Latest / UK Column Radio / Laurent Guyénot: The West is not based on Christianity (Part 2) | Jerm Warfare

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Laurent Guyénot: The West is not based on Christianity (Part 2) | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: H my name is Jerman.
0:31
Speaker 2: This is Germ Warfare The Battle of Ideas Part two.
0:36
Speaker 2: In the first conversation, you you kind of ended more
0:41
Speaker 2: or less chatting to me about Constantine and the weaponization
0:47
Speaker 2: of the church and how Christianity, which.
0:53
Speaker 1: Was this.
0:55
Speaker 2: Very small religious system in Rome, became a state religion
1:02
Speaker 2: quite quickly you referred to as state terrorism three thirty
1:07
Speaker 2: seven AD onwards, where you stated that Christians became deadlier
1:13
Speaker 2: to each other than wild beasts.
1:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I forgot who said that. One of the
1:22
Speaker 1: very few pagans I use the word pagan, but you know,
1:26
Speaker 1: as we explained yesterday, nobody called themselves pagans. But you know,
1:30
Speaker 1: it's difficult to find a term. You know, we should
1:33
Speaker 1: say non Christian traditionalist would be the good term actually,
1:37
Speaker 1: because at that time they felt they were traditionally they
1:40
Speaker 1: were resisting against a revolutionary movement. You know, Christianity was
1:46
Speaker 1: perceived as a revolutionary movement, and it was in many ways. E.
1:50
Speaker 1: Michael Jones would not like Christianity to be called a
1:54
Speaker 1: Jewish revolutionary movement, but it was really.
1:59
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, also hang on, to be fair though, E.
2:04
Speaker 2: Michael Jones is a Catholic and the Catholic position tends
2:10
Speaker 2: to be quite different.
2:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But Christianity, early Christianity started as a kind
2:19
Speaker 1: of when when it became, when it became a message
2:25
Speaker 1: to the gentiles, it was a revolutionary movement. And you
2:29
Speaker 1: can feel that even in the in the Gospel's Gospel
2:33
Speaker 1: of Matthew, when Jesus say, you know, who, whoever doesn't
2:36
Speaker 1: reject his father and mother is not worthy of me.
2:38
Speaker 1: This kind of thing was very revolutionary in a way.
2:42
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, Christianity is a very complex thing.
2:47
Speaker 1: And as it became the state religion, then of course
2:51
Speaker 1: it became you know, once a revolution succeeds, it's not
2:56
Speaker 1: anymore revolutionary movement. It's a state. It became a state religion,
3:01
Speaker 1: and little by little it became conservative rather than revolutionary.
3:06
Speaker 1: And as you said, you know, in fact, it can
3:11
Speaker 1: be assumed that Constantine chose Christianity, well, probably as Peter
3:16
Speaker 1: Heather assumes, because he was Christian. That's I think Peter Heather.
3:22
Speaker 1: Peter Heather is one of the best contemporary historian of
3:27
Speaker 1: late antiquity, and he comes with the idea that Christianity
3:32
Speaker 1: before Constantine was you know, only two percent of the
3:35
Speaker 1: people living in a Roman empire were Christians. That's maybe
3:39
Speaker 1: an extreme, an extremely low evaluation, but it's probably reasonable
3:49
Speaker 1: if we of course, in the cities it might have
3:51
Speaker 1: been ten percent or even twenty percent, maybe in Antioke
3:55
Speaker 1: or Alexandria possibly. But then Constantine it became state religion.
4:03
Speaker 1: And then the enemy, as you know, the enemy where
4:07
Speaker 1: the Pagans. But you know, let's say, after Theodosius, at
4:13
Speaker 1: the very end of the fourth century, there were not
4:17
Speaker 1: so many Pagans anymore except in the countryside. But that
4:20
Speaker 1: didn't people, you know, the hierarchy, the state did not
4:23
Speaker 1: really bother too much about country people. What they wanted
4:27
Speaker 1: is to convert the aristocracy, the sanatorial uh, you know,
4:33
Speaker 1: you know, the urban the urban population. So as as
4:36
Speaker 1: the Pagans disappeared, of course, the church found enemies within them,
4:40
Speaker 1: within itself, and the enemy became the heretics. This was
4:45
Speaker 1: already the case, in fact, from the very beginning of Christianity, creed.
4:49
Speaker 1: The history of Christianity is the history of sectarian strife
4:53
Speaker 1: between different understanding of what Jesus was about and so on.
4:58
Speaker 1: This was not a new phenomena. But what was new
5:01
Speaker 1: is that the state power was involved now to combat
5:06
Speaker 1: what was the what was not the imperial orthodoxy. There
5:11
Speaker 1: was an imperial orthodoxy, and then you know, there were
5:15
Speaker 1: people who were not considered in line with the orthodoxy
5:19
Speaker 1: and they were persecuted. But the strange thing, the complicated thing,
5:23
Speaker 1: is that actually, and that's a very little known story
5:27
Speaker 1: but very interesting because it connects with the Germans, Barbarians
5:31
Speaker 1: and so on. Because Constantine basically convened the Nissin Council
5:38
Speaker 1: of Nissa in three hundred twenty five. He wanted unity
5:42
Speaker 1: of the church, so he asked all the bishops to
5:44
Speaker 1: come there and agree on some kind of statement, you know,
5:47
Speaker 1: and stop bickering about you know, doctrinal difference, and let's
5:51
Speaker 1: all agree about something. And you know, he was not
5:54
Speaker 1: a theologian, and he just wanted the unified church because
5:58
Speaker 1: for him, the church, you know, it was part of
6:00
Speaker 1: the unity of the of the empire. That was part
6:02
Speaker 1: of his policy, his religious policy, which was not a
6:06
Speaker 1: new religious policy. In fact, the emperors had always let's say,
6:10
Speaker 1: from the second century now the third century at least,
6:14
Speaker 1: they were always strangling to find some kind of religious unity,
6:17
Speaker 1: you know, So there were different attempts, but finally Constantine
6:21
Speaker 1: settled for Christianity and he wanted the unified Church. So
6:24
Speaker 1: he convened the Council of Nicea and they all signed
6:28
Speaker 1: a creed which is which is called the niece In Creed,
6:31
Speaker 1: which in fact what we call today the nis In Creed.
6:34
Speaker 1: Was not exactly the creed that was signed there. It
6:36
Speaker 1: was elaborated, it was completed later, but basically it stated
6:43
Speaker 1: against ARUs, against the eretics of the of the time,
6:47
Speaker 1: who were resisting against the full identification of Jesus and God.
