Mystae Religous Articles and New Religion Studies

L. S. Bernstein

At the beginning of the first millennium love was not lost between the Jews and the Samaritans. Territorial and religious rivalries were accompanied by incursions of both parties into the others` territories. In the time of Jesus, Jews traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem preferred to make a detour around Samaria rather than go through it. In 52 AD, a group of Jewish pilgrims were massacred by Samaritans and in retaliation Jews attacked Samaritan villages.

Samaritans constituted a considerable portion of the population in the Roman province of Palestina and as such their presence is also felt in the New Testament.

Unlike the Old Testament, which stigmatizes the Samaritans as non-Jewish outsiders (2 Kings), the New Testament liberates the Samaritans from cultic discrimination. In addition, Jesus was not afraid to walk through Samaria (John 4:4-29), he had dealings with its people and was probably known there (Luke 10:51-53). So much so, that in a fierce verbal altercation he is accused by Jews of being a Samaritan who is possessed by a devil (John 8:48).

Although it may be possible to find affinities between the settings of Jesus and some Samaritan characteristics, such as the Samaritan belief in a Savior from the house of Joseph (their own Patriarch); their adherence to the written word (unlike the “Prushim”, the Pharisees); and their pursuance of cultic simplicity (in contradiction to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem); the large number of references in the New Testament to the Jewish prophets (Prophets are not included in the Samaritan corpus) entrenches Jesus deeply in the Jewish tradition (which later enables Christian prefiguration).

At the same time Jesus seems to be thinking differently of the Samaritans. He tells his disciples “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mat. 10:5-6). Thus, in the context of Matthew’s parables, it is the Jews who are the lost sheep that need saving, not the Gentiles or the Samaritans. This probably refers to ignoring the “eleventh commandment” – Love thy neighbor, a subject which Jesus discusses in the same Gospel (Mat. 5:43-44), and to which, gentiles, not being Jewish, were not bound, and which the Samaritans seemed to be following.

“Love thine neighbor” is written in Leviticus 19;18. One would point out here (digressing slightly from the Samaritans), that the Hebrew word used in Leviticus is not “neighbour”. It is the word “Re-a” (Hebrew letters: Resh, Ayin). A “rea” is someone near to one, he (it is written in the masculine gender) can be a friend, a neighbor, a human being of akin spirit. In this sense the Samaritan in the parable who helped a human being in distress (Parable of the Good Samaritan) was following that “eleventh commandment”. What a “Rea” is not, – he is not an enemy.

However, the same letters, “Resh, Ayin”, pronounced “Roa” have a contradictory meaning. “Roa” in Hebrew is `badness\evil`. It has been translated from Hebrew in many ways, according to context. [Deut.28:20., Hoshea 9:15, 1 Sam. 17:28, Ecc. 7:3]
Thus, when Jesus says (Mat. 5:43-44) “Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy” [hate thine enemy is not in Leviticus] ” but I say unto you, love your enemies …” he also seems to be giving a sermon or elaborating on the Hebrew semantic significance of the letters “Resh – Ayin” in Deut.28;20, which can be placed in a contradictory context.
In other words, Jesus seems to be reading it both ways: “Lereacha” “Leroacha”, love to your Rea and \or love to your Roa.

Such an interpretation would suggest an explanation for the “love thine enemy” injunction. It might also shed a light on Jesus’ use and knowledge of Hebrew. And it would reject the hypothesis that Jesus was of Samaritan background as the Samaritans do not add nor detract from the Pentateuch.

The Samaritans, however, love their neighbors (and the stranger) as themselves, to wit, the parable of the good Samaritan. We know that love will become the essence of the new Christian religion.

Another reported historical incident, thought not in the New Testament, appears in 2 Maccabim 6:1-2 where the Samaritans are accused that when Antiochus IV demanded that they give a Greek name to their temple they conceded for it to be called “Temple of Zeus the Friend of Strangers, as did the people who dwelt in that place”. The merchant whom the Good Samaritan helped was a stranger, and being unconscious the Samaritan could not know whether the stranger was good or bad, a friend or a foe. Thus it is possible that Jesus is not using the characters in the parable as mere symbols, but is referring in the Parable to a real Samaritan tradition, at least 150 years old, whose significance had not been well understood. (The Samaritans were accused of catering to foreign gods).

The positive treatment of the Samaritans in the New Testament did not save them from persecutions in the early periods of Christianity (Byzantine.) From the 7th century onwards, except for the period of the Crusades, they will exist under Muslim rule, their numbers constantly decreasing.

The Samaritan Ensemble sings the most ancient music in existence according to experts’ views. The music is not similar to any other vocal music in the world today. It goes back to the times of the Forefathers and Moses. The reaction of the audience in the worlds’ festivals to the Samaritan songs is a combination of excitement and tears. Recently the Samaritan Ensemble represented Israel in the 5th world symposium of Choral Music in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, July 1999. The Ensemble has performed in Israel and abroad.

Why did the Egyptians bury their dead with the headdress on the head, beard on the chin, and shepherd’s staff in the hand? There is no single theory in Egyptology with unanimous support that logically explains the meaning of these funerary vestures. A new study reveals they form an image of the Christian Saviour — a bearded shepherd with long hair.

The headdress, beard, and shepherd’s staff have a symbolic meaning. They were used to transform the outward appearance of the deceased into an image of the god Osiris, the single most important Egyptian deity, and the first in recorded history to have risen from the dead.

