Templar Globe

Bill Dietrich, assistant professor of environmental studies at Western Washington University’s Huxley College of the Environment, shares “The Rosetta Key,” the sequel to “Napoleon’s Pyramids,” continuing the adventures of Ethan Gage, who’s now in the Holy Land in dogged pursuit of the magical “Book of Thoth” during Napoleon’s 1799 invasion of Israel that will climax at the epic siege of Acre.

Question: For those who may not have read “Napoleon’s Pyramids,” what should readers know about Ethan Gage, the hero of these two novels, in particular his (seeming) attitude that life is a gamble, one “plays the cards” and “takes the risks.” (I am also curious whether this is your attitude toward life?)

Answer: Ethan is my alter ego, not autobiographical! I don’t gamble, I’m a family man instead of a womanizer, a writer instead of a warrior, and judicious instead of impulsive. Ethan and I are alike, however, in a belief in destiny and opportunity; that while we’re responsible for our choices, our fate is not entirely in our own hands. Napoleon felt the same way.

Q: In this novel, there is much philosophizing and religious commentary/intrigue on “the philosopher’s stone,” the Rosetta Stone, the philosophy of truth, the nature of love, sacrifice and personal integrity. How do you blend the various voices and themes into a historical novel and still have Ethan relevant to today?

A: Ethan is deliberately modern in his outlook, so that readers can relate, and I’ve called Napoleon “the first modern man” because he was self-made, opportunistic, idealistic, optimistic, and yet also cynical, ruthless and narcissistic. These are characters I think today’s readers can relate to: they reflect our jumble of traits. “The Rosetta Key” weaves together the story of Napoleon’s 1799 invasion of the Holy Land, intriguing speculation about ancient mysteries and the Knights Templar that are not original with me, and fictional characters swept up in war and adventure.

Just as we feel somewhat helpless in the face of events like recession or 9/11, my heroes and heroines are ordinary mortals doing their best to prevail in a hostile, unpredictable world. This was the period of the Enlightenment and revolution, fledgling industry and science, and yet a mystical counter-reaction because people longed for religious mystery. It’s a rich period in which to speculate about life.

Q: What are some of the comparisons of the holy war in Napoleon’s time to today’s political situation?

A: Napoleon wanted to reform the Middle East. (Sound familiar?) The French Revolution had thrown out Christianity and yet he tried to portray himself friendly to the Koran. Muslims would have none of it, and resisted fiercely. Meanwhile, like today, you had cults, sects and philosophies that dabbled in philosophy and mysticism, like the (then-somewhat-secret) Freemasons, Jewish mystics, and others convinced there were ancient secrets to be rediscovered. Their golden age was the past, not the future. The Knights Templar, a Crusader sect, was rumored to have discovered fantastic treasures beneath Jerusalem.

Q: How did Napoleon change the way the world viewed Egypt, and if Ethan really existed, what impact would he have had?

A: The scientists who accompanied Napoleon started the science of Egyptology; up to that time almost nothing was known about the ancient world. French soldiers unearthed the Rosetta Stone, which was key to deciphering hieroglyphics. The conceit of my novel is that wayward Ethan plays a role in such events. A real American, jumping between armies, would probably have been executed many times over.

Q: What were some of your experiences as you traveled the Middle East doing research for this novel?

A: It’s unfortunate conflict dissuades tourism there, because the ruins are the most moving that I’ve seen. The depth of time is palpable. I was with an archeologist tour in Egypt that allowed us to squirm into some unusual places — at one we were literally crawling on our bellies into an old tomb — and the ruins of Petra in Jordan that play a role in “The Rosetta Key” are almost unbelievable: huge temple facades carved into towering rose sandstone cliffs.

I sweated a lot, but the closest I came to peril were the indefatigable souvenir sellers and the driving habits in Egypt! In Israel, a lone American mumbling about doing “research” did draw attention: security personnel examined every digital photo I had taken.

Q: Your female characters are really intriguing. How do they keep moving your plot forward? How do you “get to know” them?

A: I try to make my characters distinctive and fun, and sometimes humorous. My women tend to be smart and they keep Ethan grounded, a male-female partnership I’ve observed in real life. I try to make the women courageous partners, not witless ninnies screaming in a corner. Because my stories are thrillers dependent on plot, I have to keep tight rein on their actions, but their personalities emerge as the writing goes on. I end up liking them, even the villains.

Q: Any movie offers?

A: Interest, but no offers yet: these are expensive stories to film. My fiction has frequently been described as cinematic, but apparently the right people in Hollywood haven’t read those reviews.

Q: What’s the deal between Bill Dietrich the journalist, Bill Dietrich the professor, Bill Dietrich the novelist, and Bill Dietrich the family man?

A: It may seem an odd combination, but they’re all aspects of what is basically a curious, somewhat earnest personality. I’ve liked history and adventure since I was a child, I feel I can do the most for the environment through writing and teaching, and the stability I’ve gotten from wife and children has allowed me to do and try a lot of things. I get winded sometimes … but life is short!

in Trading Markets

The editor of the Templar Globe just found this interesting article that brings us the view of a Pakistan islamic journalist. To form a better view of the issued that are part ou our history we have to read both sides of the accounts.

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The Book and the Prophet they hold in such contempt are the only religious head and the book that glorify Jesus and Gospel. If Jesus commands the respect he has today it is owing to the declaration by Muahammad and the Quran that Jesus was a Miracle of God and his mother was pious and virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. If this was not the stand of Islam, Pope can very well understand what the majority of the world could have called Jesus as. But Islam gave Jesus his true place in the history of the world by describing him as Messenger and Word of God.

o The Bible advocates much greater violence against the detractors than the Quran The following verses are from the Bible, New International Version (NIV), 1984:

* Do not allow a sorceress to live. Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death. Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the LORD must be destroyed. (Exodus 22:18-20)
* This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbour.’ The Levites did as Moses commanded and that day about three thousand of the people died. (Exodus 32:27-28 )
* The LORD said to Moses, ‘Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites…. The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps…. (Moses ordered) “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. (Numbers 31: 1-18 )
* (Jesus said) “But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me. (Luke 19:27)
* He (Jesus) said to them, ‘But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. (Luke 22:36 )

Christians who are always blaming Quran for asking Muslims to “kill the unbelievers” must stop this tirade, as Jesus asked for the “enemies” to be killed “in front of me.” The Old Testament is replete with the accounts of bloody battles that killed thousands of persons. In this context, following remarks from an article are important:

“Is Christianity only a religion of Peace and Love? I do not think that anyone can honestly and objectively examine American or European history and answer “yes” to that question. Christianity can encourage Peace and Love - but it certainly need not, and it quite often has done just the opposite. Although the people responsible for violence might have found a way to express their hatred without Christianity, it cannot be ignored that Christianity offers a convenient divine mandate for hatred and violent acts against a wide range of people………Violent inclinations in Christianity are apparent right from the beginning……The course of modernity has been one strewn with blood, bones, and bodies - much of which can be attributed to Christianity.” (Atheist.com)

In another article, “The Real History of the Crusades”, Thomas F. Madden, despite his huge defence of the crusades against Islam, admits:

“…I was frequently asked to comment on the fact that the Islamic world has a just grievance against the West. Doesn’t the present violence, they persisted, have its roots in the Crusades’ brutal and unprovoked attacks against a sophisticated and tolerant Muslim world? In other words, aren’t the Crusades really to blame?….. Ex-president Bill Clinton has also fingered the Crusades as the root cause of the present conflict. In a speech at Georgetown University, he recounted (and embellished) a massacre of Jews after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and informed his audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered in the Middle East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing of Jews was not explained.) Clinton took a beating on the nation’s editorial pages for wanting so much to blame the United States that he was willing to reach back to the Middle Ages. Yet no one disputed the ex-president’s fundamental premise…… The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilisation in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.….The Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterise them as nothing but piety and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence was brutal (although not as brutal as modern wars). There were mishaps, blunders, and crimes. These are usually well-remembered today. During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a righteous deed, since the Jews’ money could be used to fund the Crusade to Jerusalem….. Jews perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews”. He takes lot of pains in proving the better side of crusades, which of course is opposite to the analysis of most of the neutral historians. This is why he calls his analysis “the real history”. But the negative side of crusades is extremely ugly. Not only Muslims but Jews were also brutally massacred in the process. In the first Crusade, the Christian fighters, in order to avenge the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, massacred tens of thousands of innocent Jews, Muslims, and even Orthodox Christians who had the misfortune to dress or look like Muslims. On July 15, 1099, they reached Jerusalem where streets were drenched with the blood of Muslims and Jews. Those who survived were sold into slavery. In 1144, in the Second Crusade, the Jewish communities of Germany faced another slaughter in Jesus’ name. During the Third Crusade in 1170. Jews in York, Lynn, Norwich, Stamford, and other towns of England were massacred. In 1198, Pope Innocent III began the Fourth Crusade. He ordered Jews to wear badges to identify themselves, and then ordered them to be killed to atone for Jesus’ death. After the formal ending of Crusades, thousands of young Crusaders burned their way across Europe exterminating more than 150 Jewish communities. The worst victims were of course Muslims. In the First Crusade, nearly all of the Muslims inside Antioch. were killed by the merciless crusaders. . Then the crusaders attacked Marrat an-Nu’man where the crusaders (The Templars, known for their religiousness) slaughtered a hundred thousand people. The attack on Jerusalem witnessed the worst kind of brutalities that ever occurred before in the history. No Muslim was given mercy. Old, young, men, women and children were brutally massacred. The blooded flooded the streets, reaching as high as knees. Muslims were thrown from the tops and burnt. The crusaders mounted the Mount of Solomon and killed hundreds of thousands. In contrast when Salaadin recaptured Jerusalem, no Christian was harmed. Those who wanted to leave the city were allowed to do so; those who wanted to live were allowed to live by paying tribute. Those who could not pay tribute were condoned. The irony is that Crusaders themselves lost millions of lives in the fights; often Christens killed fellow Christians with the same brutality with which they massacred Muslims and Jews.”