6:51
Speaker 1: You know, a stated no, Jesus is God, you know,
6:54
Speaker 1: the same substance of God, the Son and the Father
6:56
Speaker 1: are the same substance. And they used Greek term omousios,
7:01
Speaker 1: you know, which means same substance. Okay, so apparently, you know,
7:06
Speaker 1: most people were satisfied, but in fact not and probably
7:09
Speaker 1: a lot of bishops felt they had been, you know,
7:12
Speaker 1: been bullied into signing this. They were not satisfied with it,
7:15
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of resentment against it. And
7:17
Speaker 1: then Constantine himself started to feel uncomfortable with it because
7:22
Speaker 1: the main promoter of that creed was Atanasius of Alexandria,
7:27
Speaker 1: and Constantine really became we became fed up with this
7:31
Speaker 1: man who was really a fanatic, and he exiled him.
7:35
Speaker 1: He was exiled five times, you know, he exiled him
7:37
Speaker 1: as far as possible from Alexandria because he was the
7:40
Speaker 1: bishop of Alexandria. He was not yet the bishop at
7:42
Speaker 1: the time of the council, but he became bishops three
7:45
Speaker 1: years later. And he always, always, always fought for this
7:48
Speaker 1: creed that was his child, you know, this creed father
7:51
Speaker 1: and son aremusios. That was his obsession. But a lot
7:55
Speaker 1: of people were not happy with it because it was
7:57
Speaker 1: not a term coming from the Gospel. It had nothing
7:59
Speaker 1: to do with the Gospel. So people felt, let's come,
8:02
Speaker 1: let's settle for more, you know, vague and compromising formula
8:06
Speaker 1: that makes everybody happy. Some people don't like this formula
8:10
Speaker 1: because it makes it sounds like Jesus is God. And
8:13
Speaker 1: some people don't like it. They feel a son of
8:15
Speaker 1: God is good enough, you know. So Constantine himself, at
8:19
Speaker 1: the end of his life renounced that formula and settled
8:24
Speaker 1: for the formula that was proposed by more. Let's say,
8:29
Speaker 1: moderate Christians like use abuse of nicomedia. Yeah, use abuse
8:38
Speaker 1: of nicomedia, not to be confused with use abuse of Caesarea,
8:43
Speaker 1: who as a moderate and settled for vague terms say
8:46
Speaker 1: saying the Father and the Son are alike, they are
8:51
Speaker 1: similar to each other. Vague enough. Everybody can, you know,
8:55
Speaker 1: understand it the way they want. And of course the
8:58
Speaker 1: enemies of that, all this arianism, but it was not arianism.
9:03
Speaker 1: There was no reference to Arius. Arius was, you know,
9:09
Speaker 1: resisting very strongly again against identifying the son and the Father.
9:13
Speaker 1: But the new Omoyan Omoyan creed we call it Omoyan
9:18
Speaker 1: because omoyos means sane similar, you know. So anyway, that
9:24
Speaker 1: became the orthodoxy, imperial authodoxy at the very end of
9:28
Speaker 1: Constantine's life.
9:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, Lauren, but this is what you're talking about
9:33
Speaker 2: right now is very fundamental to Christianity.
9:37
Speaker 1: It is, Yeah, it is, of course, and it's that's
9:41
Speaker 1: why it's not known because it's disturbing because Constantine himself
9:45
Speaker 1: renounced the we can call it the Trinitarian creed because
9:50
Speaker 1: you know, the Nissine Christian they considered them Trinitarians, considered
9:54
Speaker 1: themselves trine Itarians, and the others were uncomfortable with the trinity,
9:58
Speaker 1: you know, the three what God in three person They
10:01
Speaker 1: were not comfortable, so they.
10:02
Speaker 2: I mean, he could go it's not and it's not
10:04
Speaker 2: even biblical.
10:05
Speaker 1: Actually, no, of course, not nothing. That's what that's what's
10:08
Speaker 1: the point. They felt, Where is it in the gospel?
10:11
Speaker 1: You know, Jesus is God? No, he said, nobody knows.
10:15
Speaker 1: He clearly said, you know, he never said on God.
10:18
Speaker 1: He often said, of course, you know, he said all
10:20
Speaker 1: kinds of different things, or we made him say all
10:23
Speaker 1: kinds of different things. But basically the point of the
10:26
Speaker 1: people who said that Jesus, we cannot call Jesus God.
10:29
Speaker 1: It makes no sense. They had a point at least.
10:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and he also said, nobody comes to
10:35
Speaker 2: the Father but through me.
10:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said that.
10:39
Speaker 2: And when he was on the cross, when he was
10:41
Speaker 2: on the cross, he cried out to God.
10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course he talked to God. So if he
10:45
Speaker 1: was God, why he really talked to himself? I mean,
10:48
Speaker 1: and he even said, I forgot exactly where and exactly
10:51
Speaker 1: what he said. But nobody knows but the Father, you know,
10:54
Speaker 1: so thinks he did some things he didn't know himself.
10:58
Speaker 1: So anyway, of course we can debate, you know, about
11:01
Speaker 1: what Jesus said, what didn't what he didn't say, and
11:04
Speaker 1: so on. But basically, you know, it was logical that
11:07
Speaker 1: many people felt uncomfortable with the idea that Jesus is God.
11:12
Speaker 1: But the idea that Jesus is God comes from, in fact,
11:15
Speaker 1: it comes from a Jewish monotistic obsession. There must be
11:18
Speaker 1: only one God. So if Jesus is not God and
11:22
Speaker 1: sounds like there are two gods, now that's not good,
11:25
Speaker 1: you know, So one God. That's the obsession of the
11:29
Speaker 1: monotaries tradition, that was the obsession, you know, And in fact.
11:36
Speaker 2: It almost sounds blasphemous what you're saying.
11:40
Speaker 1: Well, for me, not because I'm not, I don't consider
11:44
Speaker 1: myself Christian, as I said, I know, I have a deep.
11:48
Speaker 2: No, I know that. But what I'm saying is somebody
11:51
Speaker 2: who is a Christian listening to this will go, wow,
11:54
Speaker 2: that sounds very blasphemous. But what you're talking about actually
11:58
Speaker 2: is history.
11:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's history. It's people's opinions, you know. I mean,
12:02
Speaker 1: nobody heard God say, I mean people may heard hear
12:05
Speaker 1: voices in their head, you know, but that's possible, but
12:09
Speaker 1: you know, nobody can say for sure if it's God.
