that he had become a god” (8.69). [32] Pausanias, 192. Sextus Empiricus says Asclepius raised up people who had died at Thebes as well as raising up the dead body of Tyndaros (Against the Professors 1.261). [33] Cicero adds that the Arcadians worship Asclepius (Nature 3.57). [34] In another instance, he confronted and cast out a demon from a licentious young man (Life 4.20). [35] The phrase is “περὶ ἐμοῦ καὶ θεοῖς εἴρηται ὡς περὶ θείου ἀνδρὸς.” Philostratus, Letters of Apollonius, vol. 458, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2006). [36] See George Hart, The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, 2nd ed. (Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2005), 3. [37] Plutarch, Life of Alexander, trans., Ian Scott-Kilvert and Timothy E. Duff, The Age of Alexander (London, UK: Penguin, 2011), 311. Arrian includes a story about Anaxarchus advocating paying divine honors to Alexander through prostration. The Macedonians refused but the Persian members of his entourage “rose from their seats and one by one grovelled on the floor before the King.” Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, trans., Aubrey De Sélincourt (London, UK: Penguin, 1971), 222. [38] Translation my own from “Ἀντίοχος ὁ Θεὸς Δίκαιος Ἐπιφανὴς Φιλορωμαῖος Φιλέλλην.” Inscription at Nemrut Dağ, accessible at https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/display.php?page=cimrm32. See also https://zeugma.packhum.org/pdfs/v1ch09.pdf. [39] Greek taken from W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae, vol. 2 (Hildesheim: Olms, 1960), 48-60. Of particular note is the definite article before θεός. They didn't celebrate the birthday of a god, but the birthday of the god. [40] Appian, The Civil Wars, trans., John Carter (London, UK: Penguin, 1996), 149. [41] M. David Litwa, Iesus Deus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 20. [42] ibid. [43] Blackburn, 92-3. [44] The Homeric Hymns, trans., Michael Crudden (New York, NY: Oxford, 2008), 38. [45] "The Homeric Hymns," 14. [46] Homer, 344. [47] Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, trans., Marcus Dods, vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001). [48] Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, trans., Susan A. Stephens, Callimachus: The Hymns (New York, NY: Oxford, 2015), 119. [49] Siculus, 234. [50] Cyprian, Treatise 6: On the Vanity of Idols, trans., Ernest Wallis, vol. 5, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995). [51] Arnobius, Against the Heathen, trans., Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell, vol. 6, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995). [52] Livy, The Early History of Rome, trans., Aubrey De Sélincourt (London, UK: Penguin, 2002), 49. [53] Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, trans., Patrick Gerard Walsh (Oxford, UK: Oxford, 2008), 69. [54] Wendy Cotter, "Greco-Roman Apotheosis Traditions and the Resurrection Appearances in Matthew," in The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study, ed. David E. Aune (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 149. [55] Litwa, 170. [56] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, Nicnt, ed. F. F. Bruce Ned B. Stonehouse, and Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974). [57] “Recent commentators have stressed that the best background for understanding the Markan transfiguration is the story of Moses' ascent up Mount Sinai (Exod. 24 and 34).” Litwa, 123. [58] Tertullian, Apology, trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [59] Eusebius, The Church History, trans. Paul L. Maier (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 54. [60] Pliny the Younger, The Letters of the Younger Pliny, trans., Betty Radice (London: Penguin, 1969), 294. [61] Pseudo-Thomas, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, trans., James Orr (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1903), 25. [62] Litwa, 83. [63] For sources on Theodotus, see Pseduo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 7.35.1-2; 10.23.1-2; Pseudo-Tertullian, Against All Heresies 8.2; Eusebius, Church History 5.28. [64] Pseudo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, trans., David Litwa (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2016), 571. [65] I took the liberty to decapitalize these appellatives. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas B. Falls (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 244. [66] Justin Martyr, 241. (Altered, see previous footnote.) [67] Justin Martyr, 102. [68] Justin Martyr, 56-7. [69] Arnobius makes a similar argument in Against the Heathen 1.38-39 “Is he not worthy to be called a god by us and felt to be a god on account of the favor or such great benefits? For if you have enrolled Liber among the gods because he discovered the use of wine, and Ceres the use of bread, Aesculapius the use of medicines, Minerva the use of oil, Triptolemus plowing, and Hercules because he conquered and restrained beasts, thieves, and the many-headed hydra…So then, ought we not to consider Christ a god, and to bestow upon him all the worship due to his divinity?” Translation from Litwa, 105. [70] Justin Martyr, 46. [71] Justin Martyr, 39. [72] Origen, Against Celsus, trans. Frederick Crombie, vol. 4, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [73] Litwa, 173. [74] I could easily multiply examples of this by looking at Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and many others. [75] The obvious exception to Hanson's statement were thinkers like Sabellius and Praxeas who believed that the Father himself came down as a human being. R. P. C. Hanson, Search for a Christian Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), xix. [76] Interestingly, even some of the biblical unitarians of the period were comfortable with calling Jesus god, though they limited his divinity to his post-resurrection life. [77] Tertullian writes, “[T]he Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son” (Against Praxeas 9). Tertullian, Against Praxeas, trans., Holmes, vol. 3, Ante Nice Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003).

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Aesculapian

Word of the Day

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2023 0:47

Aesculapian is an adjective that means relating to medicine or physicians. Our word of the day gets its origin from Aesculapius, the Roman god of medicine. The word entered English in the late 16th century. Here's an example: Shelly has been working as a nurse for nearly a year and her vocabulary has been peppered with all kinds of aesculapian terminology. She can barely tell me to wash my hands without using medical jargon that makes my head explode.

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Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2023

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

cross temple syria laodicea christian god diocletian vitalis presbyter aesculapius

Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)

Classic Audiobook Collection

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2023 1:28

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

Pariah Planet by Murray Leinster ~ Full Audiobook

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2023 264:24

Pariah Planet by Murray Leinster audiobook. When the blue plague appeared on the planet of Dara, fear struck nearby worlds. The fear led to a hate that threatened the lives of millions and endangered the Galactic peace. But the Med Service ship Aesculapius 20 with Calhoun and Murgatroyd the Tormal aboard are on the job and have stumbled into the horrible mess caused by unreasoning hatred, quarantine, mass starvation and worse. Calhoun must use all his medical knowledge and significant skills to even understand the situation here in neglected Sector 12. Can he and Murgatroyd untangle this Gordian's knot and live to tell the tale? Maybe and maybe not. Listen and find out.

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The Mystery Roman Empire, Part 1

Bible Mysteries

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2022 52:03

Show Notes: Ancient Roman Worship of Jupiter: Jupiter, also called Jove, Latin Iuppiter, Iovis, orDiespiter, the chief ancient Roman and Italian god. Like Zeus, the Greek god with whom he is etymologically identical (root diu, “bright”), Jupiter was a sky god. One of his most ancient epithets is Lucetius (“Light-Bringer”); and later literature has preserved the same idea in such phrases as sub Iove, “under the open sky.” Later Roman Worship of Emperors: Octavian himself took the name Augustus, a term indicating a claim to reverence. This did not make him a god in his lifetime, but, combined with the insertion of his numen and his genius (originally the procreative power that enables a family to be carried on) into certain cults, it prepared the way for his posthumous deification, just as Caesar had been deified before him. Both were deified by the state because they seemed to have given Rome gifts worthy of a god. Pergamos was a city of heathen temples and a pantheon of pagan deities. Jupiter was said to have had his origin there, and to him and other Greek and Roman gods were erected many beautiful and costly temples, giving it the name of "the city of temples." It was the metropolis of heathen deities. Temples were built and dedicated to Jupiter, Zeus, Athena, Dionysius, and Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine, and also called "the god of Pergamum." It was also the center of emperor worship. In AD 29 a great temple was erected to the worship of Augustus Caesar, who was to be prayed to as "Lord Caesar." Domitian decreed that all peoples should address him as "Our Lord and our God.” The Temple of Zeus was the most celebrated of all the temples of Pergamos, and was dedicated to Aesculapius, "the serpent god" or "god of healing." It was also known as the Temple of Aesculapius, who was called "the Great Physician" and "the Savior." He was also given other titles showing that he was a counterfeit of Christ. In this temple a living serpent was kept and worshiped. Serpent worship was so universal in Pergamos that many coins have been found with a picture of a serpent entwined around a pole. It is unfortunate that this pagan emblem of healing has become the caduceus of the modern medical profession. In the Temple of Zeus many miracles of healing were supposed to have been performed. In connection with this temple was also a famous school of medicine. Scripture References: All Scripture references are cited from the King James Bible. Daniel 2:31-36, Daniel 2:37-42, Daniel 7:1-7, Daniel 2:44, Revelation 13:1-5, Matthew 13:10-17, 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10, Luke 4:5-7, Psalm 115:16, Genesis 1:26, Matthew 4:16-17, Acts 26:16-18, Revelation 2:12-13a Takeaway: Symbolic aspects of the Roman Empire remain all around us, but its origins are as satanic as satan himself. Rome worshipped Jupiter and the emperors, a picture of the dragon and the beast to come. Mystery Rome is alive and well, especially in the United States empire of global hegemony. Links: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jupiter-Roman-god https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(mythology) https://theologycurator.com/roman-empire-during-time-jesus/ https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/09/gary-d-barnett/a-solution-for-the-masses-does-not-exist-perceived-reality-is-in-fact-only-theatre/ Website: utbnow.com Podcast: https://bible-mysteries.captivate.fm Subscribe: https:/https://biblemysteries.supercast.com Email: unlockthebiblenow@gmail.com Donate: ttps://secure.subsplash.com/ui/access/BDJH89

Mechanista in G – OZ-10VMSX Gundam Aesculapius

Mechanista in G – Scanline Media

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 5, 2022

The best thing you can have when designing a mecha is an idea. It doesn’t even need to be a…

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These Are The Words (4)

All In, with Kirk Crossing

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2022 37:29

The next church Jesus speaks to in Revelation is the church at Pergamum. It was a large city, home to the worship of many different gods (and emperors), including Aesculapius, the god of healing. It was the city, Jesus said, where Satan has his throne. The church seems to have withstood an intense time of […]