Islam, Peace and Jihad

Peace” in Islam does not merely refer to the absence of war. It is a much more comprehensive term that includes peace at physical, mental, family and social (national and international) levels. This implies absence of all forms of diseases and weaknesses at individual level, and absence of all forms of mischief in society. The verses of the Holy Quran are full of messages that speak of tolerance, endurance and peace. Equally strong are messages against chaos, mischief, suppression and oppression. In fact when one goes through the Holy Book, one can easily feel the intensity with which Islam wants to achieve its aim of grand peace. True, in exceptional circumstances, it allows armed struggle, but it prefers to avoid violence. And whenever it allows violence, it is only aimed at preventing greater violence or widespread chaos. Let us examine the following verses:

· “..but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.” (2:193)

· “Therefore if they withdraw from you but fight you not, and (instead) send you (Guarantees of) peace, then Allah hath opened no way for you (to war against them).” (4:90)

· “But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou (also) incline towards peace, and trust in Allah.” (8:61)

· “……………with those Pagans with whom ye have entered into alliance and who have not subsequently failed you in aught, nor aided any one against you. So fulfil your engagements with them to the end of their term: for Allah loveth the righteous.” (9:4)

· “If one amongst the Pagans ask thee for asylum, grant it to him, so that he may hear the word of Allah and then escort him to where he can be secure. That is because they are men without knowledge.” (9:6)

· “Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just. Allah only forbids you, with regard to those who fight you for (your) Faith, and drive you out of your homes, and support (others) in driving you out, from turning to them (for friendship and protection). It is such as turn to them (in these circumstances), that do wrong.” (60:8-9)

· “Whenever two factions of believers fall out with one another, try to reconcile them. If one of them should oppress the other, then fight the one, which acts oppressively until they comply with God’s command. If they should comply, then patch things up again between them in all justice, and act fairly. God loves those who act fairly.” (49:9)

· “…and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety”(5:8 )

· “If they do come to thee, either judge between them, or decline to interfere. If thou decline, they cannot hurt thee in the least. If thou judge, judge in equity between them.” (5:42)

· “Verily, this brotherhood of yours is a single brotherhood, and I am your Lord and Cherisher.”(21:92)

· “Do no mischief on the earth, after it hath been set in order…”(7:56)

· “The blame is only against those who oppress men and wrong-doing and insolently transgress beyond bounds through the land…”(42:42)

· “And fear tumult or oppression, which affecteth not in particular (only) those of you who do wrong…”(8:25)

· “…………..if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”(5:32)

The above verses clearly spell out the principles of Islam. Quran is categorical in its condemnation of those who directly or indirectly contribute to mischief, oppression and anarchy. These terms surely include terrorism. But at the same time they also include glorification and commercialisation of human weaknesses (commercialisation of sex, gambling, smoking and drinking) that lead to rise in the incidence of several diseases, disintegration of families, crimes and social tensions. Terrorism is to be defined in a way in which it includes all its ramifications. The world today tends to define it in a way that suits its interests. Terrorism must include anything that can lead to diseases, instability and chaos at individual, family and social level. The states that directly or indirectly support such activities are also to be confronted with. The punishment of such activities is in fact extremely severe in Islam:

“The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter..” (5:33)

The term “Jihad” in Islam does not mean an armed fight, which at best is only a part of it. Jihad, in fact is an incessant struggle to spread what is good and uproot what is evil. The best Jihad, according to Islam is against one’s self. And when this definition is extended to a social level, it again means struggle against forces that exploit human weaknesses or oppress the weak and poor.

Islam is for peace. God clearly abhors mischief, and loves peace:

· Every time they kindle the fire of war, Allah doth extinguish it; but they (ever) strive to do mischief on earth. And Allah loveth not those who do mischief. (5:64)

· And We shall try you until We test those among you who strive their utmost and persevere in patience; and We shall try your reported (mettle). (47:31)

· …verily Allah loves those who act aright. (3:76)

· ..but do thou good, as Allah has been good to thee, and seek not (occasions for) mischief in the land: for Allah loves not those who do mischief. (28:77)

· Those who believe, and suffer exile and strive with might and main, in Allah’s cause, with their goods and their persons, have the highest rank in the sight of Allah. they are the people who will achieve (salvation). Their Lord doth give them glad tidings of a Mercy from Himself, of His good pleasure, and of gardens for them, wherein are delights that endure.. (

Thus Islam has a perfect, yet pragmatic approach towards establishing a lasting peace in society. In an effort to prove that Islam is for peace, some scholars tend to totally disregard any form of armed struggle. Islam does not merely ask its followers to engage themselves in a few rituals; it prepares them to establish a system and protect it. Every ideology and system takes all the necessary measures to protect it from external and internal mischief and to consolidate it. Islam is no exception and it has greater right to work in that direction because it aims to establish the rule of God, not an oligarchy. All ongoing struggles in the world cannot be equated with terrorism. To fight against the occupation by external forces, usurpers of land, tyrannical rulers, exploiters, forces of evils and oppressors cannot be regarded terrorism. To sacrifice one’s life in a bid to harm the enemies for a justified cause cannot be condemned as “suicide attacks”; any bombing that is for a justified cause and is aimed at justified targets must be termed sacrificial bombing. There are some Islamic scholars who argue that Jihad can be undertaken only by an Islamic state. They are awfully mistaken, playing in the hands of those who want to reserve all military options open for them including pre-emptive strikes and at the same time want Muslims to forego their right to fight altogether. If Muslims can fight only under the command of a state, it means they cannot fight against an occupying force and against a tyrannical ruler. If the government of a state is corrupt, anti-Islamic or oppressive, nobody can deny the people the right to organise into groups and campaign against it. However, deliberate killing of innocents cannot be regarded desirable even if it is in response to killing of innocents by a country or a group. Though Quran allows Muslims to transgress against the enemy if it transgresses against them, this is surely the last and not the first option. Furthermore, state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism are much more dangerous than the terrorism of splinter groups. The so-called Islamic terrorism has caused much less damage and has taken much fewer lives than the state terrorism of the US and Israel and state sponsored terrorism of some other countries. What is the US action in Iraq if not the worst form of terrorism? What are Israel’s actions against Palestinians if not terrorism of the most abominable kind?

Another allegation that is labelled against Islam is that Quran calls for killing all the unbelievers. The protagonists of this thesis base their arguments on the verses that call for killing the Unbelievers, forgetting that these verses are war-time-injunctions. “Unbelievers” in these verses means only the unbelievers engaged in the combat. Refer to the verses quoted above that speak against compulsion in the religion, Thus the Holy Book states:

· “..but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.” (2:193

· “Therefore if they withdraw from you but fight you not, and (instead) send you (Guarantees of) peace, then Allah hath opened no way for you (to war against them).” (4:90)

· “But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou (also) incline towards peace, and trust in Allah.” (8:6 1)

It is clear also that the injunctions of Quran are almost similar in the case of fights between factions of Muslims. It asks its true followers to also fight those Muslims who are unjust.

Jihad in Islam is obligatory. It is an important constituent of the Islamic mission of universal peace and justice. It is in fact incumbent on all the human beings to engage in this mission. But for Muslims it is a divine duty. Jihad is meant for protecting the weak against the mighty; for alerting the forces of evil that their sordid adventures will not go unchallenged; for giving the oppressed sections a voice and wrecking the nerve-centres of the tyrants; and for giving the exploiters sleepless nights. Jihad prepares a person to sacrifice his possessions including his life if required for the cause of God. But Mujahids must clearly know that the objective of Jihad is not to bring certain persons to power, nor to bring theocracies to the whole world through sheer use of force. “Deen”, the system of God does not necessarily mean the establishment of a theocratic government through violent means; it means the rule of justice. Fighting is only the last but an open option in Jihad. If conditions are justifiable for fighting, it becomes obligatory; if conditions do not demand fighting, it becomes aggression. If its objectives are for the welfare of the masses it is desirable; if it is an excuse for selfish ends, it is an unparalleled sin. Jihad through peaceful means must always continue without halt; Jihad through arms must be an aberration. But once the conditions are justifiable, fighting must see no sympathy for the enemy; it must be given a crushing below. Fighting against the wicked is no violence; it is an exercise aimed at minimising violence. Killing bacteria and viruses through antibiotics and antiviral drugs is essential to maintain a healthy life. If microbes are not killed, they will kill the very person who provides them the food for their sustenance.

Islam however does not accept that “all is fair in love and war”. Even in war, all Islamic conditions must be followed in letter and spirit. As soon as the conditions are bright for an honourable settlement, fighting must be stopped without delay; for the ultimate objective is not the subjugation of the enemy but an end to mischief, anarchy, chaos and oppression. The powers that dominate do always try to take the right to fight away from others, so that they can continue to hold reins. They amass massive stocks of deadly weapons, but deny others the right to possess them. They do not hesitate a second to attack or invade the positions of their challengers, but make too much fuss of even the smallest acts of armed resistance. They kill innocents in big numbers and label it as ‘collateral damage’; and lambaste their opponents, through the weapons of words and war, if their actions cause the deaths of even a handful of innocents.

