By Theodore Shoebat
We read the story of Moses, and are brought to wonder at its sublime nature; so many truths are found in its verses; verses of eternal thought, verses of eternity, verses of love and of order. Read the verses, and timeless realization brings one to the reality of the eternal nature that lies within human existence; of the cosmic struggle that lies between the devils and angels.
“And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) Our flesh is earth, and thus in nature will one find the struggles of the flesh. One will see the insects consume the vegetables, the fruit of one’s labor; one will see the glowing fruit from the vine, for which so much labor was exerted, destroyed by disease and by pests; one will see a beautiful garden devastated by wind storms. The will to grow the garden, is like the driving force of the spirit; but that which moves against the garden, which tries to destroy, these are as the evils of the flesh, of demons and their followers. The struggle to form something good, must always endure the assailing of the sinister.
Christ and the Parable of the Sower
Such is the reality of human existence, that one must say with David: “In the Lord I put my trust: how then do you say to my soul: Get thee away from hence to the mountain like a sparrow?” (Psalm 11:1) The soul so desires to ascend and reside in the mountain of God, wherein lies the Holy Trinity, the angels and the saints. But the soul resides in the body, and must partake in the struggle between spirit and flesh.
God took mud and made man, and in the beautiful words of Moses, “breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) Mankind, everyday, every minute and every second, is confronted with the struggle between either becoming a slave to the flesh, or allowing the flesh to be an instrument to the soul. As Palamas tells us: “Our soul is a unique reality, yet possessing multiple powers. It uses as an instrument the body, which by nature co-exists with it.” (1)
Moses, with a pure soul and a heart filled with zeal, went to the dark cloud wherein God was. (Exodus 20:21) In the darkness, Moses saw God. The seed enters the ground, it sprouts and begins to grow as a young seedling, and in this tender age it needs light, so that its stem may be strengthened. And when the sun descends, the sky absent of the bright rays, the heat is no more and cool breeze sails past its soft leaves; in the night it rests, in the darkness it grows. And so eternal truth first cultivates the soul through the light of knowledge, but in the state of enlightenment and sainthood, one knows that what is divine is beyond all knowledge. To know the divine is to know He who “made darkness his covering, his pavilion round about him: dark waters in the clouds of the air.” (Psalm 17:12) St. Gregory of Nysa tells us:
“Wherefore John the sublime, who penetrated into the luminous darkness, says, No one has ever seen God, thus asserting that knowledge of the divine essence is unattainable not only by men but also by every intelligent creature. When, therefore, Moses grew in knowledge, he declared that he had seen God in the darkness, that is, that he had then come to know that what is divine is beyond all knowledge and comprehension, for the text say, Moses approached the dark cloud where God was.” (2)
Moses had entered the realm of timelessness, he sat in the presence of Love, he stood with the I Am, the One who walked with Adam, the One Whose very divine essence would become the whole of humanity. He stood with Truth, and being in Truth, he had a metaphysical understanding of mankind, that it goes beyond race; that humanity has equally received the breath of God, that we are one. Hence in the first book of Moses it says: “the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7)
It does not say that a certain people were created, but that man became a living soul. The Scripture is focused on the whole of humanity, and not one part of the whole. This spirit of the universality of humanity was manifested in its purest form in the Incarnation, in which God became one with Humanity, not with one particular race, but with mankind. Thus St. Luke traces Christ’ Genealogy to Adam, the son of God. (Luke 3:38) From one man, came all of humanity. From one, came we all; and with all did the Eternal Word of God become one.
The elevation of one race above another, is contrary to the mind of God. The Jews elevated themselves with their pride of being the descendants of Abraham, but the sublime mystic, John the Baptist, told them: “do not begin to say, We have Abraham for our father. For I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” (Luke 3:8) To have the blood of Abraham was taken as a sign of superiority amongst the Jews. The people of Israel had put ethnicity above the spirit. Thus, they put the flesh above the spirit.
Icon of Christ's Baptism National Museum. 47x38.2 cm. 14th century
Hence Christ declared to them: “before Abraham was made, I am.” (John 8:58) There stood the Jews, believing fanatically in their ethnic nationalism, and here stood the God-Man, in Whom was the timeless Hypostatic Union, in Whom Humanity and Divinity is one. And He confronts their pride in being the sons of Abraham, and declares that He is the I Am, the Spirit that lived before Abraham, the One Who walked with Adam in whom lied the bloodline, not for one race, but of all of humanity.