Religion of Resurrection

“The central figure of the ancient Egyptian Religion was Osiris,” wrote the late Egyptologist Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, “and the chief fundamentals of his cult were the belief in his divinity, death, resurrection, and absolute control of the destinies of the bodies and souls of men. The central point of each Osirian’s Religion was his hope of resurrection in a transformed body and of immortality, which could only be realized by him through the death and resurrection of Osiris.” ¹

Early in Egyptian history it was a religious custom to bury the dead kings in the image of Osiris. Later the upper classes and eventually the common masses were given an Osirian burial. The custom reflects the Egyptians quest to follow in his resurrection. Henri Frankfort, a former professor of Preclassical Antiquity at the University of London, underscored this idea: “It may be well to emphasize that the identification of the dead with Osiris was a means to an end, that is, to reach resurrection in the Hereafter.” ²

The name “Osiris” (Ausar) in hieroglyphics contains the silhouette of a bearded man with long hair. This is the same image engraved on the anthropomorphic coffins. The nemes headdress, beginning on the forehead of the deceased and resting upon the shoulders, is symbolic of long hair. (The headdress was tied into a ponytail in the back of the head as is often done with long hair.) The plaited beard on the chin represents a long beard.

This discovery confronts us with a fascinating mystery: For thousands of years before the rise of Christianity the Egyptians were in a quest to follow in the resurrection of a bearded man with long hair and acquire life after death!

Osirianised coffins also display a shepherd’s staff in the left hand, a distinctly Christian symbol. (Jesus described himself as the “Good Shepherd” of the human flock. Portraits of Christ show him holding the shepherd’s staff.) The shepherd’s staff was depicted in the hands of Osiris in Egyptian artwork. In literature his epithets sa and Asar-sa mean “shepherd” and “Osiris the shepherd.” The term shepherd seems an appropriate title for a beloved spiritual leader whose religion of resurrection promised life after death for the wayward soul.

Cross of Life

Incredibly, “life” after death was expressed by the ankh cross, another symbol with a counterpart in Christianity. The ankh was the most revered and prolific emblem in Egypt. It was inscribed on tombs and temples and it was depicted in the hands of gods, kings, priests, viziers, ordinary citizens, and their children. No one knows its origins. Its meaning of “life” after death is strikingly similar to the meaning of Christ’s crucifix, also symbolic of “life” after death. (Jesus’ Doctrine of Eternal Life is a recurring theme in the New Testament. In John 11:25 Jesus says: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”)

It should be noted that symbolists see in the ankh the outline of a crucified man: the circle represents his head, the horizontal line his two arms, and the vertical line his legs nailed to the cross as one.

Day of Judgment

After his resurrection Osiris became judge of the souls of the dead. In this position he held the power to grant life in heaven to those who behaved righteously on earth. Wallis Budge explained: “the belief that Osiris was the impartial judge of men’s deeds and words, who rewarded the righteous, and punished the wicked, and ruled over a heaven which contained only sinless beings, and that he possessed the power to do these things because he had lived on earth, and suffered death, and risen from the dead, is as old as dynastic civilization in Egypt…” ³

The Day of Judgment is a central tenet of the Christian religion. The souls of the deceased shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Those who have followed his teachings during their lives shall be deemed righteous and be admitted to heaven. II Corinthians 5:10 says: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat [emphasis added] of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

Depictions of Christ and Osiris as judge are remarkably similar. Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment has many common features to the Day of Judgment etched on Egyptian papyri and carved on tomb walls. In the Egyptian ceremony the heart of the deceased, symbolic of his virtue, moral character, and earthly deeds, was laid on a set of scales and weighed against a single feather representing maat, the divine law. If the scales balanced, the deceased was allowed to pass into heaven.

As judge, Osiris was always portrayed in the seated position, a posture that parallels the New Testament’s descriptions of the judgment seat of Christ.

What are we to make of these striking similarities? Did Christian scholars simply “borrow” images and symbols of Osiris from the Egyptian religion? Or does this evidence reveal a profound and hitherto undiscovered phenomenon that has been affecting the course of human civilization? By uncovering the similarities common to the Egyptian and Christian religions are we, in fact, re-discovering the sacred blueprints of an ancient Messianic tradition that has been accelerating man’s cultural and spiritual development since the beginning of history?

Myth vs. Fact

Because the story of Osiris was so well known in Egypt it was never set down in writing. As a result modern researchers cannot quite gauge the events surrounding his life, death, and resurrection. The first written accounts of Osiris come down to us from sources outside Egypt by way of ancient historians such as Diodorus Siculus (1^st C. BC), Herodotus (5^th C. BC), and Plutarch (1^st C. AD). These classical writers describe Osiris as a semi-divine king who abolished cannibalism, taught men and women to live according to law of maat, improved their morality, and, filled with love for mankind, set out on a quest to travel the world and bring the benefits of civilization to other cultures. Their commentary continues with mythological descriptions of the murder of Osiris by a jealous brother named Seth; his rebirth, accomplished by the magic of his sister/wife, Isis; and his second death, caused again by Seth, who dismembered his body and scattered the pieces up and down the Nile. After the utter destruction of Osiris his son, Horus, defeats Seth in an epochal battle thereby vindicating his murdered father.

The myth of Osiris seems to take place half in our world and half in an enchanted world of magic and make-believe. This element of fiction is responsible, in part, for the misconception that Osiris was a fictional being. The facts left among the ruins of ancient Egypt tell an entirely different story. The Osirian religion sparked a renaissance among the ancient Nile-dwellers the effects of which impacted every facet of their primitive society. It instilled in them a high moral code, a sense of good and evil, and an inclination toward brotherly love and admiration unprecedented in human history and unparalleled by any other ancient nation.