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12.15.2021

UBM Unleavened Bread Ministries

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2021 149:03

Curses of Modern Medicine (Audio) David Eells - 12/15/21 NIH and Fauci Hospital Protocols are Killing Covid -19 Patients (Video) COVID-19 is NOT a “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated.” The most appropriate term is “Pandemic of Medical Malpractice.” Hospital protocols, and not COVID-19, have accounted for a significant portion of deaths. One of the biggest culprits is the drug Remdesivir. The antiviral drug manufactured by Gilead Sciences has remained a central component of the standard hospital protocol for COVID-19 patients. But the toxic drug is responsible for catastrophic side effects like multi-organ-dysfunction syndrome and kidney failure. None other than Anthony ‘Fraudci' and his NIH cronies were behind pushing the dangerous drug for COVID-19 patients. Remdesivir Background To understand the severity of this scandal, let's briefly review some background of how Remdesivir came into use for COVID-19. Remdesivir is a nucleotide analogue prodrug originally developed for the treatment of Ebola virus. A New England Journal of Medicine study claimed that a single United States COVID-19 patient showed improvement after taking Remdesivir. Coincidentally, the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought a patent for the use of Remdesivir. But at the height of COVID-19, the NIH picked Remdesivir as the gold standard treatment for COVID-19. Anthony Fraudci cited the drug's effectiveness against Ebola as the reasoning for its use against this novel coronavirus. Fraudci used this New England Journal of Medicine study to back his claims. A closer look at this study below: Remdesivir was pulled from the study due to 53.1% of recipients dying from the drug. Who supported that study? The NIH & NIAID. Another New England Journal of Medicine study Fraudci used to push Remdesivir as a COVID-19 treatment analyzed 53 patients from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. This is what the study found: Seven of the 53 patients (13%) died after the completion of Remdesivir treatment, including 6 of 34 patients (18%) who were receiving invasive ventilation and 1 of 19 (5%) who were receiving noninvasive oxygen support ... The median interval between remdesivir initiation and death was 15 days (interquartile range, 9 to 17). A total of 32 patients (60%) reported adverse events during follow-up. The most common adverse events were increased hepatic enzymes, diarrhea, rash, renal impairment, and hypotension. In general, adverse events were more common in patients receiving invasive ventilation. A total of 12 patients (23%) had serious adverse events. The most common serious adverse events — multiple-organ-dysfunction syndrome, septic shock, acute kidney injury, and hypotension — were reported in patients who were receiving invasive ventilation at baseline. Despite these alarming studies, Remdesivir was pushed on the general public as the standard hospital protocol for COVID-19 patients. Cheap, off-label drugs like Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Ivermectin were targeted in a vicious smear campaign. The patents for HCQ and Ivermectin expired decades ago, meaning they don't line the pockets of pharmaceutical companies and hospital executives. The toxicity and catastrophic kidney damage caused by Remdesivir provided the ultimate setup to blame deaths caused by the drug on COVID-19 and the federal health agencies made a fortune buying the stock of Remdesivir, an experimental drug at the time. The Blaze highlighted how Remdesivir is the greatest scandal of the “pandemic:” ... why would we run the risk of spending $3,000 a person on a therapeutic that doesn't work anyway if it may create immune escape? Which raises the question: Why are we not treating everyone early with therapeutics like Regeneron, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and other proven safe, cheap, and effective drugs that don't case renal failure like remdesivir and don't run the risk of inducing mutations? This is particularly important for those who are immunocompromised. The last thing people who already have fragile organs should be taking is remdesivir. In many respects the fact that remdesivir was ever approved and is still the only standard of care, as it kills patients and lines the pockets of both hospitals and the maker, Gilead, is possibly the worst scandal of this entire ordeal. On Feb. 5, Reuters reported that none other than the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the China Academy of Sciences sought a patent on Gilead's remdesivir, a failed drug repurposed from treatment of Ebola, based on the alleged improvement of a single individual COVID patient reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Incidentally, the only drug ever approved for COVID was developed by Dr. Ralph Baric's lab at UNC Chapel Hill, the same lab that applied for the coronavirus spike protein gain-of-function research and is suspected by many to be behind the creation of this virus. Minnesota Doctor Blasts ‘Ridiculous' CDC Coronavirus Death Count Guidelines (VIDEO) Fox News - 4/9/20 Dr. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota family physician who is also a Republican state senator, told "The Ingraham Angle" Wednesday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) guidelines for doctors to certify whether a patient has died of coronavirus are "ridiculous" and could be misleading the public. Host Laura Ingraham read Jensen the guidelines, which say: "In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID cannot be made but is suspected or likely (e.g. the circumstances are compelling with a reasonable degree of certainty) it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as 'probable' or 'presumed.'” In response, Jensen told Ingraham the CDC's death certificate manual tells physicians to focus on "precision and specificity," but the coronavirus death certification guidance runs completely counter to that axiom. "The idea that we are going to allow people to massage and sort of game the numbers is a real issue because we are going to undermine the [public] trust," he said. "And right now as we see politicians doing things that aren't necessarily motivated on fact and science, their trust in politicians is already wearing thin." Jensen gave a hypothetical example of a patient who died while suffering from influenza. If the patient was elderly and had symptoms like fever and cough a few days before passing away, the doctor explained, he would have listed "respiratory arrest" as the primary cause of death. "I've never been encouraged to [notate 'influenza']," he said. "I would probably write 'respiratory arrest' to be the top line, and the underlying cause of this disease would be pneumonia ... I might well put emphysema or congestive heart failure, but I would never put influenza down as the underlying cause of death and yet that's what we are being asked to do here." Jensen then told Ingraham that under the CDC guidelines, a patient who died after being hit by a bus and tested positive for coronavirus would be listed as having presumed to have died from the virus regardless of whatever damage was caused by the bus. "That doesn't make any sense," he said. Jensen also reacted to Dr. Anthony Fauci's response to a question about the potential for the number of coronavirus deaths being "padded," in which the NIAID director described the prevalance of "conspiracy theories" during "challenging" times in public health. "I would remind him that anytime health care intersects with dollars it gets awkward," Jensen said. "Right now Medicare has determined that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you'll get paid $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000; three times as much. Nobody can tell me, after 35 years in the world of medicine, that sometimes those kinds of things [have] impact on what we do. "Some physicians really have a bent towards public health and they will put down influenza or whatever because that's their preference," Jensen added. "I try to stay very specific, very precise. If I know I've got pneumonia, that's what's going on the death certificate. I'm not going to add stuff just because it's convenient.” Past Statistics: Deaths by medical mistakes hit records HealthcareITNews - By Erin McCann - 7/18/14 Update: Since this article below was written, accidental medical deaths have reached 440,000 a year: In July of 2014 senate hearing exposed 400,000 people each year die of medical mistakes, over a thousand a day. This is the third largest killer in U.S. Between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death. How Many Die From Medical Mistakes in U.S. Hospitals? Keep this in mind as you read the article below. All the percentages of danger below have risen dramatically. "Witchcraft" or "sorcery" in the New Testament is from the Greek word "pharmakeia"; English "pharmacy" - Healing through the use of drugs. [See etymonline.com and dictionary.com.] Of Babylon it was said: (Rev.18:23)... for with thy sorcery were all the nations deceived. It's a chilling reality – one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Senate hearing Thursday, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions. Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day – but also called attention to the fact that these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year. "The tragedy that we're talking about here (is) deaths taking place that should not be taking place," said subcommittee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his opening remarks. [See also: EHR adverse events data cause for alarm.] Among those speaking was Ashish Jha, MD, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, who referenced the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report To Err is Human, which estimated some 100,000 Americans die each year from preventable adverse events. “When they first came out with that number, it was so staggeringly large, that most people were wondering, 'could that possibly be right?'" said Jha. Some 15 years later, the evidence is glaring. "The IOM probably got it wrong," he said. "It was clearly an underestimate of the toll of human suffering that goes on from preventable medical errors." It's not just the 1,000 deaths per day that should be huge cause for alarm, noted Joanne Disch, RN, clinical professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, who also spoke before Congress. There's also the 10,000 serious complications cases resulting from medical errors that occur each day. Disch cited the case of a Minnesota patient who underwent a bilateral mastectomy for cancer, only to find out post surgery a mix-up with the biopsy reports had occurred, and she had not actually had cancer... "Why is it when a death happens one at time, silently, it warrants less attention than when deaths happen in groups of five or 10?" he asked. "What these numbers say is that every day, a 747, two of them are crashing. Every two months, 9-11 is occurring…we would not tolerate that degree of preventable harm in any other forum.” In the hearing's closing questions, when Sanders inquired as to why this crisis was not constantly splashed across front page news, he was met with this: "When people go to the hospital, they are sick. It is very easy to confuse the fact that somebody might have died because of a fatal consequence of their disease, versus they died from a complication from a medical error," Jha said. "It has taken a lot to prove to all of us that many of these deaths are not a natural consequence of the underlying disease. They are purely failures of the system. Journal of The American Medical Association declared there was 450,000 deaths a year from iatropic causes. Iatropic means doctor related causes. This is from years ago. So what is it now after 750,000 people have died in the US for the same reason. But as we're going to see, it's a lot worse than this. Recent: 40+ Jaw Dropping Medical Malpractice Statistics Etactics: By Butterfly Meltzer - 7/29/21 Medical malpractice happens more often than most might think and when it does, it's not a “cried wolf” scenario. Doctors do make mistakes, but sometimes the actions classified as malpractice are intentionally taken. Naive, inexperienced, and/or simply bad physicians, unfortunately, exist in all fields of medicine. Whether they're a surgeon, psychologist, primary care physician, or therapist, malpractice can occur across any specialist role. The result can lead to permanent injury and even death. The consequences can be severe and victims often have no choice but to take legal action. Here are over 40 statistics about medical malpractice: General Malpractice Malpractice can occur in many forms across different segments of the healthcare industry. To get a true understanding though, you need to look at healthcare as a whole. You should probably start with the reputation of the doctor in question. Maybe previous patients have sued that doctor in the past. Maybe they have a high rate of misdiagnosis or other medical errors. From nursing homes to outpatient therapy, billing errors to misprescribing, malpractice can happen anywhere. The average person who files medical malpractice claims is 42 years old. (University of California) 10% of all U.S. deaths are now due to medical error. (Johns Hopkins) 99% of physicians face at least one lawsuit by age 65. (New England Journal of Medicine) New York had the highest amount of medical malpractice in the US (16,688 reports) from 2009 to 2018. (NPDB) North Dakota had the lowest amount of medical malpractice in the US. (126 reports) (NPDB) 37% of malpractice claims reviewed resulted in payments (The Doctors Company) It's estimated that 7,000 to 9,000 patients die every year from medication errors. (My Medical Score) 5-10% of all physicians have had sexual contact with patients. (American Medical Association) Medical Overuse Many people agree that doctors tend to overprescribe medicines. There have been countless stories that link the opioid pandemic to overprescribing. Patients are often given too much medicine that ends up doing more harm than good. As a result, the overuse of medical practices can lead to medical malpractice. If a patient receives tests, treatment, and medication that they don't need, the patient will most likely have unnecessary expenses. 15-30% of 2000 physicians surveyed in a study believe most medical care is not needed. (Johns Hopkins) 22% of prescription medications are unnecessary 24.9% of medical tests do not need to happen 11.1% of procedures do not need to take place 30% of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary. (CDC) 20% to 50% of antibiotics prescribed in US acute-care hospitals are unnecessary or inappropriate. (CDC) 27% of doctors say that patients receive antibiotics when drugs won't help. (WebMD) Medical Misdiagnosis So maybe you have certain symptoms that are easily confused between those of several different issues. As a result, your doctor misdiagnoses you and gives you medicine that you don't actually need. But does that count as medical malpractice? As with most situations in healthcare, it depends. Misdiagnosis can lead to surgeries you don't need, medicines that negatively affect your health, and treatment that can lead to permanent damage. In severe cases, medical malpractice that involves misdiagnoses can lead to death. Roughly 12,000,000 American misdiagnoses happen each year (My Medical Score) Over more than 100,000 Americans die or are permanently disabled each year due to medical diagnoses that initially miss conditions or are wrong or delayed. (Johns Hopkins) Nearly ¾ of all serious harms from diagnostic errors occur around vascular events, infections and cancers. (Johns Hopkins) 37.8% are cancers 22.8% are vascular events 13.5% are infections 21% of patients receive an outright wrong diagnosis on their first visit to a doctor. (Mayo Clinic) 66% of patients get a diagnosis that may be on the right track but isn't quite accurate or complete. (Mayo Clinic) 12% of all patients who seek second opinions end up with the same diagnosis they started with. (Mayo Clinic) 22% of malpractice claims filed by hospitalized patients were diagnosis-related. (University of Michigan) 38% of malpractice claims against physicians involving the treatment of children involved a misdiagnosis. (The Doctors Company) Around 5% of outpatients receive misdiagnosis. (BMJ Journal) Surgical Malpractice Any kind of surgery can be terrifying. That's why you should always ask questions before giving consent for surgery. When medical malpractice happens during surgery, feelings of confusion overwhelm patients. They may feel that their doctors abused their trust. Not to mention they could also be in serious pain if something during the operation went wrong. From the patient perspective, they should arm themselves with knowledge in case something goes wrong. 85% of surgeons are likely to get into a lawsuit (The High Court) About 16.7% of 2000 physicians surveyed said that they performed unnecessary procedures for profit (John Hopkins) A little more than 4,000 surgical errors occur each year (My Medical Score) 39 surgeries per week end up with a surgical tool, like a sponge, left inside patients 20 operations per week occur on the wrong body part 20 wrong surgical procedures occur on a patient per week 59% of surgical errors only resulted in temporary injuries (My Medical Score) 40% of surgical errors resulted in permanent injuries or death (My Medical Score) Mental Health Malpractice There are many myths surrounding mental health but medical malpractice isn't one of them. Surgery usually can't fix mental health issues. Diagnosis can really only occur through the evaluation of symptoms, and many mental health issues have similar symptoms. This is especially true for children. If doctors overprescribe opioids and antibiotics, it's safe to say that that carries into mental health. Doctors also prescribe medicines that don't actually help the illness, so naturally, this can happen in the mental health world as well. 41% of US psychiatrists faced a malpractice lawsuit at least once (Medscape) ⅓ of psychiatrists managing their legal risk between 2015 and 2016 had claims involving incorrect treatment. (Sommers Schwartz) 20% were for medication issues 15% involved suicides or suicide attempts 6% percent were for misdiagnosis. More than 60% of people who receive a diagnosis of major depression don't actually have it (Johns Hopkins) Of 706 people surveyed, only 15% received a prompt diagnosis, while 85% experienced diagnostic delay (Bridges to Recovery) Among the 85% delayed, 71% said that their symptoms had become worse as a result of receiving inappropriate treatment 47.3% of 50,000 patients were correctly identified with depression by general practitioners (Bridges to Recovery) A 2008 study found that 57% of adults diagnosed with bipolar disorder did not meet diagnostic criteria upon more comprehensive diagnostic review. (Brown University School of Medicine) According to the table of Iatrogenic Deaths In The United States linked here , We could have an even higher death rate by using Dr. Lucien Leape's 1997 medical and drug error rate of 3 million. (14) Multiplied by the fatality rate of 14% (that Leape used in 1994 (16) we arrive at an annual death rate of 420,000 for drug errors and medical errors combined. If we put this number in place of Lazorou's 106,000 drug errors and the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) 98,000 medical errors, we could add another 216,000 deaths making a total of 999,936 deaths annually. CDC - Iatrogenic Deaths “Disappeared" in 2020, COVID-19 Took Their Place For decades up until 2020 CDC annual reports listed medical error (iatrogenic) deaths as the third-leading cause of death in the US. The only change in that annual "ranking" of deaths was in the last 5 years cancer sometimes overtaking heart disease as a leading cause of death in the US and most other Western ("developed") countries. Now, the latest CDC report has completely removed the iatrogenic category and COVID-19 deaths have taken that third place. If the CDC had simply moved the iatrogenic deaths up or down the list, it would have been at least a debatable issue. However, the complete disappearance of medical error deaths exposes directly the fraud. Iatrogenic deaths can't just vanish in a single year. In fact, if the hospitals were full to brim with patients in 2020 then iatrogenic deaths would be much higher than prior years. Btw, the "unintentional injury" category on 4th place covers "life accidents". They are counted separately from iatrogenic deaths, so one cannot argue that iatrogenic deaths moved to 4th place. Unless I am missing something, this may be the most direct admission yet by the powers that be that the COVID-19 death numbers are completely fake. Either no COVID-19 deaths occurred in 2020 or all of them were iatrogenic in nature so one can swap the names on 3rd place. So, either we have a blatant, public, demonstrable and irrefutable lie or public admission by CDC of genocidal medical interventions for all COVID-19 patients who died in hospitals in 2020. Attorney Thomas Renz – All New Whistleblower Information Rumble — Attorney Thomas Renz Releases Stunning Data from Never Before Seen Vaccine Injury/Death Tracking System Thanks to a Whistleblower that came forth to Attorney Thomas Renz, the public is now seeing, for the first time ever, hard data from the largest database available in the U.S. to study the COVID-19 impact including deaths & injuries; The CMS Medicare Tracking System. During an extraordinary speech at Clay Clark's ReAwaken America Tour, Attorney Thomas Renz shocked the crowd of thousands in attendance and millions watching via livestream as he revealed: That data from the Medicare Tracking System reveals that 19,400 people less than 80 years old have died within 14 days of receiving the COVID-19 Vaccine. In addition, 28,065 people have died that are over the age of 80 within 14 days of receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. The Total number of American Citizens that died within 14 days of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine is 48,465 according to hard data revealed in the Medicare Tracking System. In July attorney Renz's whistleblower, under penalty of perjury, stated that she estimated at least 45K people had died from the Covid-19 Vaccine. USA Today Fact Checkers and other fact checking services claimed that to be “mis-information.” Today's revelations solidify that the “Trusted News Initiative” is actually the source of mis-information and propaganda, and that Attorney Thomas Renz's whistleblower was correct all along. After proving that over 45K people have died from the COVID-19 vaccine, Attorney Renz then moved his attention to focus on the amount of people that are being killed in American hospitals by Dr. Anthony Fauci's instituted protocol of Remdesivir. Attorney Renz is also in possession of Remdesivir death data from the Medicare Tracking System that has been withheld by the government from our citizens. The Remdesivir data reveals of the 7,960 beneficiaries prescribed Remdesivir for Covid-19, 2,058 died. That is 25.9%. 46% of people died within 14 days of the Remdesivir Treatment. The Remdesivir Treatment was established in U.S. Hospitals at the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Serious adverse events were reported in 131 of the 532 patients who received Remdesivir. That is 24.6%. Attorney Renz says ” This begs the question… Why is this the protocol in American Hospitals? Does this appear “Safe and Effective” to you?” RENZ's NURSE WHISTLEBLOWERS REVEAL TWO TIER SYSTEM OF CARE DEPENDING ON YOUR VACCINE STATUS During Attorney Thomas Renz speech at Clay Clark's ReAwaken America Tour in Colorado Springs, Colorado Renz also talked about 2 Whistleblower nurses that revealed to him that they have seen a 2 tier system of health care depending on the patients “vaccination status.” “The nurses revealed to me that patients that are vaccinated are getting Ivermectin, which is proven to heal people. But if you are unvaccinated, they put you on Remdesivir in the hopes that you will die” said Attorney Thomas Renz. THE FDA IS TRACKING VACCINE DEATHS, ALL THE WHILE CLAIMING THE COVID VACCINE IS SAFE AND EFFECTIVE Also during Attorney Renz' speech he revealed that the FDA is actively working with CMS real-time data ( CMS Medicare database ) to gather weekly reports on Covid-19 adverse events, despite the fact that the US population is told repeatedly this vaccine is “safe and effective.” Attorney Renz says “This information has never been given to the public, and you will see why they have kept it hidden and never published. It's very damning, and this data reveals that the FDA knew what was coming, let it happen, and thousands and thousands have died or been injured.” During his speech Renz revealed in one state alone ( New York ) that the amount of people who experienced adverse events after the Covid shot were in the thousands. Adverse events experienced by people who got the Covid-19 shot in New York State included thousands of cardiovascular events, thousands of cases of people getting Covid, and thousands of deaths. At least 13 side effects are reported in the system. “Remember, these are “side effects” that the government, media, and social media continue to tell the public that are not happening. The mantra of “safe and effective” must stop after today's information” says Attorney Renz. A copy of Attorney Renz entire speech along with data from the hidden vaccine tracking system will be posted on his website at www.Renz-Law.com Proof That They Knew! Renz said, Our data comes from a whistleblower with access to CMS data. CMS data includes billing, prescribing, treatment, and all other information related to beneficiary treatment – that is how the government knows how much money to send healthcare providers. This info was all recognized by the US Department of Defense in the presentation we found and reposted on www.renz-law.com Our whistleblowers have searched this data to provide these numbers. This data is being hidden from be public but would be easily searchable for government analysts using the same searches we did. Our question – why aren't our elected officials and bureaucrats searching for this information and sharing it? Percentage of Americans covered by Medicare in 2019: 18.1% 59.4 Million People. 