Several thinkers have tried to prove that the expansion of Islamic State after its establishment at Medina was achieved through the use of force. The hawks within the Islamic community present this as a ground for their aggressive intents; the hawks outside Islam use this as an evidence of the religion’s expansionist designs and support for violence. The countries were given the option, they argue, to either accept the supremacy of Islamic State or face war. This is true that several Muslim rulers used such tactics. But there was nothing extraordinary about this strategy, for it had been an inveterate practice throughout the world at that time, before and even for centuries after that. There were no clear injunctions in Quran directing Muslims to expand the borders of their empire. What the Caliphs did was only in keeping with the established norm. At that time there was no UN charter in force, and no international treaty bound the states to certain international obligations. All the powerful rulers in that era used to demand allegiance from the smaller states, and this had been happening throughout the ages in Europe, Asia and Africa. Britain, Russia, France and China—all had been using force to expand their influences, till very recently. Islamic rulers must however be credited for their humanistic approach to their political consolidation. They did not usuallyin general followed. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) gave clear guidelines regarding conduct during combat. He prohibited Muslim soldiers from killing women, children and the elderly, or cut a palm tree. He advised them, “… do not betray, do not be excessive, do not kill a new-born child.” Another tradition of the Prophet states, “Whoever has killed a person having a treaty with Muslims shall not smell the fragrance of Paradise, though its fragrance is found for a span of forty years.” Yet another tradition states, “The first cases to be adjudicated between people on the Day of Judgement will be those of bloodshed.” Quran equated the killing of an innocent as the killing of the whole mankind. The Prophet also said, “Truly your blood, your property, and your honour are inviolable.” And “There is a reward for kindness shown to every living animal or human.” indulge in massacres. Moreover, they took practical steps to earn the favour of the masses. They gave them the right to practise their own religion, the right to refuse services in the military in return of a tax, the right to live as honourable citizens, the right to earn, the right to own properties and the right to follow their own family laws and laws of inheritance. Their life and honour were guaranteed full protection. Even in fighting, strict observance of certain principles was prescribed by Islam, which most of the rulers

The truth is that in most of the places conquered by Muslims the people took a sigh of relief at their arrival; they more often than not brought them out of the yoke of injustice and tyranny. This is why the masses thronged to accept Islam in most of the places, and even after the departure of their conquerors they mostly remained loyal to their new religion. In the conquered countries, Muslim caliphs often preferred to have local men in charge of the affairs. The rule of Muslims, with a few exceptions, proved to be far superior to that experienced by the masses before. It was this confidence in the new system that the Islamic caliphate, despite the fact that many of the caliphs were not as pious and upright as Islam would want them to be, was able to sustain itself for about a millennium. Even after the dismemberment of the caliphate, almost all the people of most of the Muslim countries have continued to be within the fold of Islam; some of them have emerged as its citadels. It is significant that an outstanding number of Islamic scholars in the current world hail from non-Arab countries like India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Iran and Turkey.

It should be made clear here however that the nations are now bound by the treaties of the UN that do not permit any country to conquer any other country for the expansion of ideology. Muslim as well as non-Muslim nations are parties to this agreement. So no Muslim or Non-Muslim nation can now be allowed to invade or threaten other nations for the export of its own ideology or for any other reason unless there are compelling reasons to do so and the majority of the members of the UN agree to it. However, people are free to propagate their beliefs, ideas and customs through peaceful means. But the world must be ready to ban all such substances and practices that lead to death and social problems at a big scale. In the name of freedom, the business of death cannot be allowed to prosper.

It can be seen that not only the constitutions of all countries as well as that of the UN permit the use of force for certain purposes, scriptures of almost all religions also prescribe the use of force in several situations. Compare them with Quran, and it will be clear that Quranic guidelines are much better example of a perfect and pragmatic approach in the current world.

in Editorial on Religion in the Pakistan Daily

For a certain kind of listener (i.e., me), the arrival of a new Indiana Jones movie is a chance to hear another retro score that evokes not only the traditions of Hollywood writing but also the work of full-color late Romantic composers such as Gustav Holst and Ottorino Respighi.

John Williams is one of the most successful Hollywood composers in cinematic history if his work is judged simply by sheer memorability. The huge marches that dominate the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies do exactly what good marches are supposed to do: Set up a triumphant (even when evil) tone, get a strong marching rhythm going, and most of all, implant a powerful tune in listeners’ heads.

This is not that easy to do. John Philip Sousa wrote more than 100 concert marches, but only about a couple dozen have the kind of great melodies that enable them to be heard frequently. In his work for the Lucas-Spielberg team, Williams has written at least two that many millions of people recognize instantly, and at the same time remember what they’re designed to evoke.

The same goes for Hedwig’s Theme, the central music of the Harry Potter films. Although two other composers have picked up scoring duties for the movies in the meantime, they still use Williams’ theme to remind viewers that they’re watching a Harry Potter adventure.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull has a modest score that is reminiscent of past work more than it is one that breaks new ground, which isn’t really a criticism — the film composer doesn’t have a lot of control over how much of the music he or she writes gets used in the final product. I liked a couple of Williams’ fresh inventions in Crystal Skull: a vigorous Russian dance that would make effective concert music, and — spoiler alert! — a blizzard of Janacek-style brasses that accompany the flying saucer as it ascends out of the Amazon basin.

But what I missed here was what I missed in the movie, though I enjoyed it a good deal and had a hard time resisting its manic energy. What was absent in the film was about 10 minutes of exposition and character development that would give the plot a hint of additional plausibility, even though it was totally implausible.

For instance, I wanted to enter just a bit more into the history of the conquistador-native conflict and the search for El Dorado, learn a little more about the Mayan world view, perhaps get some flashbacks from Professor Oxley and the Ray Winstone character, to make the picture rounder and richer. That way my suspended disbelief can coexist along the actual pages of history, and viewing the movie becomes more of an exercise of the imagination than a workout for my car-chase gland.

A case in point involves my favorite of the four Indiana Jones movies, The Last Crusade. This movie is able to draw on centuries of Christian tradition bred in the bone of Western civilization, but we learn a lot about Indiana and his father through the suggestions of the opening scene: the young Indiana has to speak ancient Greek to tell his father about his escape from the grave robbers.

And in another scene, Williams helps us all get into the figurative if not the literal depth of the events when Indiana is looking at the drawing of the knight suspended in air and he says something about the powerful pull of the quest for the Holy Grail. At this moment, we hear a distant low-brass chorale of semi-modal music — this is the Grail theme, and while it’s more 19th than 11th century, it’s beautiful and supremely effective.

That music returns when we encounter the 700-year-old knight guarding the Grail in the anterooms of the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, and for me it makes a most effective link, and adds a subtle richness to the film that makes its absurdities believable.

I would have liked to hear something like this in Crystal Skull: Ancient Mayan music, maybe; perhaps the music of 16th century Spain — something else to take us into the sonic world its deceased characters inhabited, something that would make the movie more of a journey into the legendary part of history that was there in The Last Crusade.

Music often acts as another character in a drama, and when it can draw on the traditions of the past to fill in the gaps of the script, it adds another layer of meaning and reference for the viewer. The music is more of an afterthought in Crystal Skull, but in Last Crusade, it’s essential. And that’s one of the crucial things that makes it a much better film, too.

by Greg Stepanich

Out-there researchers discuss the impending … something

The broadcast-quality lilt of Coast to Coast AM radio host George Noory wafted over a packed conference room at Beverly Garland’s Holiday Inn last Saturday night as he a moderated a panel of out-there researchers engaged in a radical examination of Hollywood’s covert use of occult symbolism and alien agendas — the same week that the Vatican’s chief astronomer told an interviewer that belief in alien life does not contradict belief in God. As Noory told the audience, “There’s definitely a sense of an impending … something.”

Noory is the successor to radio’s legendary Art Bell, who stoked a particular millennial Zeitgeist with his fireside chats on UFOs, the paranormal and all manner of conspiracy theories with his syndicated radio program, before passing the mike to Noory in 2002. Coast to Coast AM remains a cultural touchstone, and Noory — personable and mustachioed — continues to bring so-called fringe ideas front and center.

We’re at “an extraordinary crossroads, with the way life is unfolding,” commented panelist Whitley Strieber, whose most recent novel is based on the doomsday/consciousness-shifting 2012 mythos, and who believes he was “implanted” with a device by his “visitors.” He recalled a bit of the aliens’ verbiage: “We will come from within you.”

According to panelist/abduction therapist Yvonne Smith, 17 functional-growth characteristics in humans born between 1947 and 1987 have been accelerated by 60 to 80 percent. “It’s not environment, it’s not evolution,” she asserted.

A “mutation of society” is under way, and “the skeptic community is getting quieter and quieter,” remarked Dr. Roger Leir, a Valley-based podiatrist, who removes alleged alien implants.

Jordan Maxwell, an expert in occult symbolism and secret societies, likened Americans to Alec Guinness’ blindly megalomaniacal lieutenant colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai once he realizes he’s been working for the enemy: “What have I done? There is no way out.”

“Jordan’s been looking down the barrel of the New World Order for nearly 50 years,” Noory said.

Maxwell, expounding upon the secret fraternal orders to which our government and religious leaders are bound, remarked, “The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure are teasers. The powers behind Hollywood are Knights Templars, showing you what they can do.”

“What does Hollywood know that we don’t?” asked panelist Jay Weidner, producer of the documentary 2012: The Odyssey. Was Eyes Wide Shut a representation of a sex cult for rich perverts, or a portrait of the Illuminati? Subversive director Stanley Kubrick died two hours after bringing a rough cut of the film to Warner Bros. “Like the Zapruder film, you can see what he was trying to say by what’s missing,” said Weidner, who believes Kubrick fled for England in the ’60s after experiencing events depicted in the film. (Scientologists Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, he said, were simply cast as part of “an inside joke.”)

In Rosemary’s Baby, John Cassavetes’ character eagerly permits the devil to impregnate his wife to ensure his Broadway stardom. “He’s the spitting image of Jack Parsons [black magician and co-founder of Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory],” claimed Mike Bara, co-author with Richard C. Hoagland of the recent best-seller Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA. “It’s the magical ritual known as the Babylon Working. Rosemary becomes the mother of the antichrist.”

A question came from the audience: “There’s so much to dissect from entertainment now — Iron Man, Battlestar Galactica, The Mist, Marvel’s Sons of the Serpent. There’s even a conspiracy theorist in Justice League of America.” The bearded young man echoed the sentiments of many assembled: “Why now?”

“They release little bits of truth, so that in the future they can say, ‘We said that years ago,’” Maxwell answered. “You’ve got to read between the lines.” Entertainment is used to indoctrinate or spread disinformation. Case in point: Universal’s recent optioning of the “period” action script The Knights Templar. “Each time you get a bigger sense of how the game is being played, you are less manipulated by it.” Maxwell asked the audience to verify his contentions — Rome is still in control, a powerful occult system has dominated consensus reality for thousands of years — by forcing us to pay attention to “their” symbols: words, flags, coats of arms. “Once you see [it] organized, it’s frightening.”