It also fostered a highly advanced philosophy. Osiris worshippers realized the human body was neither perfect nor permanent. But they were also convinced death was not the end of their being. There was an eternal, spiritual element within them that would rise – resurrect – from the body and exist in a higher spiritual realm, provided their behavior was in accordance with a high moral code (maat). Consequently, they never became too attached to the things of this world. This is precisely the same philosophy expressed in the religion of Christianity sparked by the life, death, and resurrection of the Christian Saviour.

Phoenix in the East

The Egyptians likened the spirit of Osiris to a heavenly bird, much like Christianity portrays the soul of Jesus as a white and shining dove. The Egyptians called the bird Benu, the Greeks called it the phoenix. According to legend this magnificent creature miraculously appears in the eastern sky during fixed points in history to announce the start of a new world age. When it appears the bird mysteriously sets itself ablaze and is suddenly consumed by fire and ashes. However, it arises triumphantly from death renewed and rejuvenated.

Scholars unanimously believe the phoenix was a symbol of Osiris. German Philologist Adolf Erman explained “the soul of Osiris…dwells in the bird Benu, the phoenix….” ⁴ A passage from the Coffin Texts supports this observation: “I am that great Phoenix which is in On. Who is he? He is Osiris. The supervisor of what exists. Who is he? He is Osiris.” ⁵

The attributes of Osiris as phoenix are the same attributes associated with the Christian Messiah. Both the phoenix and the Messiah appear in the eastern sky (the star of Bethlehem arose in the east heralding the newborn King). Both rise from the dead. Both embody the theme of life after death through resurrection. Both herald the star of new ages. (Christ’s appearance initiated the current age: BC/AD.) Finally, and perhaps most importantly, both are associated with the promise of a destined re-appearance (Christians are currently expecting Christ’s re-appearance, i.e., the Doctrine of the Second Coming).

What is the significance behind the parallels common to the phoenix and the Messiah? Does the phoenix myth enshrine wisdom of the appearances of a recurring Saviour in human history, a Saviour whose life, death, and resurrection was purposely designed to accelerate the development of human culture? Is there a powerful and well-guarded tradition expressed in the myth of Egypt’s enigmatic phoenix? A tradition that is now on the verge of being re-discovered?

The “FIRST TIME” of Osiris

The Egyptians associated the first appearance of the phoenix with a golden age in their history known as Zep Tepi, the “First Time.” They were convinced the foundations of their civilization were established during this remote and glorious epoch. R. T. Rundle Clark, former professor of Egyptology at Manchester University, commented on the ancients conception of the First Time: “Anything whose existence or authority had to be justified or explained must be referred to the ‘First Time.’ This was true for natural phenomena, rituals, royal insignia, the plans of temples, magical or medical formulae, the hieroglyphic system of writing, the calendar – the whole paraphernalia of the civilization…All that was good or efficacious was established on the principles laid down in the “First Time” – which was, therefore, a golden age of absolute perfection…” ⁶

The First Time seems to have been the period during which Osiris reigned as foremost king of Egypt. It was during this era that he established law (maat) and initiated worship of Ra, Egypt’s monotheistic God. Rundle Clark explained: “The reign of Osiris was a golden age, the model for subsequent generations.” ⁷ Maat and monotheism, the “model for subsequent generations” set forth by Osiris, was the driving force behind Egyptian culture for thousands of years.

What exactly does the phrase “the First Time” mean? Is it a reference to the first appearance – the first coming – of the Christian Saviour on earth? Was there a guiding force behind the rise of Egyptian culture? The same guiding force that has inaugurated the empire of Christendom? Was the First Time an era during which an ancient Messianic tradition was first established? A tradition aimed at revealing cultural wisdom, law, and spiritual truth to mankind during different historical epochs?

Richard R. Cassaro graduated from Pace University in New York with a BA in journalism and a minor in philosophy. His groundbreaking book The Deeper Truth: Uncovering the Missing History of Egypt (www.deepertruth.com), evokes a powerful image of Osiris as the Shepherd, Messiah, and eternal King of ancient Egypt.

Richard Russell Cassaro

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, vol. 1 (Dover Publications, 1973), p. vii.

2. Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 209.

3. E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, vol. 1, p. 347.

4. Adolf Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt (Dover Publications, 1972), p. 271.

5. R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, vol. 1 (Aris and Phillips, 1994), p. 263.

6. R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (Thames and Hudson, 1978), p. 263-264.

7. R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, p.103.

Darek Barefoot

Why are there four Gospels in the New Testament? Christians have been confronted with that question since the second century, as well as with the variances if not outright contradictions between the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And, as historians are quick to observe, other Gospel versions besides the familiar ones were available to early believers, such as the mystically-tinged “Gospels” attributed to Peter and Thomas. The selection of four seems both arbitrary and problematic.

Or is it? The second-century bishop Irenaeus of Lyons speculated that the four canonical Gospels correspond with visionary depictions of angels, or “, found in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel and in the New Testament book of Revelation. The cherubs of Ezekiel each have four faces–those of a man, a lion, an ox (or bull) and an eagle–corresponding to the four cardinal points of the compass (. In Revelation the man, lion, ox and eagle appear as separate beings but are still grouped together . Irenaeus attempted to relate each of the creatures to one of the Gospels. He saw Matthew as corresponding to the man’s face because it opens with a human genealogy of Jesus and because, in the view of Irenaeus, Jesus’ humanity is emphasized throughout the book. Because Luke opens with a narrative involving priestly duties and temple services, Irenaeus associated it with the only sacrificial animal in the foursome, the ox. He linked the early mention of Holy Spirit in Mark with the winged creature, the eagle, while proposing that John’s prologue concerning Jesus’ divinely “royal” parentage marks that book as belonging to the regal animal, the lion (Against Heresies 3.11.8).