12:12
Speaker 1: So you know, for me, it's just opinions of people
12:15
Speaker 1: who get a little bit elguistic in their feeling that
12:20
Speaker 1: they know what God thinks, they know what God says.
12:24
Speaker 1: They you know, this is in fact a little bit
12:27
Speaker 1: grotesque from a rational viewpoint. But the funny thing, if
12:32
Speaker 1: I want to finish the story, because it's interesting, is
12:34
Speaker 1: that Constantine's so renounced and settled for the moderate creed Omoyan,
12:41
Speaker 1: which was condemned as arianism, and most historians following the
12:45
Speaker 1: Church historians consider call it, call them, call them arianist
12:51
Speaker 1: or arians, which they were not. They never call them.
12:54
Speaker 1: They never referred to Arius. And then Constantine's son also
13:00
Speaker 1: continued in that tradition. So for let's say forty years,
13:06
Speaker 1: almost forty years, the imperial orthodoxy of the emperors Constantine son,
13:12
Speaker 1: and then after there was Valance and Valentinian they also
13:16
Speaker 1: continued the same tradition. The imperial orthodoxy was not the
13:19
Speaker 1: Nissine trinitarian creed, was the Omoian creed that say, Jesus
13:24
Speaker 1: and God are different, Well they're similar, but you know,
13:28
Speaker 1: so that's similar. That's all implicitly rejecting the idea that
13:33
Speaker 1: they are identical, similar being you know, different from identical
13:38
Speaker 1: of the same substance. And that's the period when the
13:43
Speaker 1: god the first Germans Barbarians to be converted. That's a
13:48
Speaker 1: period they were converted, you know, as part of a
13:52
Speaker 1: diplomatic agreement for some of the gods to settle in
13:58
Speaker 1: the Roman territory. You know, they were pushed around by
14:01
Speaker 1: the Huns and they were in trouble. So they got
14:05
Speaker 1: permission to settle, but at the condition of adopting Roman values,
14:10
Speaker 1: which at that time was already including Christianity. So they
14:14
Speaker 1: became Christian and what kind of Christianity, of course, the
14:16
Speaker 1: Christianity of the emperor of that time. So they became
14:20
Speaker 1: Omoyan Christians. And for some reason which is partly mysterious,
14:24
Speaker 1: all the German tribes or nations, which were kind of
14:31
Speaker 1: most most were not really were a big artificial nations
14:36
Speaker 1: federation of different tribes. They also converted to the same German,
14:42
Speaker 1: to the same Omoyan creed. One of the reasons is
14:47
Speaker 1: that one bishop under Valance had translated for them the
14:53
Speaker 1: Bible and had given and had made for them a
14:57
Speaker 1: script for their language, the first writing alphabet for German.
15:03
Speaker 1: So you know, they were happy to have an alphabet,
15:05
Speaker 1: they were happy to have their scriptures, and they were
15:07
Speaker 1: also probably happy to have a creed that did not
15:11
Speaker 1: identify completely Jesus with God, because they were used to
15:14
Speaker 1: have divine, divine men, men who die and resurrect and
15:19
Speaker 1: become gods in heaven. You know, this was probably more
15:22
Speaker 1: comfortable for them because in this case Jesus is almost
15:25
Speaker 1: like a hero in the Greek sense. You know, he's
15:29
Speaker 1: a half god born, you know, with a divine father,
15:33
Speaker 1: and he dies but he resurrect. That's Greek Greek mythology,
15:38
Speaker 1: and that was also part of the German religious landscape,
15:42
Speaker 1: you know. So probably they were happy with it, and
15:47
Speaker 1: they resisted strongly against converting back to nice in Christianity.
15:51
Speaker 1: When finally the emperor theodo Zus or before him Gratchen
15:57
Speaker 1: and tildo Zeus, so that was in three one hundred
16:00
Speaker 1: and eighty something, then decided, no, let's go back to
16:04
Speaker 1: Nissen creed, the absolute montaristic creed. And then Theodosius was
16:09
Speaker 1: the first you know, in the in the Christianization of
16:12
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire, Constantine is the first important person. The
16:15
Speaker 1: second one is Theodosius, who was fanatically Christian and fanatically
16:21
Speaker 1: Nissen trinitarian Christian and therefore a persecutor not only of
16:26
Speaker 1: the Pagans, but then persecutor also of the of the
16:31
Speaker 1: Omoyans Christians, whom he called arians. We always have to
16:36
Speaker 1: to most people know them as aryan or arianist, or
16:41
Speaker 1: most people think all the German tribes were Arianists. In fact,
16:45
Speaker 1: they were not. That's a miss, miss, you know, it's
16:51
Speaker 1: not the correct term. Peter Heather make that point. They
16:53
Speaker 1: were not Arianism. Most very recent historians explained they were
16:59
Speaker 1: not arianist. They were called arianists as a way to
17:03
Speaker 1: assimilate them to a guy who had been condemned as
17:06
Speaker 1: a heretic. But anyway, so that's an interesting story because
17:10
Speaker 1: then there was on top of the civil wars between
17:15
Speaker 1: Christians and Pagans, which lasted. I talked last time about
17:19
Speaker 1: the Battle of the Frigidius that was in three hundred
17:22
Speaker 1: and eighty two under Theodosis. So Theodosis was both fighting
17:26
Speaker 1: against the Pagans and fighting against the German well, German heretics.
17:32
Speaker 2: Somehow, I apologize for jumping in again. I just want
17:35
Speaker 2: to make sure that I'm following. So you're you're pointing
17:38
Speaker 2: out now that Theodosis basically ended the what did you
17:45
Speaker 2: refer to as the Hellenic world.
17:49
Speaker 1: Also, yeah, yeah, yeah, well.
17:51
Speaker 2: And that was around that was around what three three
17:54
Speaker 2: eighty a d.
17:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, Theodosius three three eighty Yeah, he had quite long
18:00
Speaker 1: rain and then his son rained, and so the Taio
18:03
Speaker 1: Doosian dynasty forgot exactly how long it lasted and after.