“The Gnostic belief is that we must have an apocalypse to bring about the golden age,” Weidner commented. “But is that apocalypse the death of all of us, or the death of consciousness as we know it?”

The Mayan calendar, which runs out at midnight on December 12, 2012, is expected to take us out, whether by mass extinction, interplanetary invasion or a total paradigm shift — a metaphysical bang or a cosmic whimper. With four years and counting, Maxwell advised, “always trust those who are looking for the truth.”

But what the bleep is it?

BY SKYLAIRE ALFVEGREN

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Note: the OSMTHU does not endorse said “conspiracy theories”, but our editors tought that the article was interesting and provocative enough to be brought to the attention of our readers.

“Thirteen at a table is unlucky only when the hostess has only twelve chops.”

– Groucho Marx

Today is Friday, June 13th, 2008.

Scared yet?

OK, so you might not be that frightened, but for those Okies who suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia (yes, it’s a real word and it means fear of Friday the 13th) today is a day to stay in bed with your head under the covers.

And it’s been that way for a long, long time.

According to tradition, Friday the 13th is considered a day of bad luck in several countries, including England, France, Portugal, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Sweden and even the Philippines.

The reasons vary. Several Internet-based resources say the day and date became infamous following the arrest of Jaques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar. On Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, de Molay and 60 of his senior knights were arrested, and subsequently tortured by bad guys working for King Philip IV of France.

Following the knights’ “confessions,” Philip the IV had them executed and, again according to legend, from that day on, Friday the 13th was considered by followers of the Templars as an evil and unlucky day — which made sense as long as Philip was the one calling the shots.

Other legends say Friday the 13th got its black mark after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Many Christians believe Christ was crucified on Friday, the 13th, and some theologians even hold that Adam and Eve munched a few forbidden apples years earlier on that same date .

Still others claims the Biblical Great Flood began on Friday the 13th.

Whatever the reason, millions of people fear the date.

In fact, according to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, N.C., more than 67 million Americans are afraid of Friday the 13th.

“Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines,” the institute said. “They stop doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed.”

The institute estimates that between $800 million and $900 million in revenue is lost each year because of the fear surrounding the date.

But not everyone is scared.

For Cleveland County Fairboard Marketing Director Sharon Harrell, Friday the 13th is her day to hit the casino.

“I love Friday the 13th,” she said. “That’s the day I go to Riverwind or some other casino. Everything good happens to me on Friday the 13th.”

And while Harrell admits to being “a little superstitious,” it’s more about barrel racing than dates.

“I’m a barrel racer,” she said. “And I have to have my watch in my left pocket and my hoofpick in the right pocket or I feel like something’s wrong. But as far as Friday the 13th goes, that’s always been a good luck day for me. Something good always happens.”

For Moore resident Deidre Ebrey, Friday the 13th has more to do with movies and less to do with luck.

Ebrey, Moore’s economic development director, said she associates the day with the movie by the same name. “When you’ve grown up around the date and the movie, you don’t think about superstition,” she said. “It’s more frightening than superstitious.”

Still, bad luck — whether it’s being killed by a maniacal ax-weilding zombie or just losing your credit card — is bad luck and, throughout history, a lot of bad things have happened on Friday the 13th.

For example:

· The 1889 Johnstown Flood.

· The 1929 stock market crash in the United States.

· The Black Friday bush fires in Victoria, Australia occurred on Friday, Jan. 13, 1939.

· The Uruguayan Rugby team crashed in the Andes mountain range on Friday, Oct. 13, 1972.

· Hurricane Charley made landfall near Port Charlotte, Florida on Friday, Aug. 13, 2004.

· The “Friday the 13th Storm” struck Buffalo, N.Y. on Friday, Oct. 13, 2006.

Then, there’s the connection with death.

In Britain, Friday was the conventional day for hangings and legend say the hangman’s gallows had 13 steps and the noose was wrapped 13 times.

In Norse mythology, the hero Balder was supposedly whacked at a banquet by the Norse god Loki on Friday. Balder had thrown a weekend party and invited 11 friends and — you guessed it — when Loki showed up the group grew to 13 and well, the rest was bad news.

Yet even while millions of residents fear the date, for one Norman man, Friday the 13th is just another day. For Father Edward Menasco, a priest at St. Jospeh’s Catholic Church, Friday the 13th is simply a day before Saturday, the 14th.

“No, I’m not superstitious,” Menasco said. “But I do think the myths surrounding the date came from the Knights Templar thing.”

And though Menasco believes people aren’t as superstitious as they used to be — as we get older, he says, “we become less superstitious — he does have some comfort for those who fear Friday the 13th.

“Just trust that God is protecting us,” he said.

And remember that Saturday, the 14th, will be here before you know it.

M. Scott Carter 366-3545 scarter@normantranscript.com

A Saint and Compassion Fatigue …

There is a story told about St. Vincent de Paul. Perhaps it’s partly myth, but its challenge is real nonetheless.

Vincent once gave an instruction to his religious community that sounded something like this: “When the demands of life seem unfair to you, when you are exhausted and have to pull yourself out of bed yet another time to do some act of service, do it gladly, without counting the cost and without self-pity, for if you persevere in serving others, in giving yourself to the poor, if you persevere to the point of completely spending yourself, perhaps someday the poor will find it in their hearts to forgive you. For it is more blessed to give than to receive and it is also a lot easier.”

That might sound curious. Why do the poor need to forgive us? For what do we need to be forgiven? Shouldn’t we feel good about serving others?

All of us, I suspect, have a pretty good sense of what he means. We all know there is a certain humiliation in needing to receive, just as there is a certain pride in being able to give.

The things we often complain about are really our greatest blessings: What is worse than being too busy? Having nothing to do. What is more painful than having to give away something we own? Having nothing to give away. What is harder than being dragged out of bed to minister to someone in need? Being the person who is in bed and who needs someone to help him or her.

What is harder than being brought to our knees by the demands of those around us for our time and energy? Being on our knees asking someone else for his or her time and energy. It is more blessed to be able to give than to receive and it is easier. But there’s more.

There is a certain divine power, literally, in being able to give. The one who gives gets to be God or, at very least, to feel like God. That’s not an overstatement. God is the source of all that is, the source of all gift. When we are in a position to give, we mediate divine power and we get to feel that power. Whenever we act like God, we get to feel like God.

Yet, the irony is that our very gifts and strengths, if not given over with the proper attitude, can easily make others feel inferior. It is important to understand this so that we are more careful to not serve others in ways that demean them. It is not automatic, nor easy, to give a gift in a way that does not shame the recipient. Vincent de Paul’s counsel highlights this caution.

But there’s a second lesson here as well. Vincent de Paul meant this too as an antidote to self-pity. For anyone who is in a giving role (a parent, a minister, a teacher, a nurse, a social worker, an advocate for justice, a philanthropist, a politician), there is the temptation to fall into self-pity: “Look at all I am doing! I do all this for others, but nobody is doing anything for me. I am so tired. Is there no end to this? Am I the only one who cares? This is asking more of me than is fair. I have my own problems that I should tend to.”

It is easy, especially when one is tired and frustrated by lack of support, to lose heart, begin to feel sorry for oneself and to eventually feel that we are being unfairly used by others, that we are being asked to give more than our share.

That is very common. Caregivers often feel victimized by those to whom they are giving of themselves. We’ve even coined some terms for this: “compassion fatigue,” “compassion burnout.” Not surprisingly, many good people resent the demands of the poor: the welfare system, the push by various groups for their rights, the pressure for more immigration, the drain that the sick put on the energy and money of our society, the cost of repairing the damage done by youthful vandals and so on.

The temptation is to give up and give in - give up on going the extra mile and give in to the temptation to resign and take care of ourselves.

And so Vincent de Paul’s counsel should be told and retold: If we do not continue to serve the poor, despite our tiredness and self-pity, the poor will never find it in their hearts to forgive us. We need to remember that it is more blessed to give than to receive and it is also easier.

Portraits of Vincent de Paul show him with a strong, warm face, a face that everywhere suggests a comfortable friendliness. He looks like a man you would want over for dinner. But if you had him over for dinner, you might want to make sure that you didn’t complain about the unfairness of life.

by FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

St George was adopted as patron saint of England by one of our great warrior kings, Richard, of whom Shakespeare wrote: “Richard who robbed the lion of his heart and fought the Holy wars in Palestine.”

Richard was one of the leaders of the third crusade, triggered by the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1189.

When Richard, against all the odds, defeated Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf in 1191, a mysterious warrior wearing the crusading insignia of a red cross on a white surcoat, was seen at the forefront of the fighting.

The local soldiery proclaimed him to be their patron saint - St George, a Roman centurion born at Lydda, 20 miles from Jerusalem. He was known to be a great warrior but was executed in the 3rd century AD by order of the Roman emperor Diocletian for refusing to countenance the persecution of Christians.

Richard forthwith adopted him as our patron saint with his battle cry, “St George for England,” as opposed to his fellow crusader Philip’s cry of: “St Denis for France.” Richard also restored the Church of St George at Lydda, where the saint is buried. And although I cannot vouch for its existence today, the ruins were still there in 1945.

Richard also funded the Knights Templar Pilgrims’ Castle on the coast ten miles south of Haifa and, under the peace treaty he made with Saladin, arranged for pilgrims arriving there to be escorted to and from Jerusalem by the Templars.

As for St George never having set foot in England, Richard, although born in Oxford, spent only six months of his reign here.

It seems to me that George is an eminently suitable saint for England. Besides, what would the Union Jack look like without the cross of St George?

G Price, Valley Drive, Brighton

Naxos Records has pioneered the new frontier of media by using an old format – the compact disc. The label founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann redefined the recording and marketing of classical music by providing the standard repertoire at a budget price. The label accomplishes this by using very fine but little known artists and orchestras avoiding the costly use of the named brands. This approach has the added advantage of enabling the label to also record the less-than-standard repertoire and thus offering a broader and more complete product.