Irenaeus’ conjecture about a relationship between the four faces and the four Gospels continued to fascinate Christian commentators in subsequent centuries, even as their tendency to reshuffle the face-to-Gospel assignments cast doubt on it. Augustine, like Irenaeus, assigned the ox to Luke, but gave the lion to Matthew, the man to Mark and the Eagle to John (The Harmony of the Gospels 4.10). Jerome, by contrast, heard the lion’s roar in the opening command of Mark to “prepare the way of the Lord” and felt himself soaring to heaven on eagles’ wings as he read the prologue of John, but stuck with the man for Matthew and the ox for Luke. Jerome’s classification has proven to be the most durable, but commentators have periodically revisited the question and proposed yet other assignments (see Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel 1.1; in the book Cosmic Codes, 1999, evangelical writer Chuck Missler suggests an assignment of the lion to Matthew, the ox to Mark, the man to Luke and the eagle to John).

Since the various opinions concerning the cherub faces and their relationship to the four Gospels all rest on subjective arguments, deciding between them would seem to be futile, as would continuing to plow such well-turned earth by taking up the question yet again. But that is exactly what I propose to do here. I will argue, in fact, that assignments can be made objectively and systematically. The actual relationship between the faces of Ezekiel and the Gospels not only differs from the interpretations of church fathers, it also poses a formidable challenge to secular theories which assume a purely human origin of the Gospels.

Of Sphinxes and Cherubs

It may be helpful to note briefly the history of composite creatures in ancient religion. Anyone who has seen representations of gods from pagan Egypt or Mesopotamia will appreciate the tendency of ancient cultures to portray their deities by combining features of different animals or features of animals and humans. Men with the heads of birds or jackals, winged bulls and lions with or without human heads and similar figures are commonplace. The combination of man, lion, bull and eagle is not as odd as it sounds, since each was seen as dominating some sphere of the natural world: the lion over wild animals, the bull or ox over domestic animals, the eagle over birds and man over creation in general. The oldest occurrence of the foursome may be on a 3,200-year-old bronze cult stand from Cyprus which portrays a cherub with the head of a man, the wings of an eagle, the forelegs of a lion and the hindquarters of a bull (see Elie Borowski, July/August, 1995).

The creatures of Ezekiel therefore are easier to understand in an ancient context than they are in a modern one. What better way to emphasize the transcendence of human limitations by the angelic beings who surround the throne of God than by attributing to them ferocity, power and swiftness using common animal symbols of the time? Dont get this confused with how you might want to buy your child some RC Drift cars.We might be tempted to stop at that explanation and seek no deeper meaning relating to the four Gospels of the New Testament if not for a characteristic of the Gospels themselves which leads us back inevitably to Ezekiel’s vision.

The Key to Classifying the Gospels

During a Bible study recently, my family and I were talking about the symbolism of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. Specifically, we were discussing the four-sided shape of the city. Four-walled, four-cornered design also is emphasized in the description of the temple in Ezekiel chapters forty through forty-six. My wife commented that if the four-walled city or temple is representative of Christ and the church (Eph. 2:19-22), then perhaps the foursome consists of Jesus along with disciples from the three ethnic/spiritual classes of mankind, that is, Jew, Samaritan and Gentile.

In keeping with the Mosaic Law’s injunction that a dispute be settled on the testimony of “two witness or three” (Deut. 17:6), the New Testament divides mankind simply into Jew and Gentile (Rom. 10:12) or more technically into Jew, Samaritan and Gentile (Mt. 10:5-6). The Samaritans of the first century were, of course, the racially mixed remnant of what had once been the ten-tribe northern kingdom of ancient Israel. Samaritans accepted the Pentateuch and kept circumcision and the dietary provisions of the Law but rejected the prophetic Hebrew writings and the system of temple worship in Jerusalem, and were regarded by the Jews of Jesus’ day as little better than Gentiles.

At the time I let my wife’s suggestion go by without much notice. Later I realized that she had in fact handed me the key to unlocking the riddle of the four faces as Gospel symbols. Her comment led me to ask myself if the Gospels can be categorized in some sense as “Jewish,” “Samaritan,” “Gentile” and simply “Jesus.” The question once asked practically answers itself. Matthew’s Gospel has long been recognized as characteristically Jewish in its point of view. Matthew opens by identifying Jesus as a descendant of Abraham and David. It refers repeatedly, almost obsessively, to Jesus’ fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures. Matthew contains 26 occurrences of the names “Judah,” “David” and “Solomon,” nearly as many as the other three Gospels combined, which have 28. Matthew alone contains an instruction from Jesus in which he tells his disciples to preach to Israel, meaning Jews, rather than to Samaritans or Gentiles (Mt. 10:5-6).

Mark, with its parenthetical explanations of Jewish customs and key Aramaic terms, is obviously is written for a Gentile, in particular a Roman, audience. Mark contains more loan words from Latin than does any other Gospel, and is the only one, for example, to use the Latin spelling of the word “centurion” rather than its Greek equivalent. The sole expression of faith in Jesus’ divine sonship which Mark records is the one made, it happens, by a Roman centurion (Mk. 15:39). And Mark alone says that Jesus effectively “declared all foods clean,” a pronouncement which in Acts is emblematic for the admission of the Gentiles into the church, beginning with the Roman centurion Cornelius (Mk. 7:19; Acts 10:11-15).