18:08
Speaker 1: But there's a third important stage in the Christianization. First
18:12
Speaker 1: stage is Constantine. Then the second major stage is still
18:16
Speaker 1: does still. Thoses really went hard against the Pagans. He
18:21
Speaker 1: actually he wrote laws to condemn a penalty of death
18:27
Speaker 1: for any kind of even pagan rituals, even in your home,
18:33
Speaker 1: even worshiping your ancestors would be condemned by death, even
18:36
Speaker 1: if you do it at home, and you are denounced
18:39
Speaker 1: by your neighbors. So there was a whole It was
18:42
Speaker 1: very intense, you know, it was a Bolshevik system. You
18:46
Speaker 1: could be denounced by your own neighbors for practicing, for
18:49
Speaker 1: having your little figure, you know, your little ancestors of clay,
18:54
Speaker 1: or your little altar for the lars and the pinat,
18:57
Speaker 1: you know, all these traditional household god and this kind
19:00
Speaker 1: of thing. So not only he closed the temples, but
19:04
Speaker 1: he forbade so he went very hard. But he did
19:07
Speaker 1: not yet really, as I said, he you know, I
19:13
Speaker 1: have to correct myself. He didn't really persecute the retics yet.
19:18
Speaker 1: That came at the third stage, and that was more
19:21
Speaker 1: the Gothic Wars of Justinian. So Justinian is the final
19:25
Speaker 1: stage of the Christianization, which is the stage where even
19:31
Speaker 1: the Eretics, the barbarian Christians who are not monetaristic enough,
19:37
Speaker 1: became persecuted. And that was the war. The Gothic War
19:41
Speaker 1: was when Justin and Justinian, you know, went against the
19:45
Speaker 1: Gothic Kingdom of Theodoric after Theodoric's death. And in fact,
19:50
Speaker 1: according to some historians today, that was the real fall
19:53
Speaker 1: of the Roman Empire because the Gothic Kingdom of Italy
19:59
Speaker 1: and the so the Italy was an Astrogothic kingdom, and
20:04
Speaker 1: then in Spain and Gold they were the visigoth They
20:08
Speaker 1: were sometimes quarreling, but basically they had the same religion,
20:11
Speaker 1: same language, same tradition. They were still very Roman. They
20:15
Speaker 1: were full Roman. They were trying to be Roman as
20:19
Speaker 1: Roman as they could be, you know, from the point
20:22
Speaker 1: of law, architecture, literature, you know. So the Roman Empire
20:31
Speaker 1: might not have been completely one hundred percent called the
20:35
Speaker 1: Western Roman Empire because Theodoric refused to call himself emperor.
20:40
Speaker 1: But according to recent historians like Peter Heather or there's
20:45
Speaker 1: one guy called Jonathan Arnauld, it was still the Roman tradition,
20:50
Speaker 1: the Roman civilization, the Roman order in the west. That's
20:54
Speaker 1: in five hundred and sixty. So Justinian, who is considered
21:00
Speaker 1: in standard is storiography as the emperor who restored for
21:05
Speaker 1: a short time the unity of the Empire. In fact,
21:08
Speaker 1: he is a destroyer of the Western Roman Empire under
21:14
Speaker 1: the pretext of uniting it, under the pretext of a
21:18
Speaker 1: religious war, because in fact it was mostly a religious war.
21:23
Speaker 1: He went to war against all the western kingdoms who
21:27
Speaker 1: were fully Roman, but they were not Nising Christians. They
21:33
Speaker 1: were Omoyan Christians. They had a different kind of Christianity,
21:37
Speaker 1: softer kind, you know, with a church we don't know
21:42
Speaker 1: much about because the winners write history, so the losers
21:45
Speaker 1: don't get to explain their case. So we don't know
21:48
Speaker 1: much about the Omoyan Church, but we know it was
21:51
Speaker 1: less structured, more localized, you know, more also integrated with
21:56
Speaker 1: the political world. And so Justinian destroyed the Roman the
22:02
Speaker 1: Western Roman world. According to the vision of Peter Heather
22:05
Speaker 1: Johnettan Harnold and a few others now who who you know,
22:10
Speaker 1: revised have a revisionist vision of late antiquity.
22:15
Speaker 2: So, just to make sure that I'm following, it wasn't
22:18
Speaker 2: the barbarian invasions that would have ended the Roman Empire,
22:22
Speaker 2: but rather that the Roman Empire had already been weakened
22:27
Speaker 2: by Christianity.
22:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a very very important debate today. But
22:35
Speaker 1: more and more there has been different tendencies. You know,
22:39
Speaker 1: the traditional vision was the barbarians destroyed the Roman civilization.
22:44
Speaker 1: That's that was a traditional vision. Then there was a
22:47
Speaker 1: tendency to say, well, the barbarians did not really invade,
22:50
Speaker 1: They just migrated and settled. Of course they caused a
22:53
Speaker 1: little bit trouble, but that was not the case. That
22:56
Speaker 1: was not the major because of the collapse Roman and
23:00
Speaker 1: the empire collapsed because of internal weaknesses and so on.
23:05
Speaker 1: But now there's more and more historians who understand that, yeah,
23:08
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire collapse because of internal conflict which were
23:14
Speaker 1: basically the civil Wars. And even Peter Brown, who is
23:18
Speaker 1: considered the greatest historian, the pioneer historian of late antiquity.
23:22
Speaker 1: Peter Brown, he now comes to this conclusion. The civil
23:26
Speaker 1: wars caused the greatest damage to the to the Roman order,
23:32
Speaker 1: and of course it combined with the with the Barbarian invasion,
23:36
Speaker 1: and combined in a way that actually those emperors who
23:40
Speaker 1: fought against each other used barbarians, So that was you know,
23:44
Speaker 1: the first barbarians. They were almost armed, you know, militarized
23:50
Speaker 1: because they were not military people. They were agricultural people.
23:54
Speaker 1: You know, they started to become warrior people as mercenaries
23:59
Speaker 1: for world. So you know, these civil wars transformed the
24:04
Speaker 1: barbarians into a military power, which of course once they
24:07
Speaker 1: were armed and independent, of course, they had their own
24:11
Speaker 1: agenda to find the land, to settle and so on.
24:14
Speaker 1: But the civil wars played definitely a very very important role.
24:19
Speaker 1: And as we said last time, most of those civil wars,
24:22
Speaker 1: if you look into detail, had a strong religious motive.