The Jews, filled with the spirit of nationalism, raged against Christ and said: “Do you see that we prevail nothing? behold, the whole world is gone after him.” (John 12:19) Indeed, for the whole of humanity was united with Him, in Whom “were all things created in heaven and on earth” (Colossians 1:16). Christ is not just a man, He is Man, He is Humanity in its original state: in perpetual contemplation with the Divine. And while the Pharisees and scribes raged against Him, “there were certain Gentiles among them, who came up to adore on the festival day.” (John 12:20)
While the Jews prided in their race, foreigners came to adore Christ. As the orthodox Jews expressed their hatred for the Samaritans, Christ told them of a certain Samaritan who was moved with compassion (Luke 10:33) for a man left dying on the side of the road, to remind us that our focus is not to be on a race, on a nation, on a party, but on love, on compassion; that what distinguishes a man is not his ethnicity, but whether or not his heart burns with the spirit of zeal and charity. The Jews put race above the faith, but Christ turns our hearts to “the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and faith.” (Matthew 23:23)
Christ speaks with the Samaritan woman
The message of Christ is the oneness of humanity; it is a double edged sword that separates the dividers of mankind, from the unifiers of mankind. Christ died fighting the evils of racism. Christ was the Savior of humanity, He was the Unifier of all mortals; Barabbas was a nationalist who murdered Romans, the occupiers of his country. The people chose Barabbas to be freed, but Christ to be murdered. St. Matthew tells us: “And there was one called Barabbas, who was put in prison with some seditious men, who in the sedition had committed murder.” (Matthew 15:7)
Barabbas was this revolutionary who committed sedition against Rome, shedding Roman blood for the cause of his race. But Christ, being a scourge to the ethnocentricity of the Jews, blessed the Centurion and declared that his faith was unlike any other in all of Israel; He spoke well of a Samaritan’s compassion and distinguished it with an example of a callous Levite who, seeing a man dying on the road, passed by. (Luke 10:32)
The masses, being filled with their jingoism, chose the violent nationalist over Christ. In that bitter moment of Salvation’s Passion, mankind freed the nationalist, and murdered their Savior. Such is the nature of the masses. The Scripture says that the chief priests moved the masses to cry out to Pilate that he release Barabbas to them. (Mark 15:11) When Pilate asked: “What will you then that I do to the king of the Jews?” the people cried out: “Crucify him.” (Mark 15:12-13) Christ was murdered by nationalists, He was persecuted fighting a nationalist system.
Christ whipped before Pilate and the mob
As it was in the time of Christ, so will it be in the time of Christ’s return; nationalism will be used by the Antichrist to war against the saints and the Church. Look to how Christ describes the beginning of sorrows, declaring that “nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom” (Mark 13:8). Nations do not rise against one another, without national pride.
It was Turkish nationalism that was the ideology of the Ottomans when they conducted the Armenian Genocide; it was German nationalism that was the ideology of the Nazis. These things are already rising up, and you will see their sanguinary ways in the future.
MOSES -- COMBATER AGAINST NATIONALISM
Christ, in combating against, and being martyred under, the system of ethnocentricity, was the fulfillment of the Prophet Moses, who himself battled against the racialist system of the Egyptians.
The war between Moses and Pharaoh is the war between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism, as we learn from Dietrich von Hildebrand, is the healthy love for one's country, while nationalism is the belief that puts the race above the Church. This distinction can be seen, I believe, in the conflict between Moses and Pharaoh. In Egypt, the ancestors and the Pharaoh were worshipped as divine, but what does God tell the despot through Moses? “Let my people go to sacrifice to me.” (Exodus 8:20)
Moses before the Burning Bush
God wanted Moses to lead the people to the Promised Land, to begin a nation where justice and charity, and the worship of God, would be observed freely. Here we have a desire for a nation, but in this nation a race was not to be elevated, but only God was to be worshipped. This nation was not to be an ethno state. Here in this nation would lie a Hittite, Urijah, and his faith and zeal was greater than King David’s. In this same nation, the Lord commanded David to make a grain offering on the land of not a Hebrew, but of a Jebusite named Ornan, to save all of Israel from a famine.
In this land, a Hebrew king tells a foreigner, “Give me this place of thy thrashingfloor, that I may build therein an altar to the Lord: but thou shalt take of me as much money as it is worth, that the plague may cease from the people.” (1 Chronicles 21:22) Ornan the foreigner told King David: “Take it, and let my lord the king do all that pleaseth him: and moreover the oxen also I give for a holocaust, and the drays for wood, and the wheat for the sacrifice: I will give it all willingly.” (1 Chronicles 21:23) Take notice as to what this means. On the land of the foreigner, in the thrashingfloor where wheat was crushed, David made a sacrifice with the blood of an oxen, and with wheat.
In Christ’s Crucifixion there was the Sacrifice of His blood, that is, the ultimate holocaust, and before His Passion, He took bread and said, “This is my body.” (Matthew 26:26) The bread was made of wheat, thus the Last Supper is the fulfillment of the grain offering that was made in Israel. A grain offering was made on the land of a foreigner to save all of Israel, and Christ sacrificed Himself, and made a sacrifice of bread, transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ, to save the whole earth.