So far, so good. But can either Luke or John plausibly be called a “Samaritan” Gospel? Neither seems to have been written for the limited audience represented by first-century Samaritans. Between the two of them we find four passages having to do with Samaria or Samaritans, three from Luke and one from John. Luke contains (1) the refusal of Samaritans to allow Jesus to enter one of their villages on his way to Jerusalem, (2) Jesus’ parable of the “Good Samaritan” and (3) Jesus’ healing of ten lepers, one of which is a Samaritan (Lk. 9:51-56; 10:30-35; 17:11-19). John, on the other hand, contains the story of the Samaritan woman Jesus encounters at a well near Sychar and the favorable reception given him by the Samaritans of that town (Jn. 4:4-42). At first glance the two books would seem to be “Samaritan” in roughly equal proportions.

If we look more closely, however, we find that the second and third items from Luke are unlike anything else in the Gospels, including the Sychar story from John, in that they portray Samaritans who are more righteous than Jews. When Jesus heals ten lepers, only a Samaritan turns back to thank him; the majority if not all of the remaining nine are Jews, as can be understood from Jesus’ instructions to them to show themselves to the priest, as well as by his concluding reproach. In the Good Samaritan parable, the title character offers lifesaving aid to an injured man by the side of the road after a Jewish priest and a Levite callously pass him by. On a typological level the story illustrates the way Jesus furnished salvation to dying humanity when the Mosaic Law proved unable to do so. In other words, this parable found only in Luke casts Jesus himself in the role of a Samaritan. Through its exaltation of Samaritans, Luke emerges as clearly the most “Samaritan” of the Gospels.

Other evidence can be cited to confirm Luke’s Samaritan connection. Only Luke contains the names of both great prophets of Samaria, Elijah and Elisha (Lk. 4:25-27), and only Luke reports the Elijah- and Elisha-like resurrection of the son of a widow in the village of Nain just three miles from where Elisha performed a similar miracle (2 Kgs. 4:8-37; Lk. 7:11-15). In Luke’s genealogy the name “Joseph” occurs three times–more than any other–evoking the tribal forefather of the northern kingdom of Israel (Lk. 3:23, 24, 30; 1 Chron. 5:1-2).

The process of elimination leaves John as the “Jesus” Gospel, an identification which fits ideally. John stresses the importance of faith in the person of Jesus as opposed merely to faith in his message or his work. John alone contains a declaration which in this context seems especially significant: “Here is the man” (Jn. 19:5).

Having categorized the Gospels this way, the animal assignments fall into place easily. The Jews of Jesus’ time were primarily members of the tribe of Judah, the symbol for which is the lion (Gen. 49:9; Ezek. 19:1-9; Rev. 5:5). The imperial Gentile powers who were allowed to oppress Israel are described as eagles (Deut. 28:49-52; Ezek. 17:1-15; Hos. 8:1). Moreover, the armies of Rome, the last of such powers, marched under the standard of the eagle. The northern kingdom of Israel with its capital of Samaria was called the “house of Joseph,” whose symbol is the bull (Josh. 18:5; Deut. 33:16-17). The northern tribes, predominantly those representing Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh, were known for cattle-raising. The “bulls of Bashan,” famous for their size and strength, came from the northern kingdom (Ps. 22:12). God referred to the ten-tribe federation as an “untrained calf” or a “stubborn heifer” and its women as the “cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria” (Jer. 31:18; Hosea 4:1, 16; 10:11). The miracle-working prophets of Samaria, Elijah and Elisha, made offerings of bulls and oxen (1 Kgs. 18:33; 19:21). Idolatry in the north was directed toward images of bulls and calves (1 Kgs. 12:28; Hos. 8:5-6; see Amihai Mazar, “Bronze Bull found in Israelite ‘High Place’ from the Time of the Judges,” in BAR, Sept/Oct, 1983).

As if to confirm the Samaritan bull or ox as an identifier, when Luke quotes Jesus concerning an animal which might fall into a pit on the Sabbath, the animal is not a sheep as in Matthew, but instead an ox (Mt. 12:11; Lk. 14:5). In Luke’s parable of the Prodigal Son, the father slaughters a young bull so that his repentant son may feast (Lk. 15:11-32). The Prodigal Son story’s typology of Christ as the bull whose flesh is offered to sustain believers was not lost on Irenaeus, who correctly saw it as a validation of the bull as Luke’s symbol (Irenaeus, loc. cit.).

The classification of the Gospels as Matthew/Jew/lion, Mark/Gentile/eagle, Luke/Samaritan/bull and John/Jesus/man is not subjective. Commentaries from across the theological spectrum will confirm the Jewishness of Matthew, the Roman Gentile affinity of Mark, the special sympathy for Samaritans evident in Luke and, finally, the peculiar “Jesus-centeredness” of John. The animal symbols corresponding to the ethnic groups are similarly straightforward. No one can claim, for example, that the symbol of the lion is just as appropriate for Rome, the leading Gentile power of the first century, as it is for Judea, or that the bull is no more fitting than the eagle as a symbol for Samaria.