24:26
Speaker 1: That was not, of course, the only motive. That's not
24:29
Speaker 1: the only monive for one emperor to want from one
24:31
Speaker 1: general to want to be emperor, of course, you know,
24:34
Speaker 1: but there was always a very strong religious motive in
24:39
Speaker 1: the civil wars, and of course, particularly in this famous battle,
24:43
Speaker 1: which should be a major event in the history of
24:47
Speaker 1: the fall of the Roman Empire. But it's a little
24:50
Speaker 1: bit not very well known because it's the Battle of
24:54
Speaker 1: the Frigidis. As I mentioned again, it was basically a
24:57
Speaker 1: battle between Theodosius and a Roman emperor, Eugenius, who was
25:04
Speaker 1: not we think he was basically Christian, but he was
25:07
Speaker 1: supported He was a Christian who wanted to allow paganism,
25:13
Speaker 1: allow people to continue to worship whatever they wanted, so
25:16
Speaker 1: he was his general was Argobast, was a pagan, and
25:21
Speaker 1: it was really a revolt rebellion of the pagan especially
25:30
Speaker 1: the Roman aristocracy which was still in majority traditionalist as
25:36
Speaker 1: I said, you know, against Christianity. So it was really
25:39
Speaker 1: a religious war, very very very clearly. And the funny
25:43
Speaker 1: thing about it is that at that time the god
25:46
Speaker 1: under Alaric were Christians. So it was a religious war
25:50
Speaker 1: where the emperor was using barbarian Christians against Roman Pagans,
25:57
Speaker 1: you know, so in fact the Roman Empire were fight
26:00
Speaker 1: was fighting Romans by using barbarians. That shows and the
26:06
Speaker 1: barbarians where this is even winning the battle. That's why
26:09
Speaker 1: Alaric after that's the explanation why Alaric turned against Rome
26:16
Speaker 1: because he felt he won the battle. But he didn't,
26:18
Speaker 1: he didn't get the credit for it. So you know,
26:21
Speaker 1: that's that's the whole background of finally Alaric turning against
26:25
Speaker 1: Rome Alaska, you know, kind of shift a little bit
26:30
Speaker 1: our vision of what's going on.
26:33
Speaker 2: What do you think was the decisive turning point in
26:38
Speaker 2: the collapse of Rome? I mean, or shall we say
26:42
Speaker 2: of the Hellenic religion.
26:47
Speaker 1: Well, there's different ways to look at it. If we
26:51
Speaker 1: look at the what happened in the East, we can say,
26:54
Speaker 1: of course, we can say there was never a fall
26:57
Speaker 1: of the Roman Empire until the fourty in fifty three, right,
27:01
Speaker 1: because the Byzantine what we call the Byzantine Empire, was
27:05
Speaker 1: in fact the Roman Empire. They always the Byzantines never
27:08
Speaker 1: call themselves Byzantine, they call themselves Roman.
27:11
Speaker 2: Hold on, hold on, hold on. And also there's a
27:12
Speaker 2: distinction to be major, because people will say, yes, but
27:16
Speaker 2: there was the Roman Republic and there was the Empire,
27:18
Speaker 2: and there was a difference.
27:20
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, of course, of course, that's that happened in
27:24
Speaker 1: the before before Christ, actually Augustus that was the beginning
27:29
Speaker 1: of the Roman Empire. We can put it around three
27:35
Speaker 1: thirty before Christ. Somehow, that was a major shift made
27:39
Speaker 1: a change, but we should never forget that Rome remained
27:46
Speaker 1: a republic, never never stopped being a republic. It became
27:50
Speaker 1: a republic and an empire both because in the Roman Empire,
27:57
Speaker 1: in fact, every city was a republic, you know, So
28:00
Speaker 1: it's kind of ambiguous because Rome as a city never
28:03
Speaker 1: stopped being a republic. That's why they kept this spqr
28:09
Speaker 1: senatus populous. You know, they were still a republic with
28:13
Speaker 1: the Senate in Rome, and Constantine created a new Rome
28:17
Speaker 1: with a new senate. But there were also other cities
28:20
Speaker 1: which some of them had the senate, others had a council.
28:24
Speaker 1: They were all republic with a constitution. So you know,
28:27
Speaker 1: this term republic is ambiguous because Rome itself has the
28:31
Speaker 1: city remained a republic, and the Senate of Rome had
28:36
Speaker 1: also more than more responsibility than just the city of Rome.
28:40
Speaker 1: They were still supposedly the head of the old empire,
28:45
Speaker 1: but in practice there was competition between the Senate and
28:48
Speaker 1: the emperor, and the emperor little by little reduced the
28:52
Speaker 1: power of the Senate. But you know, and of course
28:57
Speaker 1: in that process of Rome becoming an empire, it becomes
29:02
Speaker 1: strange because we call then then the Romans in the
29:07
Speaker 1: two hundred and something, the emperor Caracallad decided anybody living
29:13
Speaker 1: any three men living in the Roman Empire is a
29:17
Speaker 1: Roman citizen. Until that time, a Roman citizen is a guy,
29:21
Speaker 1: is a person living in Rome, or at least born
29:24
Speaker 1: in Rome, or at least having a citizenship of the
29:27
Speaker 1: city of Rome. And then suddenly, you know, everybody living
29:32
Speaker 1: in the in the in the Roman Empire became a
29:36
Speaker 1: Roman citizen. That created, of course, a dual identity of Rome.
29:43
Speaker 1: That completely changed everything. And when we say Romans today,
29:47
Speaker 1: of course we think not necessarily of people living in
29:50
Speaker 1: the city of Rome, but living anywhere. So yeah, but
29:55
Speaker 1: Rome was an empire, and that that's what we're concerned about.
30:00
Speaker 1: Of course, if it had not becoming an empire, just
30:03
Speaker 1: remained just a city, we wouldn't be talking about it.
30:06
Speaker 1: It became an empire, it became a civilization, it became
30:12
Speaker 1: and it became two empires because it had always a
30:15
Speaker 1: dual identity Latin in the west, Greek speaking in the east,
30:22
Speaker 1: and the Greek speaking part of the empire had kept
30:26
Speaker 1: a very strong notion that there were not only Roman
30:31
Speaker 1: they were Roman, but they were also the heirs of
30:35
Speaker 1: Eleenistic civilization and a mixed of those two notions. They
30:38
Speaker 1: called Alexander the Great. They thought he was a Roman
30:42
Speaker 1: because for them Roman meant Greek and Greek philosophy, Greek science,
30:47
Speaker 1: and so on. And an important point which answers your
30:51
Speaker 1: question before is that in the East there was never
30:54
Speaker 1: such a break between Christianity and Eleenistic Elenistic culture. The
31:01
Speaker 1: Byzantine there were different tendencies, but basically those who won
31:05
Speaker 1: the you know, the conflict in the East, some patriarch
31:12
Speaker 1: of Constantinople were very attached to Greek philosophy. They preserved it,
31:17
Speaker 1: they created libraries to keep it. And so in the
31:21
Speaker 1: East there was always tension, but still coexistence between Christianity
31:28
Speaker 1: and Hellenism, which did not exist in the West because
31:32
Speaker 1: the West was not Hellenistic, was Roman, was Latin, and
31:36
Speaker 1: Greek culture kind of was a bit foreign. And so
31:41
Speaker 1: that's why the Byzantine Empire is something very different in spirit.