This is the Eucharist, the fulfilled grain offering. Without the Eucharist, the Crucifixion is but another Roman execution; but with the Last Supper, that is, the establishment of the rite of Communion, the Crucifixion is no longer just an execution, but a sacrifice. Remember the words of St. Paul: “For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come.” (1 Corinthians 1:26) In the Eucharist is the presentation of the Crucifixion; in the Eucharist, the Crucifixion is a Sacrifice. It is the Eucharist that brings about, not nationalism, but the universality of the Christian Faith. The God who commanded Moses to lead the people to this new nation, is the same God Who prophesied that:
“For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 1:11)
The Last Supper
This prophecy is fulfilled in the Eucharist, which is a continuous sacrifice made by the Universal Catholic Church, the gentiles, and thus it brings to light the universal natural of Christianity. In the land of a foreigner did David make a grain offering to save Israel, and in the days of our Salvation, the Divine One, Who was united to the whole of Humanity -- Jew and foreigner -- instituted the sacrifice of the Eucharist, to save the whole world. The Antichrist, as we learn from the Prophet Daniel, will “put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering” (Daniel 9:27), that is, he will abolish the Eucharist, for the Antichrist, in his war against humanity, will strive against the universality of Christianity.
RACISM LEADS TO PAGANISM
When a people that knows God puts their race above the Christian Faith, they create a new religion altogether, and it eventually devolves from being religion that has a knowledge of God to one filled with the worship of ancestors with God being barely known. Once the nation is elevated, than the race is worshipped, and extolled members of the race become deified.
There are many examples of this. Japan is a pure example of how racism leads to paganism. The whole Japanese religion is built on the idea that the Japanese race is divine. Till this day this worldview is upheld by Japanese elites. In August of 2016, I wrote on how in 2006, 10,000 Japanese people gathered together at the Nippon Buddokan to rally in defense for the imperial religion of Japan. The arguments made at the rally by some of Japan's topmost elites were based on racialism.
For example, one of the speakers, Yoshiko Sakurai, said that the royal family “departs from the world of mythology” and that “the tradition of the imperial family” “is the story of our Japanese ethnic origins.” Takeo Hiranuma, a member of the Japanese House of Representatives and of the Nippon Kaigai cult, said: "We are the precious treasure of the Japanese race, it is the world of treasure.”
Shinzo Abe, standing before the Japanese Defense Forces, next to a flag of Japan, on which lies the image of the Japanese goddess, Amaterasu
Now look at the measures being done by the Japanese government to its education system. Old diabolical books that should not be reopened, are being revived. Just this month, the Japanese government removed the prohibition on teaching the Imperial Rescript of 1890, which was taught in schools to instill in students the divine nature of their ancestors, and to sacrifice their lives for the Japanese State. At the end of the Second World War, the United States forced the Japanese to ban the Imperial Rescript. But now its going to be taught again in Japanese education. Just to show you how much this booklet teaches imperial religion, here is an excerpt:
“Our Imperial Ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof …should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth.”
The Imperial Rescript
Now, while the Japanese government is claiming that the reintroduction of the Imperial Rescript is strictly for ‘educational purposes,’ we must remember that the promotion of such literature is part of an elusively done agenda on the part of the Abe administration and its dark acolytes. Shinzo Abe, alongside eighty-four percent of his cabinet, and 295 members of Japan’s parliament, are members of a major cult called Nippon Kaigi, the most prominent pro-imperial Japan group in the nation. This cult wants to bring back the imperial cult of emperor worship, and wants to revive militarism.
According to David McLellan, a professor of Asian Studies, the current Japanese administration “is actively seeking to revive the Empire of Japan, by hollowing out the constitution and whitewashing Japan’s wartime atrocities.” Not only is the current Japanese administration trying to bring back the pagan, and racist, imperial religion of its predecessors, it is also bringing in an infamous and eugenist book, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, into the nation’s education system. As we read from RT:
“Japan has okayed using Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography and Nazi manifesto, in schools for educational purposes just weeks after the similarly controversial Imperial Rescript on Education was approved as ‘teaching material,’ according to media reports.
Although the Japanese government approved Hitler’s infamous book as “teaching material” for schools on Friday, using it to promote racial hatred will lead to a strict response from regulators, according to the Japan Times report.
The decision came weeks after the controversial Imperial Rescript on Education in schools was approved for the same purposes.”