18% of 330 Million is: 59,400,000 Total Medicare Budget: $899 Billion (2020) Largest data base available in the U.S. to study COVID-19 trends. It includes all claims: vaccine dates, treatment dates, death dates, adverse events, hospitalizations. It is not self-reporting like VAERS. As you can see in the information that was excerpted from a presentation by the FDA, they are tracking the data we are presenting here. In other words they know or should know this info. The number of CMS beneficiaries who died within 14 days* of a COVID-19 vaccine are: Under 80 years old - 19,400 + Over 80 year old - 28,065 = 47,465 (*within 14 days of 1st or 2nd dose, whichever difference was lower PER THE CDC – YOU ARE NOT CONSIDERED VACCINATED UNTIL TWO WEEKS AFTER YOUR SECOND SHOT OR FIRST SHOT OF JANSEN SO THESE DEATHS DO NOT COUNT ‐ https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019‐ncov/vaccines/fully‐vaccinated.html) The FDA planned (all along) to monitor CMS data for side effects in nearly real time to watch for the safety of the COVID vaccines: See all the adverse events including deaths from 9 different states in the latter half of this PDF: COVID Vaccine Cover Up PDF – Renz Law and COVID Pfizer Whistleblower Data – Renz Law Dr. David Martin Explains 7 Felonies that Could Prosecute Dr. Fauci/ Felony Crimes End Big Pharma Immunity from Lawsuits Dr. David Martin has been spending the past year and a half fighting to unravel what he says is the global criminal conspiracy of coronavirus. Parties include the American and Chinese governments, the International Monetary Fund, and Blackrock. Martin says these groups are guilty of criminal conspiracy in a terrorist plot against the American people. A brand new VAERS data analysis from 11/16/21 found hundreds of serious adverse events that were completely missed by the CDC that should have been mentioned in the informed consent document that is given to patients. VAERS Analysis: Over 150,000 Americans killed by covid vaccines The first half of this link below shows the hospitals are the killing fields following DS protocols. This is not for Christians who believe the Word but for those who dont. As you know we need to trust the Word. It is more dangerous for us, as believers and followers of Christ to "trust in the arm of flesh". Now you know why. Dr. Bryan Ardis - TheRevealReport - Emergency Broadcast - Oct 12 2021 Roots of Modern Medicine David Eells The Physicians' Original Hippocratic Oath: I swear by Apollo the Physician, and Asklepios and Hygieia, (We will discuss these three god's and godess as we go on.) and all the Gods and Goddesses that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this oath and this syngraphe ('contract'): to consider him who taught me this Art as dear to me as my parent, to share my substance with him, and to relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring as equivalent to my own brothers, and to teach them this Art, if they wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other form of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients and abstain from whatever is harmful and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such advice; likewise, I will not give a pessary to a woman to induce abortion. I will live my life and practice my art with purity and holiness. I will not cut persons suffering from 'the stone', but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this skill. Whatever houses I enter, I will enter for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption, and especially from the seduction of females or males, of free persons or slaves. Whatever I see or hear in connection with my professional practice or not in the life of men, which should not be made public, I will not divulge, considering that all such knowledge should remain secret. As long as I continue to keep this Oath inviolate, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the Art, respected by all men, at all times. But if I should trespass and violate this Oath, may the opposite be my lot. www.csun.edu Apollo in Greek Mythology Apollo is in many respects the paradigm of a Greek god. He represents order, harmony, and civilization in a way that most other Olympian deities cannot quite equal. One only has to compare him with Dionysos to understand how Apollo is depicted as a bright, rational counterpart to the chaotic and frenzied god of wine and women. Indeed, Apollo is most often associated with the cultivated arts of music and medicine, and his role as the leader of the Muses establishes him as a patron of intellectual pursuits. Pronunciation - {a-pol'-lo} Etymology - "Destroy or excite" Other names - Apollon (EDITOR'S NOTE: The angel of the abyss is Apollyon, meaning destroyer.) (EDITOR'S NOTE: Witchcraft or Sorcery in the New Testament is from the Greek word Pharmakia; English Pharmacy; Healing through the use of drugs. Of Babylon it was said, (Rev.18:23)... for with thy sorcery were all the nations deceived.) In Greek mythology, Asklepios (Asclepius) was the god of healing. He was the son of the Olympian god Apollo and a mortal woman named Coronis. Asklepios (Roman Aesculapius) The Hesiod places Aesculapius' origin in Thessaly where he lived in a subterranean cleft with both a serpent and a hound as companions. Born of the god Apollo and the mortal woman Coronis (a "former" virgin of the Lapithae), Aesculapius was raised by the centaur Chiron, from whom he learned the art of healing and became a physician. (EDITOR'S NOTE: This healer God is an imitation of Jesus. This god is supposedly born of an earthly mother and a god (Son of God) he supposedly raised the dead etc. The physicians symbol, the serpent on a rod, was an imitation of Moses serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness, which pointed to Christ the healer. This god is clearly a false Christ.) According to Greek legend, patients seeking healing would sleep the night in the temple of Aesculapius. During the night, Aesculapius would appear to the patient in a dream, accompanied by his daughter, the goddess Hygieia, and by a serpent who followed Aesculapius wherever he went. At that point, Aesculapius would treat the patient in the dream, often by having the serpent lick his or her wounds. In the morning, the patient would awaken healed. As a result, throughout history, the symbol of the physician has been, and continues to be, the Staff of Aesculapius, a wooden staff with a SINGLE serpent entwined. Many readers, however, are probably more familiar with the Caduceus, which is the winged staff of Hermes, the messenger of the gods, with TWO intertwined serpents. His followers established temples called Asclepions, temples of Asklepios, temples of healing. The greatest asklepion was in a grove of trees south of Corinth, Greece where the sick had to spend a night while the proper remedies were revealed during a dream to the priests of the temple and the cured had to make a suitable sacrifice (usually a rooster) to the god. According to mythology, Asculapius had a number of children including Hygieia, the goddess of health (from whose name comes the word "hygiene") and Panaceia, the goddess of healing (from whose name comes the word "panacea" for a universal remedy). Today, the staff of Aesculapius is a commonly used symbol of medicine. It is the symbol of the American Medical Association (AMA) and many other medical societies. Chiron taught Asclepius the art of healing. According to Pindar (Pythian Odes), Asclepius also acquired the knowledge of surgery, the use of drugs, love potions and incantations. www.loggia.com Physician Humor.........or is it? Original Author unknown - David's notes in red These statistics are very outdated but are far worse now and they do prove a point. Think about this: Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. (These numbers have now skyrocketed) a. The number of physicians in the US is 700,000. b. Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year is 120,000. (We just proved that this number, as of the early 2,000's, is closer to 1 million.) c. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171. (US Dept. of Health & Human Services) Then think about this: a. The number of gun owners in the US is 80,000,000. b. The number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) is 1,500. c. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188. Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ...ONE DOCTOR! Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets out of hand! As a public health measure I have withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear that the shock could cause people to seek medical attention. Man's Methods or God's Glory What we've seen so far has proven that the curse of God is in trusting in man. Jer 17:5 Thus saith Jehovah: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah. (God has a method that never fails but it is foolishness to man.) But God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose [yea] and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God (1 Cor.1:27-29). God's methods will always be considered foolish, weak, base, and despised by the world and the worldly church… In my past experiences, at the end of all of my works to save myself by man's methods, God gave me faith to see His works. God's method was faith in Him combined with my own weakness. He said, "[my] power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor.12:9). Faith is foolish, weak, and base to the world but it brings God's power... Worldly methods failed me, but faith in the promises brought the most awesome deliverance. Glory to God! Recently, I watched a report on antibacterial soaps on the national news. They reported that the net effect was that they were not wiping out bacteria, but making them resistant. What did penicillin do but make antibiotic resistant bacteria for which there is no medical cure on the horizon? Poisons on the crops, to try to destroy the curse, go into the water supply and cause a multitude of diseases. Read your toothpaste tube; fluoride is a deadly poison. The Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 284, July 26, 2000, reported that doctors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S., causing 250,000 deaths every year from iatrogenic causes! (Now over 450,000 and this does not including the medical murders being committed because of CV-19.) Iatrogenic is defined as induced in a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy, used especially of a complication of treatment. If this is what their organization admits, what is the truth? The numbers are much higher. If, as some believe, this is God's preferred method of healing today, He is surely making a lot of mistakes. I have a good doctor friend who prefers to not use drugs. He has told me how he prays for patients who will believe, with results. The problem is that most are not interested in deliverance from their curse if it takes repentance and faith so he does what he can. My mother took a drug for years. One day she was reading an article by Reader's Digest on the side effects of medicines. The side effects of the drug she was on were breast cancer and glaucoma, and she had them both. That was a terrible trade. My father's favorite doctor told him after an examination, "One thing I am sure of, you are not going to die of a heart attack. You have the heart of a much younger man". About a month later, he had a serious heart attack. I became convinced it was because of a drug he was taking to put oxygen into his blood because he lost a lung to smoking. Two close friends took a drug that had a side effect of damaging their kidneys. Their doctors admitted this in both cases. Man shifts the curse around and sometimes multiplies it, but he cannot deliver by his own efforts. If he could, then Jesus' death was for naught. I believe it is God's purpose that we understand that there is no permanent deliverance from the curse except God's deliverance through Jesus Christ. The world's deliverance is a deception, because, ultimately, their gods fail them. God wants us to see through that. We have been told that God now uses modern methods for delivering us from the curse. God's method is always free. It is salvation by grace, which is the unmerited, unpaid for, favor of God. Neither Jesus nor His disciples charged anything for healing, deliverance, provision, or any other form of salvation. The world's method always cost. The poor often go untreated until they die. In God's kingdom, all are treated on condition of faith. God desires to use the same method He used in the Scripture, the word of faith, because it is the only one that does not give glory to man. If a Christian receives a recovery from some disease while under the care of doctors and medicine, everyone wants to know what the medicine was or who the doctor was. God will not share His glory with another. I am not condemning those who use doctors or medicine. I offer the good news that Jesus has already healed you almost 2,000 years ago. Reading the New Testament once shows that God did not use the methods of man. In the coming wilderness we will need to understand this. Soon God's people will not be able to buy or sell with the world. Then all will be forced into a wilderness experience where there will be no idolatry with the gods of this world. For the people of God in the wilderness there will be a great lack of doctors, medicine, lawyers, bankers, psychiatrists, insurance, food, clean water, and public assistance of all types. Then we will see God's power in man's weakness (2 Cor.12:9-10). The churches' methods of obtaining provision today are the same as the world's methods and are therefore acceptable to it. God has a peculiar method for ministering deliverance from the curse that costs nothing, gives no glory to man, and proves His sovereignty. (1 Cor.1:28) And the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, [yea] and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are: (29) that no flesh should glory before God We see here that God chose to use something that does not exist in the physical realm in order to destroy the things that do. The "things that are not" are the promises in the Word that we do not see fulfilled. The "things that are" are the cursed things of sin, sickness, and lack, which God wants to "bring to nought". For example, if you are sick, that is a thing that is; but "by whose stripes ye were healed" is a thing that is not in the physical realm. God chose faith in His promises "that are not" in order to bring to naught the sickness. Jesus and the disciples used God's method for dealing with the curse by calling "the things that are not, as though they were" (Rom.4:17). They just commanded it done according to the promises. They did not choose "the things that are", like doctors, medicine, psychiatrists, banks, and such to "bring to naught the things that are", like sin, sickness, torment, lack, debt, etc. The things that appear in this realm are the things that are and are all under the curse. (Heb.11:3) By faith we understand that the worlds (Greek: "ages") have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear. God's method is to use the Word and not the physical things that appear, just as in the Gospels and Acts. In anointing with oil, it is obviously not the oil but the faith that heals. Oil is just a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Paul's handkerchief did not heal; it was the power from his faith (Acts 19:12). Some might think that once Jesus also used things such as when He made clay with His spit to heal a blind man in John 9:6-7. It was not the clay that healed his eyes, but the washing it out of his eyes; clay symbolizes the Adamic nature and the things that are (Job 10:9; 33:6; Isa.29:16; 45:9) just as man was made from clay. In other words, our eyes must be cleansed of seeing through eyes of clay. We need the spiritual eyes to see the promise as done by faith. (2 Pet.1:3) Seeing that his divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life (Greek: zoe, "God's life") and godliness.... To have spiritual eyes, we must see that Jesus has already given us His life and blessings. We need to be cleansed of fleshly eyes that keep us from God's blessings. ... The natural man (of clay) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged (Greek: "examined" or "seen") (1 Cor.2:14). By the way, the spit from Jesus' mouth symbolizes that which comes out of the mouth of the Lord that gives life to man, the Word or manna (Dt.8:3; Jn.1:13; 6:33,51). I once knew a preacher who said, "The reason Paul did all those miracles was because Luke the physician was with him". Wrong! Not in one verse do we see Luke using physician skills, which could never result in a miracle. The Greek word iatros is falsely translated "physician" but it just means "healer". Iatros is also used of Jesus as "healer". Translators put their modern ideas here. "Physician" means "one who practices medicine", which Jesus and the apostles never did. The term used for drugs or medicine in the Greek is pharmakia (English: "pharmacy") and is translated "witchcraft" or "sorcery", which Paul called a work of the flesh in Galatians 5:20. The nations are deceived with pharmakia (Rev.18:23). Luke was a healer in the same way Jesus and the other disciples were. It should seem strange to these people that Jesus and his disciples did not use "the things that are" to administer healing or deliverance. If Paul's handkerchief had the power to heal, why could it not heal before he touched it? It only acted as a medium to carry the healing anointing to the sick by faith. I have prayed over handkerchiefs, water, or people as mediums and seen healings. A brother, whose wife was very sick, came into our meeting. He was very troubled and on the edge of tears about this. The brother was not yet convinced that he needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Asking the Lord in my thoughts what to do, it came to me to pray over him to impart healing power to him, which we did. Then I said, "Now brother, go lay hands on your wife, and she will be healed". He was not convinced that healing was our right today, but he went home to lay hands on his wife. When he did, she was healed, and he came back excited. You see, it is not the medium; it is the healing power manifested through it, or in this case him, by faith. Jesus imparted authority to the disciples to heal before they received the Holy Spirit. So how do we use God's method of "the things that are not"? By calling "the things that are not, as though they were" (Rom.4:17). In other words, agree with the promise and call it done. God chooses to use "the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God" (1 Cor.1:28-29). God does not desire to use man's inventions so that only He can brag. God's salvation is not by our works. It is by getting our eyes off the problem and on the promise. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 teaches that our affliction will be temporary if "we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen". When the Israelites got their eyes off the snake bite (curse) and on the serpent on the pole (Christ who became our curse [Jn.3:14]), they were healed (Num.21:49). As we saw, Paul's "thorn in the flesh" had nothing to do with sickness but a demon that was bringing him into humbling circumstances where he was weak to save himself so God's power was present to save him. His advice to Timothy puts a question in some concerning the use of remedies. In the text we can see that sin is the subject before and after the verse in question. (1 Tim. 5:22) Lay hands hastily on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure. (23) Be no longer a drinker of water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities (Greek: asthenia; meaning "weaknesses"). (24) Some men's sins are evident, going before unto judgment; and some men also they follow after. (25) In like manner also there are good works that are evident; and such as are otherwise cannot be hid. The word sometimes translated "infirmities" is actually "weaknesses" and is clearly seen in other texts where the same word is correctly translated. (1 Cor.1:25) ... The weakness of God is stronger than men. Now we know that God is not infirm or sick so this word has to be "weakness". (2 Cor.13:4) For he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth through the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him through the power of God toward you. We know that Jesus Christ was not crucified through infirmity, but weakness because He would not defend Himself when He was brought before Pilate and the Jewish leaders. Timothy had spiritual weaknesses for which the only cure was the spiritual wine of the nature of Jesus. The stomach or belly was spiritually considered the seat of rulership for the carnal man. It represented being driven by the lusts (Greek: "desires") of the flesh, driven by sin. (Php.3:19) Whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and [whose] glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. Peter called those who returned to their sins, "the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire". The sow best identifies those who are servants to their flesh's appetites. On the other hand, wine was considered the cure for bondage to sin. Wine represents the blood of Jesus. (Mt.26:27) And he took a cup(of wine), and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; (28) for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many unto remission of sins. (29) But I say unto you, I shall not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. Through our own blood we have inherited the lusts of the sinful flesh and through Jesus' pure blood that nature is destroyed. (Lev.17:11) For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life. His blood is in us to the extent that we repent and partake of the life of His Word. (Jn.6:53) Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood (wine), ye have not life in yourselves. (54) He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day. Partaking of the blood or wine is a matter of walking in His Word by faith in His blood that was given to us. (1 Jn.1:7) But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin. The combined fruitful faith that resides in the true body of Christ is the answer to the question of why Isaiah commanded a cake of figs for Hezekiah's boil. (Isa.38:21) Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover. The figs here represent the Body of Christ or Israel as in Jesus' warnings about bearing fruit. (Lk.13:6)And he spake this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found none. (7) And he said unto the vinedresser, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why doth it also cumber the ground? (Rev.6:13) and the stars of the heaven (Abraham's seed) fell unto the earth, as a fig tree casteth her unripe figs when she is shaken of a great wind. Jesus identified the righteous as being under the fig tree when He saw Nathanael there as an Israelite without guile (Jn.1:47 50). Notice that in the verse before the "cake of figs" was laid on the boil, faith was expressed to God by the body for Hezekiah's healing as the saints in the "house of the Lord" were praising God for this. It was the figs' faith that sucked the poison out of the boil. (Isa.38:20) The Lord is [ready] to save me: Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments All the days of our life in the house of the Lord. The cake of figs was a natural parable that represented a spiritual happening just as in Jesus' parables of planting wheat and corn, etc. See God's Vaccine Please read our book Faith for all Things