31:46
Speaker 1: Of course, some some emperors, like Justinian whom we just mentioned,
31:51
Speaker 1: closed the Academy of Plato. So there was also some
31:58
Speaker 1: emperors were you know, at war against Hellenism. But you know,
32:05
Speaker 1: if we look globally, then they preserved the Leninistic culture,
32:08
Speaker 1: and that's why we got it back in the West
32:10
Speaker 1: during the Renaissance. You know, all this came to the
32:13
Speaker 1: came back to the West. Plato came back to the
32:15
Speaker 1: West because the Byzantine had preserved it. Otherwise, Otherwise, until
32:21
Speaker 1: the Renaissance, we had we had only one book of Plato.
32:24
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't know much about Plato. So yeah,
32:28
Speaker 1: that's the big picture.
32:30
Speaker 2: You described the Old Testament as a Jewish trojan horse
32:37
Speaker 2: inside European civilization. What do you mean by that, Well.
32:46
Speaker 1: There was a period during during the first second century
32:52
Speaker 1: when in the West there was a Church of Martian
32:57
Speaker 1: who wanted to get rid of the Old Testament, wanted
33:01
Speaker 1: to exclude the Old Testament. In fact, possibly you know,
33:06
Speaker 1: we can look from their viewpoint. They didn't want to
33:09
Speaker 1: include the Old Testament because there was no canon yet,
33:12
Speaker 1: So there was no biblical canon. So it's not like
33:17
Speaker 1: the Old Testament was part of the Christian canon and
33:19
Speaker 1: they wanted to get rid of it. It's more that
33:21
Speaker 1: they created the canon without the Old Testament, and in reaction,
33:25
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church, what we call now the Catholic Church,
33:29
Speaker 1: created their own canon, including the Old Testament, and we
33:33
Speaker 1: imagine there was a lot of struggle between people were
33:38
Speaker 1: attached to the Old Testament within Christianity, and these people
33:42
Speaker 1: were Jews basically or coming from a Jewish tradition, you know.
33:47
Speaker 1: So at the second century, in the middle of the
33:50
Speaker 1: second century, that's what historians like, Oh yeah, man is
34:00
Speaker 1: a good, good, good writer and that and there's another one.
34:04
Speaker 1: I forgot his name. Well say, until the middle of
34:07
Speaker 1: the second century, still Christianity was basically Jewish. It was
34:11
Speaker 1: understood that it's you know, it's enough shoot jew of Judaism.
34:16
Speaker 1: And most Christians were either Jews, ellenistic Jews, or coming
34:21
Speaker 1: from a Jewish background. So why did Christianity keep the
34:29
Speaker 1: Old Testament. It could have it could have turned out differently,
34:33
Speaker 1: but it turned out this way. And whether we look
34:36
Speaker 1: at it as a conspiracy or the result is that
34:40
Speaker 1: the Old Testament became a trojan horse in a sense
34:44
Speaker 1: that because Christianity integrated the Old Testament, then Christianity paid
34:50
Speaker 1: tribute to the Jews in the sense that they accepted
34:53
Speaker 1: the notion, the crazy notion that had always sound sounded
34:57
Speaker 1: completely crazy to the Romans, the crazy notion that God
35:01
Speaker 1: chose the Jews. God gave them a land, God destined
35:06
Speaker 1: them to convert to you know, and this kind of thing.
35:10
Speaker 1: And nobody before them knew God, you know. I mean
35:13
Speaker 1: that sounded completely crazy to the Romans. By the way,
35:16
Speaker 1: the Romans the idea that the Jews invented monotism sounded
35:20
Speaker 1: also crazy. I mean, monotarism. The idea of one God,
35:24
Speaker 1: one supreme God, was very common. It was commonplace. You know,
35:29
Speaker 1: we think, oh, people didn't know there was one God.
35:31
Speaker 1: That's stupid. Everybody who was a little bit thinking knew
35:36
Speaker 1: there were many gods. But everybody knew, you know, there
35:40
Speaker 1: was They must, you know, the divine world was unified,
35:43
Speaker 1: and there must be some you know, there is one
35:47
Speaker 1: God in one way or another. Cicero said, said this
35:50
Speaker 1: again and again. So the god's God was, you know,
35:54
Speaker 1: just different ways to look at the divine world. The
35:57
Speaker 1: divine world is singular. The divine world this plural, its masculine,
36:01
Speaker 1: it is feminine, you know, so integrated. The Old Testament
36:09
Speaker 1: meant to accept these claims of the Jewish nations to
36:14
Speaker 1: have been the only nation in the world to whom
36:17
Speaker 1: God spoke directly, to have been the only nation who
36:21
Speaker 1: knew the real God while all other nations worship demons.
36:26
Speaker 1: This became part of Christianity, you know, this became the
36:30
Speaker 1: jealous God parading. The jealous God means God, there's only
36:34
Speaker 1: one God. All of the gods are demons. That's what
36:36
Speaker 1: God hates them and want to destroy them. This might
36:39
Speaker 1: not have developed in the same way if the Old
36:42
Speaker 1: Testament had not been there. And then, of course, as
36:46
Speaker 1: the Old Testament. As I study history, I can see
36:51
Speaker 1: that the influence of the Old Testament, the Old Testament
36:54
Speaker 1: was very important in political theology. No king, no emperor
36:59
Speaker 1: like Charlemagne, identify to Jesus. They all identify to Moses
37:03
Speaker 1: or to Joshua. They all were full of full of
37:07
Speaker 1: their mission to eradicate Amelek. You know, this language of
37:12
Speaker 1: the Old Testament, this genocidal language, became very fundamental in
37:17
Speaker 1: the not in the peoples, the ordinary people's Christianity, but
37:23
Speaker 1: in the political theology of the rulers. And of course
37:26
Speaker 1: it became predominant in the crusade. The crusades are really
37:30
Speaker 1: in the spirit of Yahweh, They're not. They're not in
37:34
Speaker 1: the spirit of Jesus at all. That's one aspect of it.