First the Japanese government approves of the fanatic and pagan Imperial Rescript, and then it approves of Mein Kampf. All of this, supposedly, for educational reasons. It all ties in together given the fact that people within the Japanese government look up to Hitler as a role model. Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Taro Aso, urged that the government look to the Nazis to learn about replacing the constitution:
“First, mass media started to make noises (about Japan’s proposed reforms), and then China and South Korea followed suit …The German Weimar constitution changed, without being noticed, to the Nazi German constitution. Why don’t we learn from their tactics?”
Nazis with Japanese visiting the Yasakuni Shrine, where the Japanese till this day worship the war dead
What is the reason to even bring up any of these damned books? Once the reality of this situation is known in light of the fact that Abe has dreams of reviving the Japanese empire, it makes clear sense that all of these measures are being done for a pagan and racialist aspiration.
Racism and paganism are like hand in glove. You can’t have one without the other. Why do you think there are so many environmentalists, subscribing to an ideology of “deep ecology” (a belief system that states that human beings are no different than any other creature, plant, insect or mammal), are in the ranks of neo-Nazis? Why do you think the Nazis themselves were environmentalists? They were pagans who were into naturist religion.
But how does racism lead to paganism? If the race is the object of a people’s fixation, then the ultimate conclusion, in the eyes of the masses, is that Christianity is a foreign idea, a Hebrew belief system that is radically different from the culture of the nation. Christianity is then seen as an enemy of the people. The religion of the people, then, gradually changes into the worship of their ancestors, who would then be exalted as divine for not only their impressionably presented acts, but for the reason that they are of the blood of the people.
The ancient Egyptians had a religion very similar to that of the Japanese, worshipping their pharaohs as human images of the sun, as the Japanese see their emperors as incarnations of the solar deity. The Egyptians, before enslaving the Hebrews, actually had a knowledge of the true God. But, once they began focusing on their race with pride, they turned to paganism and cruelty. The story of the Egyptians, is the story of how mankind turned from knowing God, to ethnic-based religion, and thus, paganism.
THE EGYPTIANS KNEW ABOUT THE TRUE GOD
BEFORE BECOMING COMPLETELY PAGAN
The Egyptian religion was based on ethnicity, and it was so evil that when God set the seven plagues against the Pharaoh, He was showing that it was all but a lie. The Book of Wisdom affirms this:
"When they were punished with those creatures they considered gods, they became bitterly disillusioned and recognized that the true God was the one they had refused to acknowledge. That is why they suffered the final punishment." (Wisdom 12:27, GNT)
But Egypt had at one point in their history the knowledge of the true God. When Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh, had Joseph, who he had then purchased, live in his household, he in the words of Moses, "saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand." (Genesis 39:3) For Potiphar, an Egyptian living before the time of Moses, to have been able to identify the providence of God, evinces that the Almighty was truly known in Egypt, and that the knowledge of Him was corrupted with the worship of the creation. (3)
Therefore did the Egyptian gradually fall deeper in this folly, until the plague of idolatry utterly decayed his soul. This is further illustrated by the Pharaoh himself: when he was troubled by two dreams-in the first seven sickly cows consume seven plumped cows, and in the second seven ears of diseased corn devour seven healthy ones (Genesis 41:1-7) -- he had sent for his wise men, and his magicians, who would seek after the host of heaven, (4) and the spirits of the dead, (5) for interpretation; but none of these impostors "could interpret them unto Pharaoh." (Genesis 41:8)
But when the Pharaoh had called for Joseph, who was then in prison, the latter had declared the proper interpretation: that Egypt will endure seven years of plenty and seven years of famine, (Genesis 41:14-31) and that a wise man must be appointed to store food for the nation. (Genesis 41:33-36) The prophesying, and prudence, of Joseph had met the satisfaction of the Pharaoh, who had then asked his servants: "Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?" (Genesis 41:38)
With such a statement is it most clearly shown that God was known in Egypt (6) before Moses; but indeed was this knowledge corrupted. Moreover, since Egypt was by this time under the pharaonic age, it indicates that the cult of the pharaoh, in which the monarch was worshipped as a human embodiment of the Sun, was by then taking place. Thus, the worship of the State, and the knowledge of God, were both in existence in this period; the former conspicuously being preponderant over the latter.
One would be mistaken to assume that Joseph had taught these Egyptians on the true God; for it is unfounded in Scripture, and ignores the statement of the Pharaoh, in which the Almighty is openly refereed to. With solely the text of the Bible, and not assumptions, one can only conclude that there was an intertwining of the true religion, as was preached by Noah, with the naturist and imperial cult of Egypt.