Additionally, the identification I propose illuminates certain passages in both Old and New Testaments. It explains, for example, why the cult stands for Solomon’s temple bore the images of the lion and ox but not the eagle, since during the first temple period the northern and southern parts of the nation were united under the covenant to the exclusion, naturally, of Gentiles (1 Kgs. 7:29). It also discloses the historical subtext of Luke’s Prodigal Son parable, referred to above. The respected British scholar N. T. Wright has speculated that the younger, wayward son stands for Jews returning from Babylonian exile, while the older brother includes Samaritans who opposed the building of the second temple (Jesus and the Victory of God, 1996, p. 127). But Wright’s theory turns out to be a near miss. The Jewish people were descendants of Judah, an older brother of the principal forebear of the Samaritans, Joseph (Ezek. 37:16). It was the northern kingdom of Israel, the “younger brother,” which withdrew from the national family and squandered its spiritual inheritance, becoming ethnically and ritually impure in the process (cp. Ezek. 4:13 with Lk. 15:15-16; Jer. 31:18-20 and Hos. 2:7 with Lk. 15:17-20; Hos. 4:14 with Lk. 15:30).

The Plot Thickens

We have seen that the intriguing alignment of the canonical Gospels with ethnic categories and their animal symbols may be demonstrated from various passages. One Old Testament book seems disproportionately represented as a source for these, the book of Ezekiel. The importance of four-sided design in the Ezekiel temple plan is illustrated by the square outer wall, which has a rectangular kitchen court at each of its corners (46:21-22). Ezekiel also contains the only passage in the Hebrew scriptures to predict that the three ethnic/spiritual categories of mankind would be reconciled to God, listing them as Jerusalem, Samaria and Sodom (Ezek. 16). Messianic references occur at Ezekiel 34:24 and 37:25. A mysterious angelic “man” who reveals the temple plan stands beside Ezekiel in the inner temple court just as God announces this room to be the resting place for the “soles of my feet” (Ezek. 43:6-7). Key ingredients of a foursome consisting of Messiah as a man and three divisions of humanity are therefore present. What about the animal symbols?

Ezekiel 19:1-9 is the only Old Testament passage apart from Genesis 49:9 to identify plainly the lion as the symbol for Judah and its dynasty. Ezekiel also contains the most explicit reference to imperial Gentile powers as “eagles” (Ezek. 17:1-15). The symbol for Samaria, the bull or ox, would seem to be missing until we look closely at instructions Ezekiel is given for a mock assault upon Israel. He is told to pantomime a siege of the northern kingdom for 390 days, followed by a 40-day siege of Jerusalem and Judah. During the first siege he must eat coarse bread baked over a fire made with human excrement to illustrate the consumption of unclean food by Samaritan refugees. The implication is that the exiles will suffer so severely as to be forced to eat food contaminated by their own dung. When Ezekiel protests that the enactment is too revolting for him to bear, God allows him to cook with manure of cattle (baqar) in place of human offal (Ezek. 4:9-15). The concession subtly equates the people of Samaria with cattle or oxen. Remarkably, then, all three of the animal symbols of the Synoptic Gospels are confirmed in Ezekiel, the very book which introduces them as the three animal faces of the cherubim.

Case Closed?

It is time to credit Irenaeus for his insight. A relationship does indeed exist between the four faces of the cherubim and the canonical Gospels, a relationship so systematic that it stubbornly resists being written off as coincidental. At the same time, the commentators of the past may be excused for erroneously assigning some of the faces. Apart from Irenaeus’ shrewd guesswork concerning Luke, any attempt such as his to make the assignments without the intermediate determination of ethnic identities is a blind draw with twenty-three-to-one odds against success.

To Christian believers the symbolism of the four faces is no less impressive for being explicable supernaturally, but from a secular perspective the mystery lingers. The contemporary view of the Gospels as projections of late first-century church beliefs onto a historically remote Jesus of Nazareth cannot account for it. Why would the three animal faces seen by Ezekiel happen to correspond with the scriptural divisions of mankind, and why would they occur alongside a human face which is joined to them and at the same time distinct from them? Further, why would the four Gospels of the New Testament canon, which no one can believe resulted from a collaboration among their authors, precisely reflect these four figures?

Since modern scholarship has little room for the word “inspiration” in its vocabulary, perhaps in confronting the phenomenon of the four faces the most that can be expected of it is honest acknowledgment followed by that which is rare in any academic discipline: humble silence.

by Jim Schueckler

My first day as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, probably January 10, 1969:

I was assigned as Peter Pilot to one of the most experienced Aircraft Commanders. Everything was going just like flight school; quick briefing, we marked our maps, wrote down frequencies, preflight the aircraft. Just like flight school.

Crank up the birds, pick up the grunts, take off in formation, head for the Landing Zone, the LZ.

On final approach, the Aircraft Commander took the controls and said, “Stay on the controls with me, but I will do the flying, understand?”

“OK, you’ve got it.” (“Just like flight school.” I think to myself.)

Some noise and smoke in the LZ; we dropped off the grunts.

Neat! Just like flight school. Just like I expected.

After the formation was back at cruising altitude I asked the Aircraft Commander about the one thing that I hadn’t seen in flight school:

“What were those little green bugs?”

“What little green bugs?”

“When we were on final, and down there in the LZ, there were little green bugs.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, there were a whole lot of little green bugs, and they were going REAL fast.”

“You MUST be kidding me.”

“No, they were there, real fast and real straight.”

“Those were tracers.”

“TRACERS? But they were coming TOWARDS us!”

“Yes, they were coming ‘towards’ us!”

“Do you mean they were SHOOTING at us?”

“Yes, they were ‘shooting’ at us.” (smugly)

“Oh.” said I, the humble newbie.