37:38
Speaker 1: And then the other aspect is that it always gave
37:42
Speaker 1: the Jews a special status which was officially recognized by
37:47
Speaker 1: the Church. As we said before, they were recognized as
37:51
Speaker 1: a witness people. You don't touch the witness people. They're there.
37:54
Speaker 1: At the end of time, they will convert and the
37:56
Speaker 1: Messiah will come back in Jerusalem and they will all convert.
37:59
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. So the Jews were preserved, protected, even
38:04
Speaker 1: privileged in many ways because of the Old Testament, because
38:07
Speaker 1: they were the people of the Old Testament. They were special,
38:10
Speaker 1: even though you know, Unles should have recording as Jesus
38:13
Speaker 1: and so on. But still you know, they had a
38:16
Speaker 1: special status. They had a special aura, a special sainthood,
38:22
Speaker 1: an ambivalent sainthood, because it was they were both blessed
38:25
Speaker 1: and cursed. But if you study history, you can see
38:29
Speaker 1: it gave them tremendous symbolic power in fact, and the
38:34
Speaker 1: symbolic power slowly, but you know, transformed into political power,
38:40
Speaker 1: economic power, until we reach the twentieth century where finally Christianity,
38:48
Speaker 1: Christianity Christian nations gave back Jerusalem to the Jews, the
38:53
Speaker 1: Jerusalem that the Romans had kicked out. The Jews had
38:59
Speaker 1: kicked out the Roman the Jews from sorry, the Romans
39:02
Speaker 1: had kicked out the Jews from Jerusalem, had renamed Palestine,
39:07
Speaker 1: you know, wanted to erase the Jewish nationality. Well we
39:13
Speaker 1: you know, we gave them back Jerusalem Israel. And today,
39:21
Speaker 1: of course you can see, you know, eventually called Christians
39:25
Speaker 1: in America are completely in law with Israel. They're worshiping Israel.
39:32
Speaker 1: Why well, because the Old Testament. If they didn't have,
39:35
Speaker 1: if Christianity was not based on the Old Testament, you know,
39:38
Speaker 1: that would be completely impossible.
39:40
Speaker 2: But it sounds like you're now referring to Zionism and
39:44
Speaker 2: can that also not be attributed to people like Darby
39:50
Speaker 2: and Schofield in the late eighteen hundreds.
39:53
Speaker 1: Well, yes, and no, I think I think it's easy
39:57
Speaker 1: to of course, Christians would say, Catholics in particular would say,
40:00
Speaker 1: that's not Christianity. That's a heresy. Of course, Christian Zionism
40:05
Speaker 1: is a heresy for Catholics in particular, and for other
40:09
Speaker 1: non Zionist Christians. It's a heresy. Okay, Well it's a
40:13
Speaker 1: heresy okay. But and they would say, they would bring
40:17
Speaker 1: up the Scofield Bible, which and they would point out
40:20
Speaker 1: that well, there was some Jews, you know, in the
40:23
Speaker 1: editorial process of that Bible. That's not false, that's true.
40:28
Speaker 1: But the bigger picture is much you know, you cannot
40:34
Speaker 1: just limit the influence of the Old Testament, the spirit
40:39
Speaker 1: of the Old Testament, the spirit of the Old Testament,
40:42
Speaker 1: which became so fundamental in America. America is a Messianic
40:48
Speaker 1: chosen nation. You know, they are completely Old Testament, you know,
40:51
Speaker 1: in their imperial in their ubris, in their sense of
40:57
Speaker 1: being chosen to you know, to bring salvation by bombs
41:03
Speaker 1: throughout the world. You know, that's the Old Testament spirit.
41:06
Speaker 1: And also it's a process. You know, Christianity, there is
41:12
Speaker 1: no true Christianity. For somebody like me who is not
41:15
Speaker 1: a Christian Christian will say, well, that's not true Christianity.
41:18
Speaker 1: True Christianity is not like this, Well whatever, you know,
41:22
Speaker 1: I don't care. But Christianity is what it is at
41:25
Speaker 1: any point in history. I mean, every Christians say my
41:28
Speaker 1: Christianity is true. Christianity Europe is not, you know, so
41:32
Speaker 1: I don't get into that debate. Yeah, that's an endless debate.
41:35
Speaker 1: You know, there's as many Christianities as Christians, basically, but
41:40
Speaker 1: from a historian point of view, Christianity is what it
41:43
Speaker 1: is at any given time, and it evolved, and it
41:46
Speaker 1: evolved in the direction of being Israel friendly. And that's
41:51
Speaker 1: not only Protestantism, Evangelic called Protestantism in America, Catholicism itself.
41:57
Speaker 1: A Vatican too became Jewish friendly. They accepted the Jews
42:03
Speaker 1: are their elder brothers. That's part of Vatican Two in
42:06
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, you know, or sixty five forgot. You know,
42:11
Speaker 1: so all Christianity slowly but was pulled in the direction
42:17
Speaker 1: of worshiping Israel, in the direction of atoning for having
42:22
Speaker 1: persecuted the Jews, of course, especially after the Holocaust. But
42:27
Speaker 1: you know, the Holocaust made a big difference. Of course,
42:33
Speaker 1: the Holocaust religion became became kind of part of Christianity.
42:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you mentioned this as part of the
42:39
Speaker 2: Jewish memory rather which is integral to Jewish identity.
42:46
Speaker 1: The Holocaust.
42:48
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, well, yes, of course, and you refer
42:51
Speaker 2: to that as a shallow memory.
42:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the Holocaust is very biblical in the sense
42:59
Speaker 1: the major theme of the Biblical story, which is part
43:03
Speaker 1: of the Jewish identity. For me, Jewishness is biblical you know.
43:09
Speaker 1: That's the point I refuse to consider that Jewishness is genetic.