According to Eusebius, the first idolatrous veneration of the Egyptians was made toward the Sun and Moon, (7) and such worship was already observed in the time of Joseph, since when the Pharaoh had granted him a wife, the lady chosen was the daughter of one Potipherah, a priest of On, (Genesis 41:45) whose name is Coptic for "consecrated to the sun", (8) or "he whom the Ra gave." (9) Ra was the sun-god of Egypt, and the center of his worship was the city of On, (10) where Potiphera had served sacerdotally, the name of which meant "light." (11) On was given the name "sun-city", (12) and it would even be later hellenized as Heliopolis, (13) or City of the Sun; (14) and in the hieroglyphs the city was revered as Re-ci, or "abode of the sun." (15)
Heliapolis
This city was not built by Egyptians, but Arabs, (16) indicating the deep Sabaean roots of Egyptian idolatry. All of these evidences show that the worship of the Sun was observed in Egypt when God was still known there; and that the name of God was proclaimed by the Pharaoh in the time of Joseph, makes it most evident that the corruption of true religion amongst the Egyptians by Arabian idolatry began in far antiquity.
The Sabaean origins of Egyptian religion are also evidenced by Thoth who, according to the Egyptian priests, was an actual historical figure, and was said to be the first to have established the religion and priestly order of Egypt, and to have taught the art of studying the deified stars and planets. (17)
Thoth was influenced by the religion of the Zabian or Sabaean of Arabia, since he was said to have written two books in praise of them, entitled "Isaac the Zabian," in which he defends the legislation of the Sabaean, and "Of the Customs and Particularities of the Laws of the Zabii," in which he writes on their beliefs and rituals. (18) Sabaeanism was Cushite Arab in origin, was the religion of Babel, and would spread itself into Egypt where it would legitimize the tyranny and the cult of the pharaohs.
Not only was the worship of the Sun observed while God was still known, but also that of a goddess named Neith, the mother of the Sun. (19) The woman who the Pharaoh had given to Joseph to marry was Asenath, (Genesis 41:45) whose name has been translated as "favorite of Neith," (20) "worshiper of Neith," (21) and "who belongs to Neith." (22)
Picture of the goddess Neith
Nevertheless, it is emphatic that the name indicates a reverence to the goddess, which thus shows that her cult had existed in the time when God was but darkly known in Egypt. The mention of the true God by both Potiphar and the Pharaoh, the father-in-law of Joseph being a priest of the sun-god, and his wife's name referring to the goddess Neith, makes it conclusive that the Egyptian had once known God, but revolted as those of Babel did, and began worshipping the host of heaven, and nature, while still having a knowledge of God.
It is, therefore, in the story of Joseph which one finds an image of the transition in Egypt, from pure religion to the corrupt and vain imaginations of wizards. By the time of the Pharaoh who had ruled when Moses was called to rescue the Hebrews, heathenism had completely deluged Egypt, and the people had replaced the knowledge of the true God with emperor worship.
For, when Moses and Aaron had first approached the Pharaoh, and had declared to him: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness" (Exodus 5:1), the tyrant had expressed his hatred for God. "Who is the Lord," pompously asked the Pharaoh, "that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." (Exodus 5:2) To the pompous eyes of the Pharaoh, God was not above him or his throne; for he was the monarch over all Egypt, (23) a god to the masses to whom all the earth owed their submission. The Pharaoh who enslaved the Hebrews, was also the one who ruled Egypt when the people had a racial hatred against the Hebrews.
Moses before the Pharaoh
The imperial cult of the Pharaoh had taken full precedence over the knowledge on the God Who Noah preached, unlike the Pharaoh of Joseph's time, who at least had known about God in the midst of a growing paganism. The grace of the Almighty was bestowed upon the Egyptians, as it was given to all the sons of Noah; His redemption was granted to all of humanity, but as is most common, man had given himself over to his passions, and rejected his salvation. "Their wickedness misled them into silly ideas," reads the Book of Wisdom on Egypt's descent into idolatry, "so that they worshipped snakes and other disgusting animals, creatures without reason." (Wisdom 11:15-16, GNT)
In one ancient work of the Egyptians, the prophet Thoth described how his ancestors had turned to the making of images, though he spoke of the event in no positive light, but lamented it, and deemed it as a time when his people had erred. "Thus humanity," he said, "always mindful of its nature and origin, perseveres in the imitation of divinity; and as the Lord and Father made eternal gods, that they should be like Himself, so humanity fashioned its own gods according to the likeness of its own countenance." (24)
In another quote, Thoth recounts how his "forefathers erred very far with respect to the knowledge of the gods, through incredulity and through want of attention to their worship and service, they invented this art of making gods; and this art once invented, they associated with it a suitable virtue borrowed from universal nature, and, being incapable of making souls, they evoked those of demons or of angels, and united them with these holy images and divine mysteries, in order that through these souls the images might have power to do good or harm men." (25)
They therefore fell into that folly of antiquity: that which praises the creation over the Creator. It is no wonder that their pharaohs were worshipped, since they too were of the creation. In the text Thoth recounts honestly that the idolatry of his countrymen, from its very provenance, was the veneration of demons, and it was believed by the Egyptians that their gods "were driven out of Heaven," (26) making their pantheon of the city of Satan, the greatest of deceivers and murderers, the father of all tyranny, tyrant of all tyrants.