While we were refueling, the crewchief said on the intercom,

“Sir, I think we better shut down to see how much damage we have; some of those little green bugs bit us back here. (snicker)”

James M. Link (LTG Retired)

October 26, 2000

Thank you ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, fellow veterans, and especially fellow veterans of the war in Vietnam. It is indeed a tremendous honor for me to stand before you this morning as we come together to remember fallen comrades and a very important time in our lives. A time of war, a time of conflict not only in Southeast Asia, but throughout our nation. Indeed a time that has in many ways shaped our national consciousness, and for we veterans, a time which forged a sense of self that in many ways defines us still today. Lest we forget…how then do we remember? How do we bring closure within ourselves, how do we honor those who did not come home, or came home broken and bent in both body and spirit? I remember when the architectural design of the Vietnam Memorial…the Wall…was first proposed. Many of us recoiled at the thought of a ditch on the Mall listing nothing more than the names of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. No towering statues or obelisks to mark this sacred site or recognize the grandeur of so many sacrifices. Surely, this was yet one more insult hurled at those who had answered the call to serve their nation rather than serve themselves. But, that wall has transcended all things political and overcome controversy as it reaches out to us who served, and even those who did not serve, while deeply touching all us who lost friends, neighbors, and loved ones during that troubled time. The mystery of the wall is found in its majestic simplicity. Panels of black stone that hold not only the names of those killed, but in its mirror-like finish, the faces of all us who come to witness its solemn statement. In that reflection, we are made one with the monument, we join its essence, and are consumed by images behind the names. Images of young men, their lives cut short, their personal sacrifices often unrecorded, their selfless service, unflinching courage, and the unique love and caring that is shared by comrades in arms. It is the wound on our National Mall that never heals, but it does serve to soothe the deep scars on those of us who carry heavy memories, and for some perhaps a little guilt for having been the ones fortunate enough to return to “the world”. As this Memorial travels around the country it invariably brings with it a lot of discussion and perhaps even rekindles old arguments about the Vietnam War.

The arrival of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Huntsville provides an opportunity for us to reflect on this important period in our individual lives and our nation’s history. Of course, there are those who might say we veterans are still too close to the heat of battle, too burdened by personal experiences to make objective judgements about the Vietnam War. To that I say, BULL! I’ve grown weary of those in the media, academia, and the entertainment industry who would purport to speak for us, or to try to define us a bunch of hair-trigger psychopaths on the verge of insanity or some unspeakable violence. We who were actually there know what we saw, and we know what we did. Each of us are just one of the millions who proudly served; having done our duty with honor. I see little of what I experienced reflected in Oliver Stone’s movies. I personally think Oliver donated a few too many of his brain cells to his drug use. In my view, movies like Apocalypse Now are nothing more than a collection of psychotic experiences made up in Hollywood bearing scant resemblance to the reality we experienced. You and I can certainly recognize the difference between artistic license and a lie, can’t we!

America’s involvement in Vietnam lasted for thirteen years; from 1960 to 1973. Of course the result was not victory at all. Not even a cease-fire or a demilitarized strip of land between North and South as happened in Korea. Just negotiated terms allowing the United States of America to “withdraw with honor”. Whatever that meant. So, we didn’t return home to victory parades and kisses in Times Square. Most of us were just another passenger aboard a chartered airliner (mine was a Braniff Airlines Boeing 707 painted a heinous green color…what a beautiful sight!). Others came home in Air Force cargo planes to be dumped unceremoniously at some military base usually in the middle of the night. Remember we came home to antipathy and in many cases to antagonism. We were told to quickly get out of our uniforms in order to avoid confrontations on city streets. No wonder it has taken so long for many of us to even want to talk about the war. But talk we must for we are living witnesses, and if we are silent others will continue to spin a version of the truth that best suits their personal or political agenda. We must dispel the myths that have grown up about the War, and there are so many. Those of us who served must debunk these myths at every opportunity, and today is one of those.

The first myth is that the armed forces of the United States suffered a major military defeat in Vietnam. Our forces were never defeated in combat, but we were defeated on the political battlefield. There were terrible battles where our soldiers and marines suffered awful casualties like Dak TO and Hamburger Hill, and our airmen suffered too many killed and captured in the air campaign, but the war was not lost as a result of these battles. In fact, where we found the enemy we defeated him. After the Tet Offensive in 1968, the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese operating in the south were so soundly defeated that they could not launch another major offensive until 1972. That didn’t deter the North Vietnamese since they were willing to lose the war on the battlefield, they were after victory in the minds of the American people. Perhaps we could have won a military victory, but it would have taken many more than the 500,000 troops we had in Vietnam at the height of the war. Besides by 1969, public opinion in the United States wanted us out of Vietnam. The role of the media in deciding this issue has been the subject of many books and articles, so I won’t go into that here. I will say I don’t believe the media caused us to lose the war, although some in the press were trying their best to make it so. Those of you who attended the AUSA Conference in DC this year will recall General Weyand’s remarks while accepting the George C. Marshall Award. He was interviewed by Walter Cronkite in the Mekong Delta following the resounding defeat of enemy forces there by the US Military, including U.S. Navy Riverene Forces. Walter acknowledged the victory, but told General Weyand he preferred to report on the thousands of Vietnamese he had seen being put in mass graves in Hue after Tet. In reporting this rather than any American victory, he said he hoped to bring a quicker end to the war. It didn’t seem to bother Mr. Cronkite that the bodies were those of South Vietnamese brutally killed by the North Vietnamese during Tet, nor did it seem to bother him that he had compromised his own objectivity in reporting the war. Of course, we who have dedicated our lives defending the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic certainly believe in all its provisions to include the First Amendment. I just hope what we saw in the press in Vietnam and still see today isn’t as good as it gets. Our nation deserves better.