In the past 20 years, the label has released an impressive repertoire on an equally impressive number of CDs. Naxos has further branched out into an internet subscription service, audio books, and educational products. While these offerings are notable, Naxos’ true genius is no better manifested than when blurring the lines between these products. The label’s release of the boxed set Time of the Templars is a case in point.

Ever since the publication and overwhelming reception of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code the reading public cannot get enough of all things Templar; Note the flood of Templar related fiction that followed The Da Vinci Code: Steve Berry’s The Templar Legacy, Raymond Khoury’s The Last Templar, and Jorge Molist’s The Ring: The Last Knight Templar’s Inheritance only to mention a few. Add those books dealing with the period of the 12th through the 14th Centuries and a detailed picture in words of medieval life emerges.

Naxos, with its extensive catalog of alte Musik or early music, is uniquely positioned to provide a soundtrack to this picture of words with Time of the Templars. This three-CD boxed set is divided into three areas of focus: “Music for a Knight,” highlighting both the secular and extra-ecclesiastic sacred music of the period, “Music of the Church,” concentrating on plainchant as practiced in monasteries, and “Music of the Mediterranean,” encompassing low country music and the music of Israel and Islam.

All of the music assembled here was previously released from several recordings by early music performers. What the Time of the Templars offers both music and listener is a fixed context in which to listen to this music. This writer listened to these selections while reading Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth (1989) and its recent published sequel, World Without End (2007). For Follett’s expansive survey of 13th and 14th Century England, Time of the Templars provided the perfect aural picture of the period, enhancing the stories.

“Music for a Knight” is a bit of a sampler of the music a Knight would have heard, whether he be at church, in the court, or on the road toward Palestine. Thus, the music is divided approximately equally between the sacred, the profane, and the entertaining. Presented here are several selections from the text “Carmina Burana” (made famous 800 years later by composer Carl Orff for his secular cantata of the same name). Hildegard von Bingen provides settings for several sacred texts, among them her beautiful “Kyrie Eleison” and “Alleluia, O Virga Mediatrix.”

Hildegard von Bingen’s music is not of the pedestrian church variety of the period. This is music of mystic ecstasy. If Heaven exists, Hildegard caught a glimpse before composing. Richard I “Coer de Lion” (Richard the Lionhearted) provides his “Ja nulls homs pris,” his only poem to survive with his music, written while he was imprisoned in Durnstein between 1192 and 1194. Polyphony is represented by the Notre Dame School composers Leonin and Perotin in the 4-part organum: “Notum fecit” and the 4-part conductus: “Vetus abit littera.”

“Music of the Church” is what even the novice historian would expect: Gregorian chant. This is a complete disc of a cappella monophony, elements of which can still be heard during the Responsorial Psalm of the Mass today. This is peaceful music well performed. No sounds can more quickly evoke the sights, scenes, smells, and sounds of the Middle Ages. “Music of the Mediterranean” exposes the listener to music from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions. It is interesting to note how music equalizes cultures with an art that is truly universal.

Selections:

Disc 1

Walther von der Vogelweide: Palastinalied; Coeur de Lion Richard I: Ja nuls homs pris; Blondel de Nesle: A l’entrant d’este que li tens s’agence; Alfonso X (El Sabio): Cantiga No. 60, “Entre Av’e Eva;” Anonymous: Chominciamento di gioia: Saltarello No. 1; Anponymous: Carmina Burana: Clauso Cronos; Alfonso X (El Sabio): Cantiga No. 213, “Quen serve Santa Maria;” Anonymous: Carmina Burana: Axe Phebus aureo, Katerine collaudemus; Hildegard of Bingen: O pastor animarum;
Anonymous: Kyrie eleison, In Dulci Jubilo; Perotin: Viderunt omnes: Notum fecit; Hildegard of Bingen: Kyrie eleison; Vetus abit littera; Hildegard of Bingen: Alleluia, O virga mediatrix; Anonymous: Lamento di Tristano: La Rotta, A la nana, Guardame las vacas.

Disc 2

Anonymous: Introitus: Adorate Deum, Introitus: Da pacem, Introitus: Dominus illuminatio mea Introitus: Laetetur cor; Gradualia: Dirigatur Gradualia: Dirigatur; Gradualia: Domine, Dominus noster; Gradualia: Iacta cogitatum tuum Gradualia: Iacta cogitatum tuum; Gradualia: Laetatus; Versus Alleluiatici: Versus Alleluiatici: Deus, iudex iustus; Versus Alleluiatici: Deus, iudex iustus; Versus Alleluiatici: Laudate Deum; Versus Alleluiatici: Laudate Deum; Offertoria: De profundis; Offertoria: Domine, convertere; Offertoria: Iubilate Deo universa terra; Offertoria: Iustitiae Domini; Communiones: Circuibo; Communiones: Dicit Dominus: Implete hydrias; Communiones: Dominus firmamentum meum; Communiones: Qui manducat; Communiones: Psalm 33, “Gustate et videte.”

Disc 3

Carmina Burana: Bache, bene venies; Carmina Burana: Tempus transit gelidum; Carmina Burana: Tempus est iocundum; Dinaresade; Sei willekommen Herre Christ; Kod Bethlehema; Koleda na Bozic; Dudul; Kyrie eleison (Christian-Arabic Tradition, Lebanon) De la crudel morte de Cristo (Laudario di Cortona Ms. 91, Biblioteca Comunale di Cortona); Yunus Emre; Sallalahu ala Muhammed; Pesrev; Ey Derviccsler; Keh Moshe (Traditional Jewish, 12th century); Adam de la Halle; Le jeu de Robin et de Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion) (excerpts).

Review by: C. Michael Bailey

I wonder if the people sitting in churches this [last] week understand how very much Jesus of Nazareth’s last week of life was driven by clashes pertaining to wealth and poverty, freedom and tyranny. Probably not. Theologians generally don’t study history. Historians usually don’t study theology, and neither study economics.

Here’s what happened: For over half of a millennium, Israel had been passed from empire to empire. Each new world power treated Jerusalem as a cash cow, diverting its wealth into imperial coffers in order to finance imperial ambitions. First there was Assyria, then Babylon, Persia, and Macedonia. Then finally Rome was given its turn. It was at this time that Jesus of Nazareth came into the world.
Rome didn’t care much about places like Nazareth; it was much more interested in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a company town, and the company was The Temple. The Temple was the Herod family business, and it had been created for one reason and one reason only — to squeeze enough money out of the region for Herod and his dynasty to buy their way back into favor with Caesar Augustus.

Rome needed money to buy off the urban mob, and Herod needed Rome to keep down the Palestinian rabble. And so when the people came to Jerusalem to make their offerings to God, they were met at each step in the process of religious devotion with another checkpoint at which tolls were extracted. The journey to Jerusalem often meant crossing a Roman checkpoint — ka-ching! Since the trip was long and hard on the animals, it was better to travel light and buy the sacrifices in Jerusalem — ka-ching! You can’t use pagan Roman coins for that sort of thing, of course, so off to the money-changers — ka-ching again. Tithes, offerings, sacrifices, festivals, Rome got her cut — ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. In fact, that’s the only reason there even was a temple or a King Herod. Rome would have long ago plundered it and killed him, except you don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

If the temple was the bridge between heaven and earth, Herod was the troll who lived under the bridge. Every pilgrim was forced to pay the toll. That’s what kept Herod in power: no ka-ching, no king. Ordinary Jews hated the regime, and the anger was boiling over, but Herod didn’t care what they thought; he had Rome on his side.

Into this world steps the young son of a Galilean entrepreneur. Joseph was a tekton , a skilled contractor. His adopted son, Jesus, was a rabbi, who gathered around him a small group of apprentices (mathetai , disciples) and set off for Jerusalem. Along the way he said and did things that implied that the temple was losing its status as the exclusive provider of access to the presence of God. Most Jews had already come to similar conclusions. They knew the Temple was corrupt, and turned to small-group Torah study as an alternative. Jesus adopted and intensified this new worship model. He created a network of small, nimble, and self-replicating clusters of people who could study and pray together and care for the poor. In his words: “Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” This threatened the Templar monopoly.

The Temple hierarchy was enraged by this. Their livelihood was at risk. Eventually Jesus went a step farther and staged a protest in which he overturned the foreign-exchange tables at the Temple where Roman coins were swapped for Jewish ones. The Temple was forced to shut down. That was the last straw. Jesus had demonstrated in a graphic, physical way that the Temple really did run on money. Even worse, he had demonstrated that during the time that The Temple, Inc. ceased to function the world still rolled along just fine without it.
Such knowledge could destabilize the entire world. Palestine was ungovernable without the Herodian Templar system, and an ungovernable Palestine meant the gold would cease to flow to Rome. It also meant the grain would cease to cross the Holy Land. As our tanks and ships run on oil, their horses and galley slaves ran on grain.

The Temple bureaucrats used their superior war chest to pay activists to call for Jesus’ execution, and even to bribe witnesses. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, knew how to keep his job in middle management — keep the money flowing to Rome. That meant killing Jesus.
Jesus was a politically sophisticated man. He knew what was coming.

He faced the executioners bravely. He accepted, even embraced his death, and overcame it. By doing this he took the stinger out of Jerusalem and Rome. Behind all the taxes and tolls, price controls, and monopolies, and behind the governors and tetrarchs and consuls and emperors, lurked a tax-hungry greed, and the greed was backed up by the threat of death. The emperor’s colossal ego was fed by the people of Rome; the Romans were fed by the bread and circuses; the bread and circuses were fed by the armies; the armies fed on the captive peoples, and the captive peoples who didn’t like it were fed to the lions, or (even worse) the crucifix.

Such it has always been. When tyrants rule, money flows uphill and pain flows down. At the top is always a Caesar (or his etymological cousins, a Kaiser or a Czar). In the modern age, they usually make a hypocritical nod to democracy by calling themselves “President,” but the suffix “for life” tells us what’s really going on. At the bottom is the enemy of the state and what awaits him is a cross, or a gas chamber, perhaps a syringe filled with poison, or the observation section of a rape room and then a trip to the paper shredder. Every tyrant rules the same way: through threat of torture, humiliation, and death.