The provenance of Egyptian idolatry was attributed also to the earth deity Ptah. It was said that he created the local cults of Egypt, formed the idols out of clay, wood, and stone, to the liking of the gods who in turn would enter into the images. "He [Ptah] created the (local) gods," reads the text, "he made the cities, he founded the provincial divisions; he put the gods in their places of worship, he fixed their offerings, he founded their chapels. He made their bodies resemble that which pleased their hearts (i.e., the forms in which they wished to be manifest). And so the gods entered into their bodies of every kind of wood, of every king of stone, of every kind of clay, of every kind of thing which grows upon him, in which they have taken form." (27)
EGYPTIAN PAGANISM LED TO CRUELITY AND TYRANNY
Human sacrifice was frequently done in Egypt, because Osiris, and other gods, had committed the same wicked rituals when they were kings themselves on earth. The "gods" of the Egyptians were in reality deified kings who were also tyrants, and the pharaohs, emulating their ancestors instead of God, imitated their cruelty. National pride, replacing of knowledge of God, brings a nation to worship its tyrants.
These killings done by "the gods" who were but deified kings, were not seen as mere mythological events, but as real atrocities which these kings committed before they died and were worshipped. Osiris was said to have taken a large body of captives after his victories in battles, having them placed in slaughter houses where their bodies would be stabbed repeatedly, and their skulls smashed. The Book of the Dead reveals the horrors which king Osiris inflicted upon his victims: "their heads were cut off, their necks were broken, their thighs were chopped off by the 'Great Destroyer' in the Valley at the Block of the East." (28)
Those who weren't sacrificed immediately, were leashed like dogs with leather around their necks, their hands bound behind their backs, only for their heads to be eventually decapitated by an executioner. In the Book of the Gates there is a depicted a group of victims called "Kheftiu Asar butchiu," or the "enemies of Osiris who are to be burnt."
The necks of these victims were bound by a leather collar attached to a stick, their hands tied together behind their backs, and their entire bodies scorched with fire. These atrocities were mythologized by the Egyptians by writing that it was Horus who commanded a serpent to spit out fire upon the tied up men: "Open thy mouths, distend thy jaws, and belch forth thy flames against my father's [Osiris'] enemies; burn up their bodies, consume their souls by the fire which issueth from thy mouth, and by the flames which are in thy body." Ra, who was also believed to have been a king deified after death, was accompanied by executioners whose duties it was to capture his enemies and have them beheaded. (29)
Because these deified kings had orchestrated human sacrifices, later Egyptians, in worship of them, had followed in their footsteps. In Egypt's far antiquity it was common for men with reddish skin, or hair, the completion of Set, to be sacrificed by the kings of Egypt at the tomb of Osiris. (30) This ritual was done so continuously for Osiris after he was buried, that it is said that the sands of Egypt were mixed with the blood of the sacrificial victims. (31) In the Book Am-Tuat, there is an illustration of the actual coffins of the gods Tem, Khepera, Ra, and Osiris, with a decapitated human head placed at the end of each one. (32)
There was observed a ritual in ancient Egypt under the New Kingdom of Thutmose III and his successors, as we find from the walls of El-Kab in Thebes, in which men were ritually butchered as sacrifices in the burial ceremonies of prestigious persons. Two peoples were selected to be the victims of this sinister rite: the Tikanou and the Qasou. The former has been identified by certain Egyptologists as Libyans or Asiatics; the latter has been determined as Nubians, as well as Western Asians. Most of these victims were captured during Egyptian invasions, to be slaughtered for the appeasement of diabolical spirits esteemed by superstition to be gods. Those of the Tikanou were forced to be burnt offerings, alongside with animals; and the Qasou bound to endure strangulation, and then offered as a mummy. (33)
The human sacrifice of the Egyptians was interconnected with their worship of dead pharaohs. It was believed that it was necessary for the deceased tyrants to be buried alongside their most importance servants, as well as an entire priesthood, so that they may serve him for eternity in the afterlife. This belief was promulgated most of all by the religious systems of the sun-god Ra and Osiris. (34)
The horrid ritual was practiced in the most ancient days of Egypt, going as far back as the Early Dynastic Period. (35) So much pleasure did these kings have in enslavement, that they demanded men to be forced to die even after they perished. Seti I, being a pious follower of Osiris, had seven hundred servants ritually murdered and buried in his tomb. 149 men were killed for the dead Amenhotep, and 171 for the Pharaoh Ankh-f-en-Khensu, to serve him in his paradise, (36) not a heaven for the saint, but for the tyrant. In the tomb of Mentu-her-kepesh-f, was found a drawing of two Nubian men on their knees, each being strangled by two executioners with ropes which were wrapped around the victims' necks, and pulled on opposite ends until life was extinguished. (37)