The second myth is that somehow the soldiers in Vietnam were very different from those who served in WWII. The myth purports that the Vietnam soldier was much younger, poorly educated, forced to go to war against his will. It is often claimed that they disproportionately came from minority groups, while their better off social superiors dodged the draft and stayed safe at home out of harm’s way. The truth is of course different. The average age of the soldiers in Vietnam was just under 23 compared to around 25 in WWII where mass conscription prevailed. The enlisted soldier in Vietnam was actually better educated. 79% had completed high school as opposed to just 24 % in WWII. In Vietnam 20 % of the EM’s had college degrees, three times the number in the Second World War. In a democracy, even your jeep driver may be better educated than you. As far as social representation, studies have shown that blacks and Hispanics were actually slightly underrepresented compared to their percentage of the total population. For instance, African-Americans comprised 13.1% of the age group subject to the military, they comprised 12.6% of the armed forces, and represented 12.2% of the casualties. In 1992 a study looked at the 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam and found that 30 % came from families in the lowest third of the income range while 26% came from the highest. Not much of a disparity when you look at the facts.

A third myth is that draft evasion was rampant during the Vietnam era and higher than in WWII. Not so. During the Vietnam War about half a million men were draft dodgers, and I bet you know some of their names! Only about 9,000 cases were actually prosecuted and very few ever served prison time. In WWII, 350,000 were prosecuted for draft evasion and many went to prison. It is interesting to note that during Vietnam 10,000 Americans went to Canada, but up to 30,000 Canadians joined the US Armed Forces and of those10,000 served in Vietnam. We all know cowardice in the face of the draft is not a new phenomenon, but during Vietnam it became an art form. More importantly, draft dodgers made themselves out to be ethical and moral while those of us who served were made out to be morally inferior, stupid, or just luckless. The radical Left on our campuses had a clear goal of transforming the shame of the self serving and fearful into the guilt of the courageous. A fourth myth is that casualties were disproportionally higher for enlisted men than for officers. Actually, while officers killed in action accounted for 13.5 % of those who died in Vietnam, they comprised only 12% of the troop strength. Proportionally, more officers were killed than in WWII. In Vietnam, we lost twice as many company commanders as we did platoon leaders, confirming in the Vietnam War, leaders led from the front. Another interesting fact you can use to debunk a popular myth is that volunteers not draftees accounted for the majority (77 %) of combat deaths in Vietnam. How many of those do you think were 18 year olds? Just 101, or less than one tenth of one percent of all those killed.

Well, there are many other myths we could talk about, but instead I’d like to remind you of the humor that accompanied American soldiers in this war as it has all the others. I suspect many of you remember the time honored Murphy’s Laws of Combat:
Don’t look conspicuous…it draws fire
If it’s stupid, but it works, it’s not stupid
If your attack is going really well, it’s an ambush
When you have secured an area, don’t forget to tell the enemy
Friendly fire…isn’t
Anything you do can get you shot, including doing nothing
Never share a foxhole with someone braver than you are
A sucking chest wound is just nature’s way of telling you to slow down
The buddy system is key to your survival…it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at
It’s not the one with your name on it you need to worry about, it’s the one addressed: “To whom it may concern”

Remember, Nine million men and women served in the military during the 13 years of the War and three million of those served in the Vietnam theater. Two thirds of those who saw duty in Vietnam were volunteers and 77 % of those who died were volunteers. Our American citizen-soldier performed with a tenacity and quality that may never be fully appreciated or truly understood. Should anyone think the war was conducted in an incompetent manner should look at the numbers: Hanoi admits to 1.4 million of its soldiers killed on the battlefield compared to our 58,000., and about 250,000 South Vietnamese. And if someone tries to convince you that Vietnam was “a dirty little war” where Air Force and Navy bombs did all the work, you might remind them that this was the most costly war the grunts of the U.S. Marines Corps ever fought…five times as many dead as in WWI, three times as many dead as in Korea, and more total killed and wounded that in all of WWII. To the Vietnam veterans here today and to all those whose name appears on the Wall, I say you are all heroes. Heroes who faced the issues of this war including your own possible death, and after weighing those concerns against your obligation to your country you decided to serve with honor. In the words of a timeless phrase found on the Confederate Memorial in Arlington Cemetery, “not for fame or reward, not for place or for rank, but in simple obedience to duty, as they understood it.” I ask each of you to treat each other with the dignity and respect you have earned. Reach out and welcome a fellow Vietnam Veteran home. God bless each of you, and may God continue to bless this America we love and serve.

“To watch the lowering of human behavior and achievement through the later parts of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age is literally like watching a light go out. Certainly, there were wise men, and their colleagues doubtlessly kept some of The Knowledge alive, but the whole society was no longer informed by the wisdom and visionary knowledge possessed by the shamans. Society no longer had a direct channel to supernormal knowledge; priests had to be used as intermediaries – priests who had themselves lost the understanding of how to activate the outer mechanisms to present their inner visions.”
- Paul Devereux, Earthlights

This manuscript began as research into secret societies but, as I followed the threads of conjecture I found myself tracing a labyrinthine path which leads from New Age cult practices, back through the secret rites of Freemasonry and the Knights Templar, past the luminous legend of the Holy Grail, to the dark tombs of ancient Egypt and, beyond, to the dawn of civilization itself. From the threads emerged a consistent skein of evidence that underground streams wind their way beneath recorded history – hidden traditions of beliefs and practices which flow right into the present, shaping not only the world around us, but who we are and what we think and do. If this premise is true, just how potent are these secret traditions today and are the practitioners of the arcane arts still in operation?