But when Jesus said, “Go ahead, do your worst,” and, as his early followers testified, overcame death, he ripped the stinger out, rendering the whole wasp twitching and dying from tip to tail. When his followers chose the cross as their symbol, they seemed to be turning “the world upside down,” but they weren’t; they were turning the upside-down world, finally, right-side-up. To get the flavor, imagine a revolutionary-era Frenchman displaying a tiny replica of the guillotine, or modern Iraqis wearing little rape-room replicas around their necks, or industrial paper shredders. Imagine Russian dissidents making the sign of the syringe, or think of Holocaust survivors who display their tattooed identification numbers with pride instead of shame. This is what the early followers of Jesus did with the Roman cross.

Yes, Rome continued to plunder and murder for a time, but Jesus’ peaceful army grew. The empire tried to wipe them out, but the movement grew faster than Rome could kill. The Caesars gradually lost their grip on the world. Jesus’ new model survived, then prevailed and eventually spread. One by one it has been wiping the little Caesars from the face of the earth in a gale of creative destruction.

The gale blows still, Messrs. Putin, Kim Jong Il, and Ahmadinejad. The gale blows still, Raul, Hugo, Mugabe. House of Saud, the gale blows still.

By Jerry Bowyer in Crosswalker.com

In the biblical descriptions of the Easter event, the story moves straight from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. An entire day of grief, devastation and fear lies unspoken between the end of one paragraph, where Jesus is buried, and the beginning of the next, his resurrection two days later. Perhaps it was simply that there were no words to do justice to the empty day in the middle. We can only imagine that, for the followers of Jesus, it must have been the emptiest, most shattering experience they could ever encounter — a metaphorical hell. Tradition tells us that Jesus was in the real one.

The Christian church doesn’t worship on Easter Saturday — as God is dead, there is nothing left to worship. It gives the day over to the hardware shops and the football. But if any day in the Christian calendar resonates with the fear, sadness and desperation that so much of the world lives with at every moment, it has to be yesterday.

If we needed evidence that the world is living through a long Easter Saturday, we don’t need to look any further than the newspaper headlines last week. It’s ironic that while many churches have been preparing for Holy Week and Easter, telling a story of sacrifice and salvation that happened 2000 years ago, a holy week of another kind has been unfolding in Tibet. We heard stories last week of monks and students who have stood against injustice and oppression, even though for many it has led to their deaths. They join a long line of people through history who have given everything they have for freedom, sometimes in the name of God, and sometimes in the name of life. Occasionally, the everything they have given has been enough to change the world. Often it hasn’t. It’s difficult to imagine greater courage or faith.

For the first time in years, hope has political currency around the world. It’s defining the current US election, in stark contrast to previous elections, where platforms of fear and terror have been certain vote-winners. For the first time ever, part of me wishes I lived in the US so I could vote for hope, too. It’s seductive, we all want to join its bandwagon. It’s tempting to think that if the world is speaking of hope, then everything just might change.

British guerilla graffiti artist Banksy visited the segregation wall that separates Palestine from Israel a few years ago. In his typically subversive style, he stencilled images on to the grey concrete wall: startling vistas of tropical islands, pictures of plush armchairs seated by windows that overlooked snow-capped mountains, a silhouette of a girl holding a bunch of balloons that were carrying her to freedom above the wall. He painted an alternative world of hope and liberation on to the concrete reality of conflict and despair. As he was working, an old Palestinian man approached him, and they had this conversation:

Old man: “You paint the wall, you make it look beautiful.”

Banksy: “Thanks.”

Old Man: “We don’t want it to be beautiful. We hate this wall, go home.”

Our human inclination, when we come face to face with despair on a personal or global scale, is to paint over it with easy answers, and to think that because we can only see the paint, the concrete reality behind it no longer exists. It’s almost impossible to sit in the great chasm of the world’s Easter Saturday and not fill it with glib promises and wishful thinking, to layer a resurrection story on top of it. We depend on the promise of a happy ending, but when we realise that there are some stories for which there is no ending, our hope crumbles.

It sounds cynical to assume that there won’t always be a happy ending but, if that’s the case, Jesus was the ultimate cynic. “The poor will be with you always,” he said, and then he continued to fight the systems that oppressed the poor all the way to his death.

The hope that Jesus died for should only be defined by its most despairing and cynical audience: the widow and the orphan, the betrayed and the betrayer. Their hope isn’t in the world being fixed, it’s in surviving the night.

“Hope begins in the dark,” says author Anne Lamott. That’s the miracle that Christians believe was made real through the resurrection, and a truth that has been proven through history. We can’t talk ourselves or anyone else into having hope. We get there only by turning up in the darkness and doing the right thing. By choosing and honouring justice and love every time, hope has a chance to be born.

There are a few words that should always be accompanied by official warnings, if only because their misuse causes so much damage. Love is one of them, hope another. But if we are going to vote for hope, we have to be willing to do more than simply paint pictures onto concrete walls. The only way the world can survive this Easter Saturday is if we have the courage and faith it takes to wait with those who are living in hell, even if there is no certainty that they or we will survive. It seems even God knows that there is no other way.

in theage.com.au
Cheryl Lawrie is a Melbourne writer.

J E S U S

had no servants, yet they called Him

M a s t e r.

Had no degree, yet they called Him

T e a c h e r .

Had no medicines, yet they called Him

H e a l e r.

He had no army, yet

Kings Feared Him .

He won no military battles, yet

He Conquered the World.

He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.

He was buried in a tomb, yet

He lives today.

I feel honored to serve such a Leader who loves us!

AND HE IS COMING AGAIN!!!!

Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Praise the Lord!

We wish you the blessings of our Lord´s Holy Passion and of His Glorious Resurrection

____________________________________________

Sent in by: fr. Vincenzo Tuccillo KCT
Luogotenete Balivato Magna Grecia
Priorato Generale d’Italia OSMTJ-OSMTHU

The sufferings of Our Lord, which culminated in His death upon the cross, seem to have been conceived of as one inseparable whole from a very early period. Even in the Acts of the Apostles (i, 3) St. Luke speaks of those to whom Christ “shewed himself alive after his passion” (meta to mathein autou). In the Vulgate this has been rendered post passionem suam, and not only the Reims Testament but the Anglican Authorized and Revised Versions, as well as the medieval English translation attributed to Wyclif, have retained the word “passion” in English. Passio also meets us in the same sense in other early writings (e.g. Tertullian, “Adv. Marcion.”, IV, 40) and the word was clearly in common use in the middle of the third century, as in Cyprian, Novatian, and Commodian. The last named writes:

“Hoc Deus hortatur, hoc lex, hoc passio Christi
Ut resurrecturos nos credamus in novo sæclo.”

St. Paul declared, and we require no further evidence to convince us that he spoke truly, that Christ crucified was “unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). The shock to Pagan feeling, caused by the ignominy of Christ’s Passion and the seeming incompatibility of the Divine nature with a felon’s death, seems not to have been without its effect upon the thought of Christians themselves. Hence, no doubt, arose that prolific growth of heretical Gnostic or Docetic sects, which denied the reality of the man Jesus Christ or of His sufferings. Hence also came the tendency in the early Christian centuries to depict the countenance of the Saviour as youthful, fair, and radiant, the very antithesis of the vir dolorum familiar to a later age (cf. Weis Libersdorf, “Christus-und Apostel-bilder”, 31 sq.) and to dwell by preference not upon His sufferings but upon His works of mercifulness, as in the Good Shepherd motive, or upon His works of power, as in the raising of Lazarus or in the resurrection figured by the history of Jonas.

But while the existence of such a tendency to draw a veil over the physical side of the Passion may readily be admitted, it would be easy to exaggerate the effect produced upon Christian feeling in the early centuries by Pagan ways of thought. Harnack goes too far when he declares that the Death and Passion of Christ were regarded by the majority of the Greeks as too sacred a mystery to be made the subject of contemplation or speculation, and when he declares that the feeling of the early Greek Church is accurately represented in the following passage of Goethe: “We draw a veil over the sufferings of Christ, simply because we revere them so deeply. We hold if to be reprehensible presumption to play, and trifle with, and embellish those profound mysteries in which the Divine depths of suffering lie hidden, never to rest until even the noblest seems mean and tasteless” (Harnack, “History Of Dogma”, tr., III, 306; cf. J. Reil, “Die frühchristlichen Darstellungen der Kreuzigung Christi”, 5). On the other hand, while Harnack speaks with caution and restraint, other more popular writers give themselves to reckless generalizations such as may be illustrated by the following passage from Archdeacon Farrar: “The aspect”, he says, “in which the early Christians viewed the cross was that of triumph and exultation, never that of moaning and misery. It was the emblem of victory and of rapture, not of blood or of anguish.” (See “The Month”, May, 1895, 89.) Of course it is true that down to the fifth century the specimens of Christian art that have been preserved to us in the catacombs and elsewhere, exhibit no traces of any sort of representation of the crucifixion. Even the simple cross is rarely found before the time of Constantine (see CROSS), and when the figure of the Divine Victim comes to be indicated, it at first appears most commonly under some symbolical form, e.g. that of a lamb, and there is no attempt as a rule to represent the crucifixion realistically. Again, the Christian literature which has survived, whether Greek or Latin, does not dwell upon the details of the Passion or very frequently fall back upon the motive of our Saviour’s sufferings. The tragedy known as “Christus Patiens”, which is printed with the works of St. Gregory Nazianzus and was formerly attributed to him, is almost certainly a work of much later date, probably not earlier than the eleventh century (see Krumbacher, “Byz. Lit.”, 746).