covid-19 united states god jesus christ american new york university california canada father lord art europe english israel spirit man body healing pandemic japan americans gospel doctors christians michigan chinese holy spirit reading western minnesota medicine single safe acts jewish scripture institute greek congress hospitals gods corinthians defense journal patients wine vaccines md human drink republicans rev mt greece senate galatians new testament billion bernie sanders cdc prevention fda public health olympians behold apollo surgery destroy pilates israelites parties physicians methods rom cheap diagnosis cor poison oil sciences sanders his word nursing medicare centers bridges cv largest anthony fauci rn accidental witchcraft ridiculous corinth whistleblowers heb btw new york state jehovah disease control colorado springs blackrock us department ebola curses digest mayo clinic lay nih oath ds num cms johns hopkins hermes lev dt worldly translators felony gilead disappeared php sorcery goddesses jn ivermectin lk american medical association unvaccinated pronunciation percentage new england journal unc chapel hill statistically adverse chiron international monetary fund virology naive million people harvard school verily preventable etymology subcommittee american citizens david martin medical malpractice regeneron us dept renz medscape iom ingraham wuhan institute partaking gilead sciences clay clark adamic jha niaid scott jensen 45k minnesota school asclepius brown university school caduceus american medical association ama thessaly iatrogenic asklepios to err attorney thomas renz china academy american hospitals trusted news initiative fraudci aesculapius panaceia pharmakia hygieia renz law

Revelation Part 22 Pergamos Verse 17

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 7, 2021 73:08

In this week's study, I finish up with the Church of Pergamos at verse 17Pergamos was a city in the southern part of Mysia, the capital of a kingdom of that name, and afterward of the Roman province of Asia Propria. Some of the pagan temples that were seated there are the temples of Jupiter and Diana, of Aesculapius [healing] and Venus. It is called "Satan's seat" by John, which some suppose to refer to the worship of Aesculapius, from the serpent being his characteristic emblem. Others refer it to the persecutions of Christians, which was work of Satan.He that hath an ear, let him hear = Every Christian, whoever can hear at all, should carefully listen to this. Pay special attention to the message that Yahshua Messiah is giving us!What the Spirit saith = This Holy Spirit. That driving FORCE from Yahweh, in these great and precious promises. Focus on what is being said in this book of Revelation. To the churches = “ek-kelsia” That called out assembly. Called out from what? Sin, bondage, church traditions, doctrines etc.Overcometh = “nik-ah'-o” From “nee-kay”; to subdue (literally or figuratively): - conquer, overcome, prevail, get the victory.To him that overcometh = To him who continues steadfast in the faith, and uncorrupt in his or her life; who faithfully confesses Yahshua Messiah, and neither absorbs the doctrines nor is led away by the error of the wicked one.To eat of = most of the texts omit this phrase. However, I agree with the writers of the King James. Why? How else are we going to partake of the manna. To me it just like taking communion.Hidden = “kroop'-to” A primary verb; to conceal (properly by covering). Why does John write “hidden”? It is hidden to those that don't have the ears to hear or eyes to see. To hear and see what? The Word! The Logos! COULD this be the posititve of those false ministers that teach the souls to fly away. Ezk. 13: 18-20.Manna = The true spiritual food; the food that nourishes the soul. The idea is, that the souls of those who “overcame,” or who gained the victory in their conflict with sin, and in the persecutions and trials of the world, would be permitted to partake of that spiritual food which is laid up for the people of Yahweh, and by which they will be nourished forever. The Hebrew's were supported by manna in the desert Exod. 16:16-35; a pot of that manna was laid up in the most holy place, to be preserved as a memorial Exod. 16:32-34; it is called “angels' food” Psa. 78:25, and “corn of heaven” Psa. 78:24; and it would seem to have been symbolic of that spiritual food by which the people of Yahweh are to be fed from heaven, in their journey through this world. By the word “hidden,” there would seem to be an allusion to what was laid up in the pot before the ark of the testimony, and the blessing which is promised here is that they would be nourished as if they were sustained by that manna thus laid up before the ark: by food from the immediate presence of Yahweh. The language thus explained would mean that they who overcome will be nourished through this life as if by that “hidden manna”; that is, that they will be supplied all along through the “wilderness of this world” by that food from the immediate presence of Yahweh which their souls require. We can also think on this hidden manna as hidden truth. Amos 8:11.Don't end up like those in Hosea 4:6 ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God (Elohim), I will also forget thy children.'Join me as we go Chapter by Chapter, Verse by Verse, Unraveling the Words of Yahweh!Have any questions? Feel free to email me at utwoy@netzero.net