Clear evidence for this form of human sacrifice is further found in north Nubia, which was a province of Egypt. The bloody rite was in fact endorsed by the Egyptian administration to be observed in Nubia, where the Egyptians were the principle partakers. In the Eastern Cemetery, dated to the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, such burials have been discovered, and were described as follows: the chief individual is buried in the center, alongside his belongings, weapons, and other pieces of furniture. Around the chief corpse lie the bodies of others, ninety-percent of whom are positioned in a most horrific fashion: some clutch their own throats as though they are gasping for air, others have both hands covering their faces, or their arms extended and fists clenched appearing to reach for help, or their heads between their thighs. The majority of the bodies were not men, but women and children. (38)
All were slaughtered for the sake of a tyrant's pomp, whose glory was uplifted by an imperial cult. The center body buried was always adorned with personal clothing, and the woman which lied nearer to him was lavishly dressed. One of the large burials found on this site had contained a large number of corpses, being some four-hundred in number. Through the whole "Egyptian Cemetery" of this place was found these sacrificial burials. In the Egyptian colony of Inebu-Amenemhet in Nubia, there was uncovered the body of prince Hepzefa, who was appointed governor over the Nubians by the pharaoh Senusret I, and that of his wife Sennuwy. Around the remains of Hepzefa were the corpses of his harem, servants, and household, whom were all buried alive as sacrificial victims.
The pharaoh was believed to conduct his own human sacrifices even in the afterlife. It was said that when Pepi was in heaven, he "slays his enemy, and makes him to be the offering of the day." (39)
The funeral murders of the pharaohs were the same rites observed by the Cushite kings of the Sudan, since both Egyptians and Cushites are heavily related. In the first half of the fourteenth century A.D, Ibn Bututah wrote that a king in Sudan was buried in a spacious tomb, and that thirty men and thirty women were selected to be his slaves in the afterlife. Before being selected, their hands and feet were broken, they were soon after murdered and placed in the same tomb.
In 1697, the African island of Bissao was ruled by nine kings, and when one died, thirty people were buried with him. In Dahomey, whenever a king wished to send a message to his ancestors, he had a man sent to the afterlife by beheading him, and at times, a second messenger was sent in the same way. The Mundu, Abukaya, and Abaka peoples have five to fifteen people buried alive with a departed chief. For the Kalika people, the nearest relatives of a chief must die when the leader dies. The traveler Vangele, saw with his own eyes as people from the By-yanzi and Bakuti tribes beheaded fourteen slaves, so that their spirits may attend that of a deceased chieftain. Their heads were boiled and then stuck on poles over the grave of their dead tyrant.
One hundred slaves were massacred, and placed around the coffin of the African king Pass-all. In the year 1808, a king of Dahomey had butchered three thousand people on his mother's grave; Badahung, another king of the same place, annihilated two thousand people in worship of the dead. So much slaughtering did Badahung commit, that it was reported that he filled a lake with enough blood to carry a canoe.
In Abomey, during celebrations for the dead, it was common for one thousand innocents to be killed. In 1911, the Aro people sacrificed one hundred slaves upon the death of a tribal elder. In the African Okuku ceremony, a victim is brought after the death of a chief, fed, then beheaded at dawn the next day. His body is subsequently feasted upon by all members of the tribe.
When king Kwamina died in 1797, each week, for three months, two-hundred people were sacrificed. Upon the death of the leader Mensa Kuma, executioners rushed out hastily searching for random victims, stabbing them on the cheeks with their daggers, tying their hands behind their backs, and then killing them. All women were strangled immediately, and numerous princes and noblemen were sacrificed. Tutu Kwamina, in worship for his dead mother, massacred three thousand people in 1816. Several objections to ritual murder were once made to a king of Ife, to which he stated that human sacrifice had benefited all the human race, and had given him superior knowledge which would go away if the rite was outlawed. (39a)
Such were the savage rituals of the pagan Cushites, being directly related to the human sacrifices done by the ancient Egyptians; and such is the tyranny which took place in a nation which fully adopted the worship of ancestors over the worship of God.