In spite of all this it would be rash to infer that the Passion was not a favourite subject of contemplation for Christian ascetics. To begin with, the Apostolical writings preserved in the New Testament are far from leaving the sufferings of Christ in the background as a motive of Christian endeavour; take, for instance, the words of St. Peter (1 Peter 2:19, 21, 23): “For this is thankworthy, if for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully”; “For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps”; “Who, when he was reviled, did not revile”, etc.; or again: “Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought” (ibid., iv, 1). So St. Paul (Galatians 2:19): “with Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me”; and (ibid., v, 24): “they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (cf. Colossians 1:24); and perhaps most strikingly of all (Galatians 6:14): “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.” Seeing the great influence that the New Testament exercised from a very early period upon the leaders of Christian thought, it is impossible to believe that such passages did not leave their mark upon the devotional practice of the West, though it is easy to discover plausible reasons why this spirit should not have displayed itself more conspicuously in literature. It certainly manifested itself in the devotion of the martyrs who died in imitation of their Master, and in the spirit of martyrdom that characterized the early Church.

Further, we do actually find in such an Apostolic Father as St. Ignatius of Antioch, who, though a Syrian by birth, wrote in Greek and was in touch with Greek culture, a very continuous and practical remembrance of the Passion. After expressing in his letter to the Romans (cc. iv, ix) his desire to be martyred, and by enduring many forms of suffering to prove himself the true disciple of Jesus Christ, the saint continues: “Him I seek who dies on our behalf; Him I desire who rose again for our sake. The pangs of a new birth are upon me. Suffer me to receive the pure light. When I am come thither then shall I be a man. Permit me to be an imitator of the Passion of my God. If any man hath Him within himself, let him understand what I desire, and let him have fellow-feeling with me, for he knoweth the things which straiten me.” And again he says in his letter to the Smyrnæans (c. iv): “near to the sword, near to God (i.e. Jesus Christ), in company with wild beasts, in company with God. Only let it be in the name of Jesus Christ. So that we may suffer together with Him” (eis to sympathein auto).

Moreover, taking the Syrian Church in general — and rich as it was in the traditions of Jerusalem it was far from being an uninfluential part of Christendom — we do find a pronounced and even emotional form of devotion to the Passion established at an early period. Already in the second century a fragment preserved to us of St. Melito of Sardis speaks as Father Faber might have spoken in modern times. Apostrophising the people of Israel, he says: “Thou slewest thy Lord and He was lifted up upon a tree and a tablet was fixed up to denote who He was that was put to death — And who was this? — Listen while ye tremble: — He on whose account the earth quaked; He that suspended the earth was hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that supported the earth was supported upon a tree; the Lord was exposed to ignominy with a naked body; God put to death; the King of Israel slain by an Israelitish right hand. Ah! the fresh wickedness of the fresh murder! The Lord was exposed with a naked body, He was not deemed worthy even of covering, but in order that He might not be seen, the lights were turned away, and the day became dark because they were slaying God, who was naked upon the tree” (Cureton, “Spicilegium Syriacum”, 55).

No doubt the Syrian and Jewish temperament was an emotional temperament, and the tone of their literature may often remind us of the Celtic. But in any case it is certain that a most realistic presentation of Our Lord’s sufferings found favour with the Fathers of the Syrian Church apparently from the beginning. It would be easy to make long quotations of this kind from the works of St. Ephraem, St. Isaac of Antioch, and St. James of Sarugh. Zingerle in the “Theologische Quartalschrift” (1870 and 1871) has collected many of the most striking passages from the last two writers. In all this literature we find a rather turgid Oriental imagination embroidering almost every detail of the history of the Passion. Christ’s elevation upon the cross is likened by Isaac of Antioch to the action of the stork, which builds its nest upon the treetops to be safe from the insidious approach of the snake; while the crown of thorns suggests to him a wall with which the safe asylum of that nest is surrounded, protecting all the children of God who are gathered in the nest from the talons of the hawk or other winged foes (Zingerle, ibid., 1870, 108). Moreover St. Ephraem who wrote in the last quarter of the fourth century, is earlier in date and even more copious and realistic in his minute study of the physical details of the Passion. It is difficult to convey in a short quotation any true impression of the effect produced by the long-sustained note of lamentation, in which the orator and poet follows up his theme. In the Hymns on the Passion (”Ephraem Syri Hymni et Sermones,” ed. Lamy, I) the writer moves like a devout pilgrim from scene to scene, and from object to object, finding everywhere new motives for tenderness and compassion, while the seven “Sermons for Holy Week” might both for their spirit and treatment have been penned by any medieval mystic. “Glory be to Him, how much he suffered!” is an exclamation which bursts from the preacher’s lips from time to time. To illustrate the general tone, the following passage from a description of the scourging must suffice:

“After many vehement outcries against Pilate, the all-mighty One was scourged like the meanest criminal. Surely there must have been commotion and horror at the sight. Let the heavens and earth stand awestruck to behold Him who swayeth the rod of fire, Himself smitten with scourges, to behold Him who spread over the earth the veil of the skies and who set fast the foundations of the mountains, who poised the earth over the waters and sent down the blazing lightning-flash, now beaten by infamous wretches over a stone pillar that His own word had created. They, indeed, stretched out His limbs and outraged Him with mockeries. A man whom He had formed wielded the scourge. He who sustains all creatures with His might submitted His back to their stripes; He who is the Father’s right arm yielded His own arms to be extended. The pillar of ignominy was embraced by Him who bears up and sustains the heaven and the earth in all their splendour” (Lamy, I, 511 sq.). The same strain is continued over several pages, and amongst other quaint fancies St. Ephraem remarks: “The very column must have quivered as if it were alive, the cold stone must have felt that the Master was bound to it who had given it its being. The column shuddered knowing that the Lord of all creatures was being scourged”. And he adds, as a marvel, witnessed even in his own day, that the “column had contracted with fear beneath the Body of Christ”.

In the devotional atmosphere represented by such contemplations as these, it is easy to comprehend the scenes of touching emotion depicted by the pilgrim lady of Galicia who visited Jerusalem (if Dr. Meester’s protest may be safely neglected) towards the end of the fourth century. At Gethsemane she describes how “that passage of the Gospel is read where the Lord was apprehended, and when this passage has been read there is such a moaning and groaning of all the people, with weeping that the groans can be hear almost at the city. While during the three hours’ ceremony on Good Friday from midday onwards we are told: “At the several lections and prayers there is such emotion displayed and lamentation of all the people as is wonderful to hear. For there is no one, great or small, who does not weep on that day during those three hours, in a way that cannot be imagined, that the Lord should have suffered such things for us” (Peregrinatio Sylviæ in “Itinera Hierosolymitana”, ed. Geyer, 87, 89). It is difficult not to suppose that this example of the manner of honouring Our Saviour’s Passion, which was traditional in the very scenes of those sufferings, did not produce a notable impression upon Western Europe. The lady from Galicia, whether we call her Sylvia, Ætheria, or Egeria, was but one of the vast crowd of pilgrims who streamed to Jerusalem from all parts of the world. The tone of St. Jerome (see for instance the letters of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella in A.D. 386; P.L., XXII, 491) is similar, and St. Jerome’s words penetrated wherever the Latin language was spoken. An early Christian prayer, reproduced by Wessely (Les plus anciens mon. de Chris., 206), shows the same spirit.

We can hardly doubt that soon after the relics of the True Cross had been carried by devout worshippers into all Christian lands (we know the fact not only from the statement of St. Cyril of Jerusalem himself but also from inscriptions found in North Africa only a little later in date) that some ceremonial analogous to our modern “adoration” of the Cross upon Good Friday was introduced, in imitation of the similar veneration paid to the relic of the True Cross at Jerusalem. It was at this time too that the figure of the Crucified began to be depicted in Christian art, though for many centuries any attempt at a realistic presentment of the sufferings of Christ was almost unknown. Even in Gregory of Tours (De Gloria Mart.) a picture of Christ upon the cross seems to be treated as something of a novelty. Still such hymns as the “Pange lingua gloriosi prœlium certaminis”, and the “Vexilla regis”, both by Venantius Fortunatus (c. 570), clearly mark a growing tendency to dwell upon the Passion as a separate object of contemplation. The more or less dramatic recital of the Passion by three deacons representing the “Chronista”, “Christus”, and “Synagoga”, in the Office of Holy Week probably originated at the same period, and not many centuries later we begin to find the narratives of the Passion in the Four Evangelists copied separately into books of devotion. This, for example, is the case in the ninth-century English collection known as “the Book of Cerne”. An eighth century collection of devotions (manuscript Harley 2965) contains pages connected with the incidents of the Passion. In the tenth century the Cursus of the Holy Cross was added to the monastic Office (see Bishop, “Origin of the Prymer”, p. xxvii, n.).

Still more striking in its revelation of the developments of devotional imagination is the existence of such a vernacular poem as Cynewulf’s “Dream of the Rood”, in which the tree of the cross is conceived of as telling its own story. A portion of this Anglo-Saxon poem still stands engraved in runic letters upon the celebrated Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. The italicized lines in the following represent portions of the poem which can still be read upon the stone:

I had power all
his foes to fell,
but yet I stood fast.
Then the young hero prepared himself,
That was Almighty God,
Strong and firm of mood,
he mounted the lofty cross
courageously in the sight of many,
when he willed to redeem mankind.
I trembled when the hero embraced me,
yet dared I not bow down to earth,
fall to the bosom of the ground,
but I was compelled to stand fast,
a cross was I reared,
I raised the powerful King
The lord of the heavens,
I dared not fall down.
They pierced me with dark nails,
on me are the wounds visible.

 Still it was not until the time of St. Bernard and St. Francis of Assisi that the full developments of Christian devotion to the Passion were reached. It seems highly probable that this was an indirect result of the preaching of the Crusades, and the consequent awakening of the minds of the faithful to a deeper realization of all the sacred memories represented by Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. When Jerusalem was recaptured by the Saracens in 1187, worthy Abbot Samson of Bury St. Edmunds was so deeply moved that he put on haircloth and renounced flesh meat from that day forth — and this was not a solitary case, as the enthusiasm evoked by the Crusades conclusively shows.