Revelation Part 21 Continue Pergamos

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2021 70:02

In this week's study, we will continue in Chapter 2 verse 14, the Church of PergamosPergamos was a city in the southern part of Mysia, the capital of a kingdom of that name, and afterward of the Roman province of Asia Propria. Some of the pagan temples that were seated there are the temples of Jupiter and Diana, of Aesculapius [healing] and Venus. It is called "Satan's seat" by John, which some suppose to refer to the worship of Aesculapius, from the serpent being his characteristic emblem. Others refer it to the persecutions of Christians, which was work of Satan.14 Stumbling block = check this word out, “skan'-dal-on” A “scandal”; a trap stick (bent sapling), that is, snare (figuratively cause of displeasure or sin).Fornication = “porn-yoo'-o” From “por-nay”; to act the harlot, that is, (literally) indulge unlawful lust (of either sex), or (figuratively) practise idolatry:Do you realize that there are Churches, with their traditions, place stumbling blocks in front of their assemblies? I can think of the Roman Catholic Church and their bogus system. Even to the point where the Pope thinks he is a god. I won't even discuss the Masons, Moose and all those other secret lodges, where they hold their silly secret rituals of Salvation, blood rituals etc.Even though this church, Pergamos, was commended for not renouncing their faith in the very lap of Satanic worship, they had allowed false doctrines into their church. What was outside the church had invaded the inside. 15 Nicolaitanes = A sect mentioned whose deeds were strongly condemned. They may have been identical, with those who held the doctrine of Balaam. They seem to have held that, it was lawful to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication, in opposition to the decree of the Church rendered in Acts 15. The teachers of the Church branded them with a name, which expressed their true character.16 Repent = “met-an-o-eh'-o” From “met-ah” and “noy-he-o”; to think differently or afterwards, that is, reconsider (morally to feel compunction). Again we see the warning to repent. Remember that this is spoken to the churches and to Christians. We cannot forget that. We must repent of our sins and our allowing sin in our churches without rebuke. If we do not do this then the Lord will come and rebuke us with the Word. Yahweh helps us if we do repent when we are rebuked. The Lord will fight against our enemies with the Word of His mouth, and we can also use the Word to defend the faith and teach sound doctrine. But when it is we who are living in sin, the Word turns around and rebukes us. The Holy Spirit convicts us through the Scriptures of our sin. We must then repent and turn from our wicked ways. Then the Lord can bring times of refreshing. My intention is to take this study to a deep level. Deeper than most of you are used to! I am asking no one to agree with me; however I do ask that you check every detail that I present out for yourself. Don't end up like those in Hosea 4:6 ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God (Elohim), I will also forget thy children.'But, be like those in 2Timothy 2:15 ‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God (Yahweh), a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.'Join me as we go Chapter by Chapter, Verse by Verse, Unraveling the Words of Yahweh!Have any questions? Feel free to email me at utwoy@netzero.net

Revelation Part 20 Pergamos Balaam

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2021 73:37

In this week's study, we will continue in Chapter 2 verse 13, the Church of PergamosPergamos was a city in the southern part of Mysia, the capital of a kingdom of that name, and afterward of the Roman province of Asia Propria. Some of the pagan temples that were seated there are the temples of Jupiter and Diana, of Aesculapius [healing] and Venus. It is called "Satan's seat" by John, which some suppose to refer to the worship of Aesculapius, from the serpent being his characteristic emblem. Others refer it to the persecutions of Christians, which was work of Satan.Pergamos served many idols, such as Zeus (god of the sky and ruler of the Olympian gods, Greek), Dionysius (god of altered states, wine, ecstasy), Athene (goddess of war, architecture, astronomy, science, etc) and others. It had many temples and altars. But this did not mark it out as Satan's throne because all the pagan cities in the Roman empire at that time worshipped idols, including the other cities mentioned in Revelation 2-3. It was the prominence of its worship of Aesculapius (god of healing and of medicine) or Asclepius as saviour, healer and preserver that made Pergamos distinctive in this regard. Asclepius was a god of healing and health. He had an impressive temple, the ruins of which can be visited in Pergamos today. People used to sleep in that temple with the idea that Asclepius would give them a dream which would be interpreted by his priest telling them how to be healed. The spring beside the temple was said to possess healing powers. Devotees would offer sacrifices or leave gifts for healing. Small terracotta body parts to represent the injured area or limb have been found near Asclepius' temple in Pergamos. Small wonder that Pergamos has been called the Lourdes of the ancient world. I discuss the teachings of Balaam and how those teachings are alive today within the church community14 Hold the doctrine of Balaam = Teachers like Balaam who seduce the true Israel into sin. Balaam showed Balak how to lead the children of Israel astray. See Num. 22:2, and Num. 31:16. In the same way there were false teachers at Pergamos who taught that Christians might join the idol feasts and in heathen fornication. Who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel = The word “stumbling-block” properly means anything over which one falls or stumbles, and then anything over which anyone may fall into sin, or which becomes the occasion of one's falling into sin. I continue my ranting on the fact that we have false ministers standing in the pulpits teaching the doctrines of Balaam.I discuss the symbolism of Starbucks logo on their cups and how it is of Satan. My intention is to take this study to a deep level. Deeper than most of you are used to! I am asking no one to agree with me; however I do ask that you check every detail that I present out for yourself. Don't end up like those in Hosea 4:6 ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God (Elohim), I will also forget thy children.'But, be like those in 2Timothy 2:15 ‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God (Yahweh), a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.'Join me as we go Chapter by Chapter, Verse by Verse, Unraveling the Words of Yahweh!Have any questions? Feel free to email me at utwoy@netzero.net

Revelation Part 19 Pergamos

Metamorphoses: a Retelling of Ovid's Tales

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 14, 2021 68:30

In this week's study, we will continue in Chapter 2 verse 12, the Church of PergamosPergamos (“height, elevation, fortified”) was a city in the southern part of Mysia, the capital of a kingdom of that name, and afterward of the Roman province of Asia Propria. Some of the pagan temples that were seated there are the temples of Jupiter and Diana, of Aesculapius [healing] and Venus. It is called "Satan's seat" by John, which some suppose to refer to the worship of Aesculapius, from the serpent being his characteristic emblem. Others refer it to the persecutions of Christians, which was work of Satan.12) angel = This messenger could either be “Antipas [like the father] or Caius”.Sharp sword with two edges = This title is used partly to show, that the only weapon this church, and the true ministers and members of it had, to defend themselves against the growing corruptions of antichrist, who in this interval rose up by degrees, and was revealed, and came to the height of his power, was the word of Yahweh, the Scriptures of truth;Heb 4:12 For the word of Yahweh is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So the sword from the mouth of Yahshua Messiah is the Word of Yahweh. Yahshua is the Word. The Bible is not a dead book. When it comes forth as truth it judges men's thoughts and attitudes. This happens when we read the Word and learn from Yahshua, the Word made flesh. It convicts us of our sinful thoughts and motives. Ultimately Yahshua Messiah will also judge the nations for He is coming to rule and judge. 13) know thy works = once again, nothing can be hid from Him.Satan seat = throne. Pergamos was a city very much given to idolatry, here Satan reigned while it was Pagan, and so was a fit emblem of the idolatrous Church of Rome.And thou holdest fast my name = They had professed the name of Yahshua Messiah; that is, they had professed to be his followers, and they had steadfastly adhered to him and his cause in all the opposition made to him.I go into a rant comparing the world today and how Satan is the prince of this world. PLEASE READ John 15 where Yahshua Messiah tells us that we are His friends IF we follow the commandment set forth by Him and that we are NOT of this world, but of that Heavenly world. I go into some events of today showing how Satan tries to control the souls of the unbelievers.2Co 4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of the Messiah, who is the image of Yahweh, should shine unto them. My intention is to take this study to a deep level. Deeper than most of you are used to! I am asking no one to agree with me; however I do ask that you check every detail that I present out for yourself. Don't end up like those in Hosea 4:6 ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God (Elohim), I will also forget thy children.'But, be like those in 2Timothy 2:15 ‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God (Yahweh), a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.'Join me as we go Chapter by Chapter, Verse by Verse, Unraveling the Words of Yahweh!Have any questions? Feel free to email me at utwoy@netzero.net

Reading the Metamorphoses: Book 2 Lines 401-875

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2021 29:18

I read a translation of the Metamorphoses. This time, the second half of Book 2. The translation is by Brookes More and is available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. Twitter: @MetamorphosesK Tumblr: key-metamorphoses Email: metamorphoses.key@gmail.com Website: metamorphoses.buzzsprout.com Music: Underwater Exploration - Godmode; In 3 - Godmode; Amber - VYEN; Sleepy Hollow - E's Jammy Jams; Ammil - The Tides; Pure Potentiality - Benjamin Martins; Dream Escape - The Tides; Whispering Streams - E's Jammy Jams; Somnolent - The Tides; Checkmate - Nathan Moore

reading europa lines apollo jupiter mercury juno chiron callisto god mode metamorphoses corvus arcas united states license jammy jams aesculapius

Book 2 Episode 4: Snitches Get Stitches

Metamorphoses: a Retelling of Ovid's Tales

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2021 9:14

This episode a raven gets a colour change, a princess gets turned into a crow and another girl gets turned into an owl. Many birds here! Oh, and Apollo gets slightly mad at his lover, but they still have a child. And Mercury steals some cows. CW/TW: attempted assault. Twitter: @MetamorphosesK Tumblr: ket-metamorphoses Email: metamorphoses.key@gmail.com Website: metamorphoses.buzzsprout.com Music: Vishnu - Patrick Patrikios; Traversing - Godmode; Away - Patrick Patrikios

apollo mercury stitches chiron snitches corvus cw tw aesculapius and mercury

Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2021 1:28

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

Episode 35 The Revelation 2`12-17

Life 66

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2021 26:42

“The Letter to the Church at Pergamum: Be Separate! Revelation 2:12-29 Background of Pergamum Present city - Bergama Pergamos/Pergamum - both used. Pergamos - great religious center. Intellectual center. 60-70 miles north of Smyrna, 15 miles inland from the Aegean Sea. Alter of Zeus here. God of healing - Aesculapius (scalpel) was worshipped here with the idol - serpent on a pole. Caduceus - official emblem of the city. Symbol of our present medical services. Persecution of Christians caused growth of the church. Pergamos - mixed marriage Background of Babylon The Heritage of Nimrod Babylon founded by Nimrod - the first world dictator. Wife - Semiramus; Son - Tammuz - associated with the Sun god. Yule log, Christmas tree, mistletoe, all trace their origins to Babylon. Names of days, names of months, calendar, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in minute all from Babylon. The Seat of Satan Persians conquer Babylon, the center of Babylonian influence shifts to Pergamos Persians conquered by Greeks and Greeks conquered by the Romans. Center of pagan influence then shifts to Rome. Constantine and the beginning of compromise 312 ad - Constantine gains control of Roman Empire and declares Christianity the state religion. Under Roman rule and persecution, Christianity has grown. Pagan and Christian cultures clash as Christianity is now acceptable. What Satan could not do by persecution he does by mixing Christianity with paganism. The first Pontifus Maximus is put in place and we have now the concepts of celibate priests, crucifix, purgatory, worship of Mary. All trace their roots to Babylon. The one with the sharp, double-edged sword Vs 12 The sword is the word of God. Heb. 4:12, Eph. 6:17 From Revelation 1:16, 19:15 Out of His mouth comes the sharp sword The only way to combat deception is with the absolute clear understanding of the word of God. I know you live where Satan lives Vs 13 The emphasis is not on the works of the church but on where they dwell. Satan's spiritual throne is here. Reference to the fact that the Babylonian paganism is central there. Two commendations: 1. You remain true to my name. 2. You did not renounce your faith in the time of trials. I have a few things against you. Vs 14-15 1. Balaam - “not of the people”. Numbers 22-25, 31 Principle of Balaam - through fornication the people will fall. Fornication used two ways - 1. physical sexual adultery 2. Idolatry, spiritual fornication. The way of Balaam is religious compromise - 2 Peter 2:12-16, Jude 11 2. The Nicolaitans Ephesus – hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. Pergamos – hold to the teachings of the Nicolaitans. Nico - rule, control laity - the people Separation of laity and clergy. Repent and be separate! Vs 16 Repent - change your mind and your behavior will change. Turn about 180 degrees. All churches are told to Repent except for Smyrna and Philadelphia. Repent or else! 1. He will come soon to you. 2. He will fight against them with the sword of His mouth. The weapon of God's warfare is His word. Manna and a new name on a white stone Vs 17 1. Hidden manna - the manna hidden in the ark to remind Israel of God's provision in the wilderness. Jesus is the manna, the bread of life. John 6 He will be no longer hidden. We'll see Him face to face. 1 John 3:2, 1 Cor. 13:12 2. White stone with a new name on it - a) Stones used in judgment. A white stone was acquittal, and black stone guilty as charged. b) A stone different than the 12 in the breastplate of the priest. This stone is new. c) Roman practice: when a certain person was a victor in a contest or challenge he was given a white stone with his name on it as a ticket to gain entrance to a special feast or party afterward. A VIP ticket. d) The stone has a name on it only known by the bearer and God. When God calls your name you will be the only one He is calling. Beautiful intimacy.

Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2020

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

cross temple syria laodicea christian god diocletian vitalis presbyter aesculapius

Need healing? You Need Aesculapius, Roman God of Medicine

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2020 14:51

Aesculapius was the Roman God of Healing and Medicine (Asclepius in Greece). But who is he and why is he such a fascinating figure in the study of ancient Greece and Rome? And what does he have to do with Ophiuchus, the 'missing' 13th star sign? Let's meet him in this episode of Fabulous Folklore. See the images or get the blog post transcript here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/aesculapius/ Get your free guide to home protection folklore-style here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore Become a Patron for bonus content at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595 Enjoyed this episode? Buy Icy a coffee at: https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick Tweet Icy at https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick Follow Icy on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick 'Like' Icy Sedgwick on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick 9ghaaa9g

healing medicine rome greece ophiuchus roman gods aesculapius

Need healing? You Need Aesculapius, Roman God of Medicine

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2020 14:51

Aesculapius was the Roman God of Healing and Medicine (Asclepius in Greece). But who is he and why is he such a fascinating figure in the study of ancient Greece and Rome? And what does he have to do with Ophiuchus, the 'missing' 13th star sign? Let's meet him in this episode of Fabulous Folklore. See the images or get the blog post transcript here: [https://www.icysedgwick.com/aesculapius/](https://www.icysedgwick.com/aesculapius/) Get your free guide to home protection folklore-style here: [https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore](https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore) Become a Patron for bonus content at [https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595](https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595) Enjoyed this episode? Buy Icy a coffee at: [https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick](https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick) Tweet Icy at [https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick](https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick) Follow Icy on Instagram at [https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick](https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick) 'Like' Icy Sedgwick on Facebook at [https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick](https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick) Tweet Icy at https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick Follow Icy on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick 'Like' Icy Sedgwick on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick

healing medicine greece ophiuchus roman gods aesculapius

Need healing? You Need Aesculapius, Roman God of Medicine

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2020 14:51

Aesculapius was the Roman God of Healing and Medicine (Asclepius in Greece). But who is he and why is he such a fascinating figure in the study of ancient Greece and Rome? And what does he have to do with Ophiuchus, the 'missing' 13th star sign? Let's meet him in this episode of Fabulous Folklore. See the images or get the blog post transcript here: [https://www.icysedgwick.com/aesculapius/](https://www.icysedgwick.com/aesculapius/) Get your free guide to home protection folklore-style here: [https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore](https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore) Become a Patron for bonus content at [https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595](https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595) Enjoyed this episode? Buy Icy a coffee at: [https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick](https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick) Tweet Icy at [https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick](https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick) Follow Icy on Instagram at [https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick](https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick) 'Like' Icy Sedgwick on Facebook at [https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick](https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick) Tweet Icy at https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick Follow Icy on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick 'Like' Icy Sedgwick on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick

healing medicine rome greece ophiuchus roman gods aesculapius

Need healing? You Need Aesculapius, Roman God of Medicine

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2020 14:51

Aesculapius was the Roman God of Healing and Medicine (Asclepius in Greece). But who is he and why is he such a fascinating figure in the study of ancient Greece and Rome? And what does he have to do with Ophiuchus, the 'missing' 13th star sign? Let's meet him in this episode of Fabulous Folklore. See the images or get the blog post transcript here: [https://www.icysedgwick.com/aesculapius/](https://www.icysedgwick.com/aesculapius/) Get your free guide to home protection folklore-style here: [https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore](https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore) Become a Patron for bonus content at [https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595](https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595) Enjoyed this episode? Buy Icy a coffee at: [https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick](https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick) Tweet Icy at [https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick](https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick) Follow Icy on Instagram at [https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick](https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick) 'Like' Icy Sedgwick on Facebook at [https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick](https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick) Tweet Icy at https://twitter.com/IcySedgwick Follow Icy on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/icysedgwick 'Like' Icy Sedgwick on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick

healing medicine rome greece ophiuchus roman gods aesculapius

Episode 048 - 300k

The Tale of Rome

Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2020 33:45

Episode 48 – 300k— “Do you declare, from your heart, to possess a wife?”A census and a wedding. Rome passes 300 thousand inhabitants, and the Samnites are beaten at Aquilonia.Parcial TranscriptHello, this is Abel, speaking from Beijing, China. Welcome to my podcast.The Tale of Rome, Episode 48 — 300k.When Lucius Eugenius, Spurius Attius, and young Tatius got a glimpse of the hills surrounding Rome, their spirits went up.All three made the walk home, all the way from the north — and all three were now war veterans.For a Roman — and ordinary Roman — that's no small feat!And so, once they were down with all the military formalities and once they showed up on their home street,, their women, their children, their slaves, they all walked out to welcome them home!The DOMUS — house — Lucius Eugenius managed to build with their work, spanned two homes next to each other, a corral for raw materials, and a workshop, right across the street.Plus, a small garden behind the second house.This was a piece of real estate that Lucius managed to buy right after the Big War, from an impoverished Patrician.And of course, we are not counting that around 50 slaves were now working at the workshop, and a dozen or so were busy tending to the needs of the ever growing family.Life wasn't that bad, after all!And after they all settled back in, and once Lucius sat in his favorite reclining chair — Laurentia, his wife, reminded him in a casual tone:— “In five days we have to walk to the Field of Mars, husband. Town criers have been announcing the event, for days, now…”Lucius sighed.Another census.Everyone hated a census.The tables of the censors, they so-called Tabulae Censoriae in Latin, were piling up in forums already, to be taken to the field, the day of the census. From Equestrians and Senators, down to the last and lowest Roman, if you were in one of those five social levels, designed by long-gone King Tullius Servius, you had to go.Plebe or Patrician, everyone had to be there.— “We'll take Julia this time,” old Lucius said. “And Spurius, too.”— “What about his fiancee?” asked Laurentia.Lucius paused for a second. Good question. Then he replied.— “No. We haven't finished all the arrangements, yet. All this fighting. Let her go with the Furnii. The censors will be liking that — looks more respectful.”In his mind, Lucius cursed the constant wars Rome had, but he knew he couldn't do a thing about them.Besides, WARS were making him rich.Quite rich indeed.And this richness allowed for Spurius to soon-to-be-wedding a girl of the Furnii, a respectable — even though Plebeian— family.The Furnii were also one of the oldest families, according to the annals of ancient Rome.And according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a man named Gaius Furnius — that's F — U — R — N — I — U — S — came to be a tribune of the plebes, back in the year 445 BC, and that was something Lucius Eugenius respected a lot.And so — in a few week's time, Spurius Attius, the young veteran of the Battle of Sentinum, would take a daughter of the Furnii as his wife.Not bad for the family!All right, my dear listeners.As you can see, today we have two topics.A wedding and a census.And that means, that after our Latin Word of this episode, we'll see how Romans went about having a census, and then — how they organized a wedding in those not-so-high circles of society.The society of ancient Rome.Now, please be aware that both — weddings and censuses — have had their fair share of evolution in the one thousand years of Roman history, which means that I tried my best — to keep these two events, match the times we are living in, right now.Which is the beginning of the third century BC.Oh, and after that, we have the next battle against the Samnites, the battle of Aquilonia, and here goes a little spoiler in the story that follows.Let me explain.Right after the battle of Aquilonia, a plague will break out in Rome — one of the larger ones — and we'll be talking about how a new deity named Aesculapius — adopted from its Greek counterpart named Asclepius, became a world-wide symbol, today — recognized by a serpent bent over a fountain or wrapped around a staff, as if spilling its venom — to be used as an antidote — as a cure.This serpent can be seen almost all over the world, in pharmacies, hospitals, medical centers, Centers for Disease Control, and even as part of the logo of the WHO — World Health Organization.The other spoiler is that we'll soon have the result of our upcoming census, and hey — we'll know just how many people lived in Rome. Those numbers used to be published on plates all over Rome, especially in the Roman Forum.[…]

Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2020 1:28

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2020

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

cross temple syria laodicea christian god diocletian vitalis presbyter aesculapius

Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2020

At the time of Diocletian's persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried 'Great is the Christian God!' Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends. The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people ("accompanied always by two tame deer," says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

cross temple syria laodicea christian god diocletian vitalis presbyter aesculapius

Episode 6: Who were the Nephilim in Genesis 6? Were they the Offspring of Angels and Humans? Reading: Genesis 6, Ezra 6, Matthew 6 and Acts 6.

Bible Questions Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 6, 2020 42:41