Human sacrifice in Egypt is so ancient that it was done by the first pharaoh, Narmer or Menes. On the shield of Narmer is an image of ten victims each with ropes tied around their bodies; they are decapitated, with their heads set between their lifeless legs, being given as sacrificial offerings to a body of idols. (39b)
When Amenhotep II was co-emperor with his father Thutmose III, he had invaded the Tikhsi people; and as he returned as a conquering hero, his father had already deceased, establishing him as the sole ruler of the empire. To celebrate his accession, he had seven princes of the Tikhsi brought back "tied upside down at the prow of his majesty's falcon-boat," and slaughtered as sacrificial victims to the gods Harakhte, Anuket, and Amon-Ra. (39c)
On one depiction is shown a first dynasty king of Egypt, sacrificing a man to jackal god Anubis or Apuat; he takes hold of the victim by his hair with one hand, and with the other he crushes his skull with a mace. (39d) Pharaohs would, as though it were for sport, hunt down Nubian men from the Sudan, reduce them to slavery, and sacrifice them to the devils of Egypt. The Pharaoh Sneferu of the fourth dynasty captured seven thousand men from the Sudan, only for them to be slaughtered for the gods in a mass human sacrifice ritual. (39f)
The pharaoh Senka-Amen-seken is seen bludgeoning to death a large body of prisoners as offerings to the sun-god Amun-Ra. Ptolemy VIII is shown killing alongside Horus; and Ptolemy XII butchering men before the moon goddess Isis. (39g)
Ritual human sacrifice was done by the Egyptians as it was by their Cushite brethren. The Cushite kings Heru-sa-atef and Nastasen, took pride in how they had slaughtered the people of Sudan, boasting of the massacres they would conduct after each victory, in the cause of their gods. (39h)
In Meroe, where the gods worshipped were the same as those of Egypt, the priests had ruled as a mob, whose power had even prevailed over the king. The sacerdotal order would, unexpectedly, decide when the king was to be sacrificed to the gods. To the king, they would send messengers to inform him of his time to be a sacrificial victim, declaring that it was the will of the gods. The kings had complied with this horrid rite, subjecting themselves more to superstition than prudence, until the time of the second Ptolemy when Meroe was ruled by Ergamenes who, being raised with a Greek education, had saw the ritual with utter disdain. He had entered the temple with his warriors and slaughtered all of the priests, and after abolishing the despotic rite, enacted that Meroe will be governed by his own will, and not by those of the priests. (39i)
CANNIBALISM IN ANCIENT EGYPT
Human sacrifice would also be followed by ritual cannibalism. On the temple of Edifu, all lands foreign to Egypt are pictured as being under the feet of the pharaoh, as four men, their arms bounded, are about to be ritually sacrificed. As the sacrificial victims are awaiting their deaths, a person hovers over them, reciting the "Book of the Subduing of the Nobility". This ritual was a part of an annual fertility ritual, the depictions of which have netted birds, fish, and humans, as representing the enemies of the pharaoh-Asiatics, Beduins, Nubians, and others-which were to be eaten for "breakfast, lunch, and supper." By consuming the flesh of their enemies, the Egyptians believed that they would absorb their desired qualities. (40) This evil stemmed from the national pride of the Egyptians, seeing themselves as superior to their foreign neighbors, to the point that they saw them as inferior as animals to be eaten.
Classical writers tell us of Busiris, an ancient king of Egypt who had not suffered any foreigner from his cruelty, sacrificing them to the god Amon, (41) and for the sake of his gods, drinking their blood. (42)
Cannibalism continued on in Egypt even after the Christian Era, and regardless of Islam prevailing over the country, it was still prevalently practiced. In 1148, as Rudwan, a criminal, was fleeing for his freedom from the authorities, he was slain in front of the palace of the Khalifa. His head was cut off, and his body mutilated into little pieces only for them to be eaten by Egyptian soldiers in their infernal belief that they would absorb the courage of the victim. (43)
Egyptian cannibalism was directly linked with the worship of the dead pharaoh, since in heaven it is said that he would indulge in the eating of human flesh. If the pharaoh, cannibalized his victims in heaven, it was certainly condoned to do the same evil on earth. After king Unas had died, he went to heaven and became Osiris, and as he lives in perpetual godhood, he "eats men, he feeds on the gods, he is the lord to whom tributes are brought, he weighs the gifts." The god Am-Rehau captures a body of victims for the pharaoh; their throats are slit, their insides taken out, their bodies dismembered and cooked. Unas consumes the flesh and absorbs the power that was once in the victims. ...The great ones of them are for his [Unas'] food in the morning, their middle[-sized] ones are for his food in the night. The old ones, male and female, are for his cauldrons. Behold, the Great One in heaven shoots forth fire into their caldrons which contain the thighs of their firstborn." (44)
This was the evil religion that Moses combated. It was the religion of race, the religion of pride and nation, of blood and earth, and in the triumph of the light, it was all dissipated by the victory of love. As it was then, so it shall happen again, when the God-Man shall vanquish the enemy of the unity of humanity.
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