Under any circumstances it is noteworthy that the first recorded instance of stigmata (if we leave out of account the doubtful case of St. Paul) was that of St. Francis of Assisi. Since his time there have been over 320 similar manifestations which have reasonable claims to be considered genuine (Poulain, “Graces of Interior Prayer”, tr., 175). Whether we regard these as being wholly supernatural or partly natural in their origin, the comparative frequency of the phenomenon seems to point to a new attitude of Catholic mysticism in regard to the Passion of Christ, which has only established itself since the beginning of the thirteenth century. The testimony of art points to a similar conclusion. It was only at about this same period that realistic and sometimes extravagantly contorted crucifixes met with any general favour. The people, of course, lagged far behind the mystics and the religious orders, but they followed in their wake; and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have innumerable illustrations of the adoption by the laity of new practices of piety to honour Our Lord’s Passion. One of the most fruitful and practical was that type of spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Jerusalem, which eventually crystalized into what is now known to us as the “Way of the Cross”. The “Seven Falls” and the “Seven Bloodsheddings” of Christ may be regarded as variants of this form of devotion. How truly genuine was the piety evoked in an actual pilgrimage to the Holy Land is made very clear, among other documents, by the narrative of the journeys of the Dominican Felix Fabri at the close of the fifteenth century, and the immense labour taken to obtain exact measurements shows how deeply men’s hearts were stirred by even a counterfeit pilgrimage. Equally to this period belong both the popularity of the Little Offices of the Cross and “De Passione”, which are found in so many of the Horæ, manuscript and printed, and also the introduction of new Masses in honour of the Passion, such for example as those which are now almost universally celebrated upon the Fridays of Lent. Lastly, an inspection of the prayer-books compiled towards the close of the Middle Ages for the use of the laity, such as the “Horæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis”, the “Hortulus Animæ”, the “Paradisus Animæ” etc., shows the existence of an immense number of prayers either connected with incidents in the Passion or addressed to Jesus Christ upon the Cross. The best known of these perhaps were the fifteen prayers attributed to St. Bridget, and described most commonly in English as “the Fifteen O’s”, from the exclamation with which each began.

In modern times a vast literature, and also a hymnology, has grown up relating directly to the Passion of Christ. Many of the innumerable works produced in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have now been completely forgotten, though some books like the medieval “Life of Christ” by the Carthusian Ludolphus of Saxony, the “Sufferings of Christ” by Father Thomas of Jesus, the Carmelite Guevara’s “Mount of Calvary”, or “The Passion of Our Lord” by Father de La Palma, S.J., are still read. Though such writers as Justus Lipsius and Father Gretser, S.J., at the end of the sixteenth century, and Dom Calmet, O.S.B., in the eighteenth, did much to illustrate the history of the Passion from historical sources, the general tendency of all devotional literature was to ignore such means of information as were provided by archæology and science, and to turn rather to the revelations of the mystics to supplement the Gospel records.

Amongst these, the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden, of Maria Agreda, of Marina de Escobar and, in comparatively recent times, of Anne Catherine Emmerich are the most famous. Within the last fifty years, however, there has been a reaction against this procedure, a reaction due probably to the fact that so many of these revelations plainly contradict each other, for example on the question whether the right or left shoulder of Our Lord was wounded by the weight of the cross, or whether Our Saviour was nailed to the cross standing or lying. In the best modern lives of Our Saviour, such as those of Didon, Fouard, and Le Camus, every use is made of subsidiary sources of information, not neglecting even the Talmud. The work of Père Ollivier, “The Passion” (tr., 1905), follows the same course, but in many widely-read devotional works upon this subject, for example: Faber, “The Foot of the Cross”; Gallwey, “The Watches of the Passion”; Coleridge, “Passiontide” etc.; Groenings, “Hist. of the Passion” (Eng. tr); Belser, D’Gesch. d. Leidens d. Hernn; Grimm, “Leidengeschichte Christi”, the writers seem to have judged that historical or critical research was inconsistent with the ascetical purpose of their works.
__________________________________________
Written by Herbert Thurston. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter. Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ - The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI. Published 1911. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Wearing a gray sports coat, necktie and business slacks, Andrew Linnell looked every bit the 21st century businessman that he is.

However, standing before a handful of people inside an auditorium in the Marlborough Public Library, the EMC competitive business consultant was poised to tackle a topic usually reserved for men of a different cloth: the history and development of the Christian church.

The 58-year-old Hudson resident indulged in one of his intellectual passions: the Crusades-era monk-warriors known as the Knights Templar.

In the third of a series of lectures, Linnell spoke about a specific facet of the much-mythologized group: Templar motifs represented in the art of the 15th century Florence.

To give his audience a point of reference, he first debriefed them on several hundred years of European and Middle Eastern history.

The information flew fast and furiously.

Linnell touched upon the Catholic Church’s violent opposition to views deemed to be heretical, such as gnosticism. He talked about the importance of church relics such as the Ark of the Covenant, the significance of zodiac signs in Templar history, the exile of the followers of Aristotle, the rise of Islam, and the fall of Persia. He discussed the sacking of Constantinople, which he said marked the beginning of the downfall of the Knights Templar.

He stopped briefly to field a question regarding the political ramifications of Charlemagne’s treatment of Muslims.

Ultimately it is the discrepancies between the church of centuries past and modern day Christian practices that fuel his curiosity and drives his research, he said. Linnell, who has a master’s degree in computer engineering from Michigan, at one time took a sabbatical for several months from his job to scratch his history itch at Emerson College in England.

“It can’t possibly be the same Christianity that spread so quickly throughout the world,” he said. “I’ve always been fascinated. I ask how is it that Christianity spread?”

The Knights Templar, said Linnell, played an important role in that globalization.

“When they came into town, people could just feel their presence; they’d come out and gawk,” he said.

It was this group - a secret society often shrouded in mystery - that brought the idea of baptism as a form of initiation back from the Middle East, said Linnell.

“Cultural evolution always flows east to west,” he said.

The Templars, said Linnell, were also the first international bankers, making travel from Europe to the Middle East less dangerous and more fiscally prudent.

As the son of an astronomer, whose family included several ministers, Linnell said he has always been interested in the sometimes adversarial relationship of science and religion.

“There was always this great battle between science and religion growing up,” he said.

(Dan McDonald can be reached at 508-490-7475 or dmcdonal@cnc.com.)

La fortaleza de Montségur es el paradigma histórico de la resistencia cátara, la herejía que arraigó en el sur de Francia durante la Edad Media. Actualmente, las ruinas de este castillo son la culminación de una ruta que parte de las tierras catalanas y que constituye una verdadera peregrinación por los santuarios y paisajes que fueron testigos de la Cruzada que los exterminó

El camino de los hombres buenos es un itinerario de 189 kilómetros que discurre por las rutas utilizadas por los cátaros durante los siglos XII y XIV, cuando huían de la persecución de la cruzada albigense y de la Inquisición. La senda empieza en el santuario de Queralt, en Berga, termina en el emblemático castillo de Montségur, en territorio francés, y puede efectuarse en coche, en bicicleta, a pie o a caballo. El Camí dels Bons Homes –como ha sido bautizado– ha sido institucionalizado como un sendero turístico de Gran Recorrido (GR 107) que atraviesa villas medievales, iglesias románicas y castillos. Además de su notorio interés histórico, la ruta nos permite contemplar paisajes encantadores, ya que transcurre por la zona protegida del Parque Natural del Cadí-Moixeró.

La religión de «los puros»

El catarismo es una doctrina procedente de una corriente de origen búlgaro conocida como bogomila. Se trata de una religión cristiana, con una interpretación muy peculiar de las Sagradas Escrituras, basada en el dualismo, que percibe la Creación como el escenario de una batalla entre los principios del Bien y del Mal. Esta doctrina arraigó con fuerza en el sur de Francia. Se dio a conocer en un concilio cátaro celebrado en la ciudad de Albí, en 1165, por lo que pronto sus seguidores fueron conocidos como albigenses. Sin embargo, ellos se consideraban cristianos u «hombres buenos». Predicaban a los humildes en plazas y mercados, aunque si eran invitados por los grandes señores para adoctrinar en sus casas a familiares y criados, aceptaban con agrado. Enseñaban el amor, la tolerancia y la libertad. Decían que Cristo no se encarnó entre los hombres, pues en sus concepciones la materia era una creación del Mal. Para los cátaros –término que según los expertos significa «puro»–, el Jesús que vieron los apóstoles y crucificaron los romanos no era sino una apariencia angelical engañosa. Pero el Cristo verdadero nunca fue crucificado ni sepultado. Estas ideas, como es lógico, les valieron la condena de Roma y una implacable persecución.

A principios del siglo XIII, el papa Inocencio III tomó conciencia del peligro que suponía para los intereses de la Iglesia la expansión de la herejía cátara en Occitania. Los intentos por convertir a los herejes habían sido vanos. Ante este fracaso y con el apoyo del rey Felipe Augusto de Francia –que deseaba hacerse con el territorio occitano a toda costa–, el Papa proclamó la «cruzada contra los albigenses».

Quienes formaran parte de la misma serían absueltos de sus pecados y se garantizaba la entrada al Paraíso de los fallecidos en combate. Los señores feudales que se sumaran a la iniciativa recibirían, además, las mismas prebendas que los cruzados en Tierra Santa. Sólo así se entiende la aparición de figuras como Simón de Montfort que escondían su desmesurada ambición bajo pretexto de erradicar la herejía.

Las tropas se organizaron bajo el mando del legado pontificio Arnaud Amaury y avanzaron hacia el sur por el valle del Ródano. El 22 de julio de 1209 los cruzados entraron en Béziers, matando a todos sus habitantes, sin distinción de creencias. Las crónicas aseguran que Amaury ordenó: «Matadlos a todos que Dios ya reconocerá a los suyos en el Cielo». Tras la masacre, los cruzados pusieron rumbo a Carcasona, donde resistía Raymond Roger Trencavel. Éste murió en prisión, después de ser desposeído de todas sus tierras. Más tarde caerían las plazas de Foix, Carbona y Comminges.

La muerte de Inocencio III hizo perder ímpetu a la cruzada y algunos