Today's reading is Genesis 6, Ezra 6, Matthew 6, and Acts 6. It may be that our focus reading for the day should continue in Matthew 6, because Jesus' teaching there is so majestic and beautiful that no passage should really overshadow it. If you will indulge me a bit, we will return to Matthew tomorrow for our focus, but today - we are going to discuss the Genesis passage. Genesis 6 has long been one of my favorite passages in the Bible. It is fascinating, scary, and very, very mysterious. I wrote a book last year called Angels, Ghosts and other Bible Mysteries (on Amazon) that is very focused on many of the mysteries that are brought up in this passage. If you like this discussion, you will probably enjoy that book. If not, then skip the book! Before we get to the question and answer section, however, let's mine some spiritual gold from this passage. Here is a powerful and encouraging word from our friend and mentor, Charles Spurgeon: My brethren, how displeased the great God has been with men. He said that it repented him that he had made men upon the earth. That was a striking expression which is used in Genesis 6:6: “It grieved him at his heart.” He seemed to grow so weary of man's wanton wickedness that he was sorry that he ever made beings capable of so much evil. Yet he is so well content with his beloved Son, who has assumed our nature, that we read of him, “The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake: he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.” (Is. 42:21). The Lord looks down upon those who are in Christ with an intense affection, and loves them even as he loves the Son, for that is the meaning of this word, “In whom I am well pleased.” All who are in Christ Jesus are pleasing to God; yea, God in Christ looks with divine satisfaction upon all those who trust his Son: he is not only pleased, but well pleased. If you are pleased with Jesus, God is pleased with you: if you are in the Son, then you are in the Father's good pleasure C. H. Spurgeon, “The Voice from the Cloud and the Voice of the Beloved,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 29 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1883), 355–356. I would say that Genesis 6 presents us with one of the top five mysteries in the Bible - especially if you read it in the King James Version! Check this out: And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Genesis 6;1-4, King James Version SO MANY QUESTIONS! What is going on here? Are angelic beings having relations with human women (apparently...) were the offspring of those unions giants (maybe...but that's not the best translation.) did God send the flood because heavenly beings and earthly beings were having relationships?! These are all tough questions and likely too big for our short little podcast to cover, but I'll try to at least give a short answer to some of them. (maybe we'll do a special episode on this chapter at some point) Question #1: Are heavenly beings in Genesis 6 actually having children with human females? The answer to this question depends on who, exactly, the "sons of God" are in Genesis 6. There are three main theories. The first is that they are powerful men and leaders that were human - maybe significantly above average humans. Think body-builders, great/tall athletes, charismatic politicians, etc. Theory #2 is that these 'sons of God' are descendants of Seth, thus making the 'daughters of men,' primarily descendants of Cain. This theory is the one I have heard most at seminary and in academic circles. Theory #3 is that 'sons of God' are some type of heavenly creature - an angel, or something like an angel. I personally see no grammatical or historical evidence of theory #1. All of the sudden these guys realized that human females were beautiful (vs. 2)? This theory doesn't seem to fit the context of the verse very well, and theory #2 even less so. There is literally NOWHERE in Scripture that suggests that the daughters of men were of the line of Cain and the sons of God were of the line of Seth. Seth is mentioned ten times in the Bible, and only twice after Genesis 5. (Once in a genealogy in Luke and in 1st Chronicles) Cain is mentioned only 3 times after Genesis 5, and all three times are in the New Testament, and do not discuss his descendants at all, but only his murder and his wrong-offering. Genesis six mentions neither Cain nor Abel, so this theory - and it is a popular one - simply has no biblical support whatsoever that I can find. Which brings us to theory #3 - the sons of God are some type of heavenly creature. Believe it or not, this theory has the most textual support by far. The phrase 'sons of God,' occurs three times outside of Genesis in the Old Testament. All three times are in the book of Job, and all three times are clearly speaking of heavenly creatures - angels, or something like angels. That is a strong bit of evidence in favor of viewing these sons of God as Heavenly beings. Vs. 2 is also strong contextual evidence in favor of theory 3. Consider this verse, "The sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful." if that verse is simply talking about human males, the descendants of Seth, or whomever, then it is a strange, strange passage. Did it really take hundreds (or thousands!) of years for human males to realize that human females were beautiful? Frankly, I think that is silly. I believe the biblical text is pointing us to theory #3 that these beings were heavenly. One more bit of evidence, and this evidence is weak, but worth noting. The Book of Enoch is not a biblical book, and was not written by the Enoch spoken of in Genesis. It was not canonical, and I do not believe it to be inspired. It is, however, a very old book and it was read by people in the early church, and many early church fathers. Scholars' best guess is that the book of Enoch dates to around 100-300 years before the birth of Jesus, though some sections could be older. That book is very, very clear about who the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6 were. Listen to this! Book of Enoch – Enoch 15: And He answered and said to me, and I heard His voice: 'Fear not, Enoch, thou righteous man and scribe of righteousness: approach hither and hear my voice. And go, say to the Watchers of heaven, who have sent thee to intercede for them: "You should intercede" for men, and not men for you: Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons? And though ye were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten (children) with the blood of flesh, and, as the children of men, have lusted after flesh and blood as those also do who die 5 and perish. Therefore have I given them wives also that they might impregnate them, and beget children by them, that thus nothing might be wanting to them on earth. But you were formerly spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world. And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; for as for the spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their dwelling. And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. [As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.] And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them. One objection that many have to theory #3 is from Matthew 22:30, " 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven." I do not believe this objection holds much water for two reasons: #1 Genesis 6 seems to be talking about intimate relations and not necessarily marriage. It is possible to have relations and not be married. #2, Jesus specifically mentions "angels in Heaven," and Genesis 6 is quite obviously dealing with beings that are on earth. Perhaps angels in Heaven do not marry, but the beings in Genesis 6, be they human or angels are not at all in Heaven, and don't seem to be concerned with the rules of Heaven. Another objection might say that Heavenly beings are without gender, but I don't see that in Scripture either. There are Heavenly beings in Zechariah 5 that are female (not necessarily angels) and the Heavenly beings in Genesis 18 are clearly male. Can heavenly beings procreate? The only bit of biblical evidence in favor of that possibility would seem to be here in Genesis 6 and I see nothing anywhere else that gives me the idea that they are incapable of such things. Question #2: Is Genesis 6 telling us that giants used to exist on the earth? Not necessarily - the Hebrew word there is the word Nephilim. It is a difficult word to translate because it only appears in one - or two - other places in the entire Old Testament. Reference #1 is from Numbers 13 and is probably where the King James translators got the inspiration to use the word, "giant." 30 Then Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses and said, “Let's go up now and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!”31 But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can't attack the people because they are stronger than we are!” 32 So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. 33 We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.” Numbers 13:30-34 So - these Nephilim are clearly quite big and impressive...but are they giants? I live in Salinas, California - about an hour from where the Golden State Warriors play basketball. If I went over to practice one day, and somehow, someway got a chance to shoot around with those guys, I'd probably come home and tell my family that I felt like a grasshopper. I'm 6'1, but compared to Kevin Looney (6 feet, 9 inches) or Willie Cauley-Stein (7 feet!) I'm quite short. I believe that these Nephilim were the offspring of heavenly beings and human females, so it is certainly possible that they possessed traits that were above human capability, but we just can't be sure about their size at all, beyond saying that they were likely significantly larger than the Hebrews. Question #3: Did God flood the earth because of human-angelic relationships? If definitely seems like there is a subtle relationship between God flooding the world and whatever was going on with these sons of God and daughters of men. Could 2nd Peter 2 be giving us a clue about this? 4 For if God didn't spare the angels who sinned but cast them into hell and delivered them in chains of utter darkness to be kept for judgment; 5 and if he didn't spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, when he brought the flood on the world of the ungodly; 2 Peter 2:4-5 That passage is quite interesting, but also fairly obscure. I'm not sure we should build a lot of theology on it. The fact is, however, that the first part Genesis 6 seems to indicate that the sins of humans grieved God in the context of the flood. 5 When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, 6 the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth,and he was deeply grieved. 7 Then the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” 8 Noah, however, found favor with the Lord.... Genesis 6:5-8 The second part of Genesis 6, however, seems to make room for more than humans to be involved in the judgment. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with wickedness. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth. 13 Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Genesis 6:11-13 So, my conclusion to the question is a weak 'maybe.' If the sons of God are indeed heavenly beings, as I suspect they are, it would appear that their dalliance with human females had at least a small part to play in the flooding of the earth. We might go too far past the text if we say much more than that. I'll close with the conclusions of Jonathan Edwards - probably American's foremost theologian - on the question of the giants/nephilim: “And there were giants in the earth in those days,” etc. “Pausanias, in his Laconics, mentions the bones of men of a more than ordinary bigness, which were shown in the temple of Aesculapius at the city of Asepus; and in the first of his Eliacs, of a bone taken out of the sea, which aforetime was kept at Pisa, and thought to have been one of Peleps'. Philostratus, in the beginning of his Heroics, [says] that many bodies of giants were discovered in Pallene, by showers of rain and earthquakes. Pliny, Bk. 7, ch. 16, says, ‘That upon the bursting of a mountain in Crete, there was found a body standing upright, which was reported by some to have been the body of Orion, by others, the body of Eetion. Orestes' body, when it was commanded by the oracle to be digged up, is reported to have been seven cubits. And almost a thousand years ago, the poet Homer continually complained, that men's bodies were less than of old.' And Solinus, ch. I, ‘Were not all that were born in that age, less than their parents?' And the story of Orestes' funeral testifies the bigness of the ancients, whose bones, when they were digged up, in the 58th Olympiad at Tegea, by the advice of the oracle, are related to have been seven cubits in length. And other writings, which give a credible relation of ancient matters, affirm this, that in the war of Crete, when the rivers had been so high as to overflow and break down their banks, after the flood was abated, upon the cleaving of the earth, there was found a human body of three and thirty foot long, which L. Flaccus, the legate, and Metellus himself, being very desirous of seeing, were much surprised to have the satisfaction of seeing, what they did not believe when they heard.” Grotius, De Veritate, Bk. 1, sec. 16, notes. “Josephus, Bk. 5, ch. 2, of his ancient history. ‘There remains to this day some of the race of the giants, who by reason of the bulk and figure of their bodies, so different from other men, are wonderful to see, or hear of. Their bones are now shown, far exceeding the belief of the vulgar.' Gabinius, in his history of Mauritania, said that Antaeus' bones were found by Sertorius, which, joined together, were sixty cubits long. Phlegon Trallianus, in his 9th chapter of Wonders, mentions the digging up [of] the head of Ida, which was three times as big as that of an ordinary woman. And he adds also, that there were many bodies found in Dalmatia, whose arms exceeded sixteen cubits. And the same man relates out of Theopompus, that there were found in the Cimmerian Bosphorus, a company of human bones twenty-four cubits in length.” Le Clerc's notes on Grotius, De Veritate, Bk. 1, sec. 16. “We almost everywhere in the Greek and Latin historians meet with the savage life of the giants, mentioned by Moses. In the Greek, as Homer, Iliad 9, and Hesiod in his Labors. To this may be referred the wars of the gods, mentioned by Plato in his Second Republic, and those distinct and separate governments, taken notice of by the same Plato, in his third book of Laws. And as to the Latin historians, see the first book of Ovid's Metamorphosis, and the 4th book of Lucan, and Seneca's third book of Natural Questions, Ques. 30, where he says concerning the deluge, ‘That the beasts also perished, into whose nature men were degenerated.' ” Jonathan Edwards, Notes on Scripture, ed. Harry S. Stout and Stephen J. Stein, vol. 15, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (London; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 506–508. By the way, Augustine - writing all the way back in the 300s! Makes a case contra the above, and believes that the sons of God were merely men. His reasoning is that there are at least two men in the Bible that are designated as angels/messengers that were obviously human, and that is likely what is going on here too. I respect and admire Augustine, but disagree with him here, noting that "sons of God" does not, of necessity, equate to angels. WHETHER WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT ANGELS, WHO ARE OF A SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE, FELL IN LOVE WITH THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN, AND SOUGHT THEM IN MARRIAGE, AND THAT FROM THIS CONNECTION GIANTS WERE BORN In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written, “Who maketh His angels spirits,”4 that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as “angelus,” means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, “and His ministers a flaming fire,” or means that God's ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called “incubi,” had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it.5 From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.”1 I think he rather speaks of these who first apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under the form of a serpent. But the same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even godly man have been called angels; for of John it is written: “Behold, I send my messenger (angel) before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way.”2 And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially communicated to him, was called an angel.3 But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the connection between those who are called angels of God and the women they loved were not men like our own breed, but giants; just as if there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned above) men of much greater size than the ordinary stature. Was there not at Rome a few years ago, when the destruction of the city now accomplished by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her father and mother, who by her gigantic size over-topped all others? Surprising crowds from all quarters came to see her, and that which struck them most was the circumstance that neither of her parents were quite up to the tallest ordinary stature. Giants therefore might well be born, even before the sons of God, who are also called angels of God, formed a connection with the daughters of men, or of those living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of Seth formed a connection with the daughters of Cain. For thus speaks even the canonical Scripture itself in the book in which we read of this; its words are: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became the giants, men of renown.”4 These words of the divine book sufficiently indicate that already there were giants in the earth in those days, in which the sons of God took wives of the children of men, when they loved them because they were good, that is, fair. For it is the custom of this Scripture to call those who are beautiful in appearance “good.” But after this connection had been formed, then too were giants born. For the words are: “There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men.” Therefore there were giants both before, “in those days,” and “also after that.” And the words, “they bare children to them,” show plainly enough that before the sons of God fell in this fashion they begat children to God, not to themselves,—that is to say, not moved by the lust of sexual intercourse, but discharging the duty of propagation, intending to produce not a family to gratify their own pride, but citizens to people the city of God; and to these they as God's angels would bear the message, that they should place their hope in God, like him who was born of Seth, the son of resurrection, and who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their offspring would be co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren in the family of which God is the Father. Augustine of Hippo, “The City of God,” in St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. Marcus Dods, vol. 2, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887), 303–304.

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Episode 6: Who were the Nephilim in Genesis 6? Were they the Offspring of Angels and Humans? Reading: Genesis 6, Ezra 6, Matthew 6 and Acts 6.

Bible Reading Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 6, 2020 42:41

Today's reading is Genesis 6, Ezra 6, Matthew 6, and Acts 6. It may be that our focus reading for the day should continue in Matthew 6, because Jesus' teaching there is so majestic and beautiful that no passage should really overshadow it. If you will indulge me a bit, we will return to Matthew tomorrow for our focus, but today - we are going to discuss the Genesis passage. Genesis 6 has long been one of my favorite passages in the Bible. It is fascinating, scary, and very, very mysterious. I wrote a book last year called Angels, Ghosts and other Bible Mysteries (on Amazon) that is very focused on many of the mysteries that are brought up in this passage. If you like this discussion, you will probably enjoy that book. If not, then skip the book! Before we get to the question and answer section, however, let's mine some spiritual gold from this passage. Here is a powerful and encouraging word from our friend and mentor, Charles Spurgeon: My brethren, how displeased the great God has been with men. He said that it repented him that he had made men upon the earth. That was a striking expression which is used in Genesis 6:6: “It grieved him at his heart.” He seemed to grow so weary of man's wanton wickedness that he was sorry that he ever made beings capable of so much evil. Yet he is so well content with his beloved Son, who has assumed our nature, that we read of him, “The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake: he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.” (Is. 42:21). The Lord looks down upon those who are in Christ with an intense affection, and loves them even as he loves the Son, for that is the meaning of this word, “In whom I am well pleased.” All who are in Christ Jesus are pleasing to God; yea, God in Christ looks with divine satisfaction upon all those who trust his Son: he is not only pleased, but well pleased. If you are pleased with Jesus, God is pleased with you: if you are in the Son, then you are in the Father's good pleasure C. H. Spurgeon, “The Voice from the Cloud and the Voice of the Beloved,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 29 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1883), 355–356. I would say that Genesis 6 presents us with one of the top five mysteries in the Bible - especially if you read it in the King James Version! Check this out: And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Genesis 6;1-4, King James Version SO MANY QUESTIONS! What is going on here? Are angelic beings having relations with human women (apparently...) were the offspring of those unions giants (maybe...but that's not the best translation.) did God send the flood because heavenly beings and earthly beings were having relationships?! These are all tough questions and likely too big for our short little podcast to cover, but I'll try to at least give a short answer to some of them. (maybe we'll do a special episode on this chapter at some point) Question #1: Are heavenly beings in Genesis 6 actually having children with human females? The answer to this question depends on who, exactly, the "sons of God" are in Genesis 6. There are three main theories. The first is that they are powerful men and leaders that were human - maybe significantly above average humans. Think body-builders, great/tall athletes, charismatic politicians, etc. Theory #2 is that these 'sons of God' are descendants of Seth, thus making the 'daughters of men,' primarily descendants of Cain. This theory is the one I have heard most at seminary and in academic circles. Theory #3 is that 'sons of God' are some type of heavenly creature - an angel, or something like an angel. I personally see no grammatical or historical evidence of theory #1. All of the sudden these guys realized that human females were beautiful (vs. 2)? This theory doesn't seem to fit the context of the verse very well, and theory #2 even less so. There is literally NOWHERE in Scripture that suggests that the daughters of men were of the line of Cain and the sons of God were of the line of Seth. Seth is mentioned ten times in the Bible, and only twice after Genesis 5. (Once in a genealogy in Luke and in 1st Chronicles) Cain is mentioned only 3 times after Genesis 5, and all three times are in the New Testament, and do not discuss his descendants at all, but only his murder and his wrong-offering. Genesis six mentions neither Cain nor Abel, so this theory - and it is a popular one - simply has no biblical support whatsoever that I can find. Which brings us to theory #3 - the sons of God are some type of heavenly creature. Believe it or not, this theory has the most textual support by far. The phrase 'sons of God,' occurs three times outside of Genesis in the Old Testament. All three times are in the book of Job, and all three times are clearly speaking of heavenly creatures - angels, or something like angels. That is a strong bit of evidence in favor of viewing these sons of God as Heavenly beings. Vs. 2 is also strong contextual evidence in favor of theory 3. Consider this verse, "The sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful." if that verse is simply talking about human males, the descendants of Seth, or whomever, then it is a strange, strange passage. Did it really take hundreds (or thousands!) of years for human males to realize that human females were beautiful? Frankly, I think that is silly. I believe the biblical text is pointing us to theory #3 that these beings were heavenly. One more bit of evidence, and this evidence is weak, but worth noting. The Book of Enoch is not a biblical book, and was not written by the Enoch spoken of in Genesis. It was not canonical, and I do not believe it to be inspired. It is, however, a very old book and it was read by people in the early church, and many early church fathers. Scholars' best guess is that the book of Enoch dates to around 100-300 years before the birth of Jesus, though some sections could be older. That book is very, very clear about who the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6 were. Listen to this! Book of Enoch – Enoch 15: And He answered and said to me, and I heard His voice: 'Fear not, Enoch, thou righteous man and scribe of righteousness: approach hither and hear my voice. And go, say to the Watchers of heaven, who have sent thee to intercede for them: "You should intercede" for men, and not men for you: Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons? And though ye were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten (children) with the blood of flesh, and, as the children of men, have lusted after flesh and blood as those also do who die 5 and perish. Therefore have I given them wives also that they might impregnate them, and beget children by them, that thus nothing might be wanting to them on earth. But you were formerly spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world. And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; for as for the spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their dwelling. And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. [As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.] And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them. One objection that many have to theory #3 is from Matthew 22:30, " 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven." I do not believe this objection holds much water for two reasons: #1 Genesis 6 seems to be talking about intimate relations and not necessarily marriage. It is possible to have relations and not be married. #2, Jesus specifically mentions "angels in Heaven," and Genesis 6 is quite obviously dealing with beings that are on earth. Perhaps angels in Heaven do not marry, but the beings in Genesis 6, be they human or angels are not at all in Heaven, and don't seem to be concerned with the rules of Heaven. Another objection might say that Heavenly beings are without gender, but I don't see that in Scripture either. There are Heavenly beings in Zechariah 5 that are female (not necessarily angels) and the Heavenly beings in Genesis 18 are clearly male. Can heavenly beings procreate? The only bit of biblical evidence in favor of that possibility would seem to be here in Genesis 6 and I see nothing anywhere else that gives me the idea that they are incapable of such things. Question #2: Is Genesis 6 telling us that giants used to exist on the earth? Not necessarily - the Hebrew word there is the word Nephilim. It is a difficult word to translate because it only appears in one - or two - other places in the entire Old Testament. Reference #1 is from Numbers 13 and is probably where the King James translators got the inspiration to use the word, "giant." 30 Then Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses and said, “Let's go up now and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!”31 But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can't attack the people because they are stronger than we are!” 32 So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. 33 We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.” Numbers 13:30-34 So - these Nephilim are clearly quite big and impressive...but are they giants? I live in Salinas, California - about an hour from where the Golden State Warriors play basketball. If I went over to practice one day, and somehow, someway got a chance to shoot around with those guys, I'd probably come home and tell my family that I felt like a grasshopper. I'm 6'1, but compared to Kevin Looney (6 feet, 9 inches) or Willie Cauley-Stein (7 feet!) I'm quite short. I believe that these Nephilim were the offspring of heavenly beings and human females, so it is certainly possible that they possessed traits that were above human capability, but we just can't be sure about their size at all, beyond saying that they were likely significantly larger than the Hebrews. Question #3: Did God flood the earth because of human-angelic relationships? If definitely seems like there is a subtle relationship between God flooding the world and whatever was going on with these sons of God and daughters of men. Could 2nd Peter 2 be giving us a clue about this? 4 For if God didn't spare the angels who sinned but cast them into hell and delivered them in chains of utter darkness to be kept for judgment; 5 and if he didn't spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, when he brought the flood on the world of the ungodly; 2 Peter 2:4-5 That passage is quite interesting, but also fairly obscure. I'm not sure we should build a lot of theology on it. The fact is, however, that the first part Genesis 6 seems to indicate that the sins of humans grieved God in the context of the flood. 5 When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, 6 the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth,and he was deeply grieved. 7 Then the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” 8 Noah, however, found favor with the Lord.... Genesis 6:5-8 The second part of Genesis 6, however, seems to make room for more than humans to be involved in the judgment. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with wickedness. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth. 13 Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Genesis 6:11-13 So, my conclusion to the question is a weak 'maybe.' If the sons of God are indeed heavenly beings, as I suspect they are, it would appear that their dalliance with human females had at least a small part to play in the flooding of the earth. We might go too far past the text if we say much more than that. I'll close with the conclusions of Jonathan Edwards - probably American's foremost theologian - on the question of the giants/nephilim: “And there were giants in the earth in those days,” etc. “Pausanias, in his Laconics, mentions the bones of men of a more than ordinary bigness, which were shown in the temple of Aesculapius at the city of Asepus; and in the first of his Eliacs, of a bone taken out of the sea, which aforetime was kept at Pisa, and thought to have been one of Peleps'. Philostratus, in the beginning of his Heroics, [says] that many bodies of giants were discovered in Pallene, by showers of rain and earthquakes. Pliny, Bk. 7, ch. 16, says, ‘That upon the bursting of a mountain in Crete, there was found a body standing upright, which was reported by some to have been the body of Orion, by others, the body of Eetion. Orestes' body, when it was commanded by the oracle to be digged up, is reported to have been seven cubits. And almost a thousand years ago, the poet Homer continually complained, that men's bodies were less than of old.' And Solinus, ch. I, ‘Were not all that were born in that age, less than their parents?' And the story of Orestes' funeral testifies the bigness of the ancients, whose bones, when they were digged up, in the 58th Olympiad at Tegea, by the advice of the oracle, are related to have been seven cubits in length. And other writings, which give a credible relation of ancient matters, affirm this, that in the war of Crete, when the rivers had been so high as to overflow and break down their banks, after the flood was abated, upon the cleaving of the earth, there was found a human body of three and thirty foot long, which L. Flaccus, the legate, and Metellus himself, being very desirous of seeing, were much surprised to have the satisfaction of seeing, what they did not believe when they heard.” Grotius, De Veritate, Bk. 1, sec. 16, notes. “Josephus, Bk. 5, ch. 2, of his ancient history. ‘There remains to this day some of the race of the giants, who by reason of the bulk and figure of their bodies, so different from other men, are wonderful to see, or hear of. Their bones are now shown, far exceeding the belief of the vulgar.' Gabinius, in his history of Mauritania, said that Antaeus' bones were found by Sertorius, which, joined together, were sixty cubits long. Phlegon Trallianus, in his 9th chapter of Wonders, mentions the digging up [of] the head of Ida, which was three times as big as that of an ordinary woman. And he adds also, that there were many bodies found in Dalmatia, whose arms exceeded sixteen cubits. And the same man relates out of Theopompus, that there were found in the Cimmerian Bosphorus, a company of human bones twenty-four cubits in length.” Le Clerc's notes on Grotius, De Veritate, Bk. 1, sec. 16. “We almost everywhere in the Greek and Latin historians meet with the savage life of the giants, mentioned by Moses. In the Greek, as Homer, Iliad 9, and Hesiod in his Labors. To this may be referred the wars of the gods, mentioned by Plato in his Second Republic, and those distinct and separate governments, taken notice of by the same Plato, in his third book of Laws. And as to the Latin historians, see the first book of Ovid's Metamorphosis, and the 4th book of Lucan, and Seneca's third book of Natural Questions, Ques. 30, where he says concerning the deluge, ‘That the beasts also perished, into whose nature men were degenerated.' ” Jonathan Edwards, Notes on Scripture, ed. Harry S. Stout and Stephen J. Stein, vol. 15, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (London; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 506–508. By the way, Augustine - writing all the way back in the 300s! Makes a case contra the above, and believes that the sons of God were merely men. His reasoning is that there are at least two men in the Bible that are designated as angels/messengers that were obviously human, and that is likely what is going on here too. I respect and admire Augustine, but disagree with him here, noting that "sons of God" does not, of necessity, equate to angels. WHETHER WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT ANGELS, WHO ARE OF A SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE, FELL IN LOVE WITH THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN, AND SOUGHT THEM IN MARRIAGE, AND THAT FROM THIS CONNECTION GIANTS WERE BORN In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written, “Who maketh His angels spirits,”4 that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as “angelus,” means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, “and His ministers a flaming fire,” or means that God's ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called “incubi,” had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it.5 From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.”1 I think he rather speaks of these who first apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under the form of a serpent. But the same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even godly man have been called angels; for of John it is written: “Behold, I send my messenger (angel) before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way.”2 And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially communicated to him, was called an angel.3 But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the connection between those who are called angels of God and the women they loved were not men like our own breed, but giants; just as if there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned above) men of much greater size than the ordinary stature. Was there not at Rome a few years ago, when the destruction of the city now accomplished by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her father and mother, who by her gigantic size over-topped all others? Surprising crowds from all quarters came to see her, and that which struck them most was the circumstance that neither of her parents were quite up to the tallest ordinary stature. Giants therefore might well be born, even before the sons of God, who are also called angels of God, formed a connection with the daughters of men, or of those living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of Seth formed a connection with the daughters of Cain. For thus speaks even the canonical Scripture itself in the book in which we read of this; its words are: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became the giants, men of renown.”4 These words of the divine book sufficiently indicate that already there were giants in the earth in those days, in which the sons of God took wives of the children of men, when they loved them because they were good, that is, fair. For it is the custom of this Scripture to call those who are beautiful in appearance “good.” But after this connection had been formed, then too were giants born. For the words are: “There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men.” Therefore there were giants both before, “in those days,” and “also after that.” And the words, “they bare children to them,” show plainly enough that before the sons of God fell in this fashion they begat children to God, not to themselves,—that is to say, not moved by the lust of sexual intercourse, but discharging the duty of propagation, intending to produce not a family to gratify their own pride, but citizens to people the city of God; and to these they as God's angels would bear the message, that they should place their hope in God, like him who was born of Seth, the son of resurrection, and who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their offspring would be co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren in the family of which God is the Father. Augustine of Hippo, “The City of God,” in St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. Marcus Dods, vol. 2, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887), 303–304.

god jesus christ american amazon fear california father lord israel bible voice ghosts evil acts scripture angels numbers greek rome theory humans giants laws hebrews old testament cloud new testament demons theology latin behold surprising hebrew beloved israelites paranormal wonders stein golden state warriors matthew 6 plato homer orion makes lord god acts 6 scholars apologetics anak pisa goth metamorphosis offspring watchers stout seneca genesis 6 salinas thy christian church king james nephilim psalmist hippo bk crete apostle peter spurgeon ques iliad jonathan edwards heroics augustin king james version ovid mauritania labors josephus pliny my spirit olympiads christian doctrine stephen j lucan bible questions angelology hesiod nicene orestes reading genesis dalmatia gauls willie cauley stein metellus harry s new haven yale university press is genesis antaeus pausanias grotius second republic aesculapius biblemysteries

Hieromartyr Artemon, presbyter of Laodicea in Syria (303)