43:13
Speaker 1: Of course, there is epigenetic phenomena, you know whatever. But basically, fundamentally,
43:18
Speaker 1: to be a Jew is to look at the world
43:20
Speaker 1: through the lens of the Bible. If you're an intense Jew,
43:26
Speaker 1: these become the lens. Yet you see everything. If you're
43:28
Speaker 1: not an intense Jew, then might not be you know,
43:32
Speaker 1: the fundamental way you look at the world, as you know,
43:38
Speaker 1: to the extent that you're a Jew, your Biblical you
43:41
Speaker 1: look at the history of the world through the Biblical lens,
43:44
Speaker 1: and the Biblical lens tells you that the Jews were
43:47
Speaker 1: superior people and persecuted people, and God loves the Jews
43:55
Speaker 1: and hates everybody who persecutes the Jews, and ultimately God
44:01
Speaker 1: will vindicate the Jews and destroy the nations that are
44:04
Speaker 1: against Israel. So the Jews means Israel basically the nation
44:07
Speaker 1: of Israel. The nation of Israel for us today is
44:10
Speaker 1: a state in Palestine. But the nation of Israel for
44:14
Speaker 1: most Jews is just the eternal nation that starter than
44:18
Speaker 1: the Moses and still exists not only in Palestine, throughout
44:22
Speaker 1: the world. That Jaspora has always been since for two
44:25
Speaker 1: thousand years. At least two thirds of the Jews or
44:29
Speaker 1: more don't live in Palestine. They live outside there. This
44:34
Speaker 1: is Israel. So the Holocaust became, you know, kind of
44:41
Speaker 1: a new chapter in the biblical history. But it fits
44:44
Speaker 1: completely in the biblical pattern. The nations hate us, but
44:49
Speaker 1: God will destroy those nations that hate us. And they
44:52
Speaker 1: have a very long, long memory and a very you know,
44:57
Speaker 1: they have a memory rather than a history because they
45:00
Speaker 1: because let's see everything through these biblical lens. You know,
45:03
Speaker 1: it's not history really, it's it's a memory with a
45:08
Speaker 1: very strong pattern. And so they have a strong spirit
45:13
Speaker 1: of vengeance, which you can hear even Natanyahu. I I
45:17
Speaker 1: made an article starting from that point. Natanyahu recently was
45:21
Speaker 1: asked by one guy who's walking and he has, oh,
45:24
Speaker 1: what what are you reading at this moment. I'm reading
45:26
Speaker 1: a book called Rome against.
45:29
Speaker 2: The Jews versus Jews versus Rome.
45:32
Speaker 1: Jesus versus Rome. Forgot the name.
45:34
Speaker 2: Author by Barry Strauss.
45:37
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I've read this book. Pretty good book. Actually, uh, and.
45:44
Speaker 2: Said we lost that one. I think we have to
45:47
Speaker 2: win the next one.
45:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, so, and that's not the only time he
45:52
Speaker 1: said this, and that's a typical Jewish long you know,
45:56
Speaker 1: Jews who are intense Jews, this very long memory where
46:00
Speaker 1: they see Rome. Rome is the Roman is still christiendom.
46:05
Speaker 1: Rome is the United States and Europe. And they lost
46:11
Speaker 1: against Rome despite the fact that God had given them
46:15
Speaker 1: the empire. God told them you are the nation that
46:18
Speaker 1: should rule over the nations. So they have this imperial destiny,
46:24
Speaker 1: which is a global destiny. And recently Natania who said,
46:28
Speaker 1: now is the time we become a regional power, a
46:32
Speaker 1: regional superpower. He said that, and even not only a
46:36
Speaker 1: regional superpower, but a global superpower. That's the biblical prophecy,
46:41
Speaker 1: you know. And so they have this very sense, very
46:45
Speaker 1: strong sense that they will take their revenge against Rome
46:49
Speaker 1: because the Rome as an empire destroyed them, but the
46:54
Speaker 1: empire belongs to them really ultimately, that's the prophecy. So
46:59
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's very strong in Netanyahu, and that's
47:02
Speaker 1: very strong in this milieu of the ultra Zionists who
47:06
Speaker 1: are a little bit religious fanatics and believe that somehow
47:12
Speaker 1: God will come to their helps. That's why in fact
47:14
Speaker 1: they are destroying Israel because God will not come to
47:17
Speaker 1: their help and they you know, probably it's not going
47:21
Speaker 1: to work, but that's a very strong determination it might work.
47:26
Speaker 1: Actually they are Realistically, it would not be impossible to
47:31
Speaker 1: imagine that now Israeli is just about to become the
47:36
Speaker 1: regional superpower if the bat Iran that's what's going to happen, basically,
47:42
Speaker 1: because they already beat Egypt thirty is not in a
47:49
Speaker 1: position to become the regional superpower. Saudi Arabia are you know,
47:54
Speaker 1: no chance they have oil, but they don't have any.
47:58
Speaker 1: So Iran is the only competitor for becoming the regional superpower,
48:02
Speaker 1: which means the empire.
48:05
Speaker 2: Greater Israel also, yeah.
48:08
Speaker 1: Great Greater Israel and Iran are the two only candidate
48:15
Speaker 1: for becoming the new civilizational state in a sense and
48:22
Speaker 1: in a new multipler world. That's and it's very clear
48:26
Speaker 1: that Israel Natanio thing. Now the time we we beat
48:30
Speaker 1: the Iranians and we we become the empire. Locally, at least.
48:36
Speaker 2: You ended off one of your articles by saying we
48:38
Speaker 2: are Rome. Now what did you mean by that?
48:42
Speaker 1: Well, I mean in the eyes of the Jews, we
48:45
Speaker 1: are Rome. In the eyes of Nathaniel, we are Rome.
48:49
Speaker 1: The West, so the West is an a lie I
48:54
Speaker 1: made some time a comparison also with a very interesting
48:57
Speaker 1: comparison also with Donald Trump. You know, twenty twenty eighteen.
49:04
Speaker 1: I think when he gave back Jerusalem, he said he
49:08
Speaker 1: moved the American embassy to Jerusalem right during his first
49:14
Speaker 1: term at the end of twenty eighteen. And then there
49:18
Speaker 1: was this old movement calling him Sirrus, the Emperor, the
49:24
Speaker 1: person Emperor Sirius, who in the Old Testament, in the
49:28
Speaker 1: Jewish scriptures is called the Messiah. He's a special Messiah,
49:34
Speaker 1: the anointed. He is a kind of a not a
49:36
Speaker 1: Jewish Messiah, he's a gentile messiah, because he allowed the
49:41
Speaker 1: Jews to come back and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
49:44
Speaker 1: So there was this whole messianic fervor toward Trump. Trump
49:49
Speaker 1: is a Messiah. Trump is serious. They made medals, and
49:53
Speaker 1: Natanehu himself said to Trump, we will remember this day
49:57
Speaker 1: as we remember when Cirrus allow the Jews to go
50:02
Speaker 1: and build up the new Temple, which implicitly means now
50:06
Speaker 1: that the American embassies in Jerusalem, the next step is
50:09
Speaker 1: we rebuild the temple. So that means in the history
50:14
Speaker 1: of Israel, there is also this important notion that Israel
50:20
Speaker 1: uses the empire to fulfill their destinies. So they use
50:25
Speaker 1: the person empire. That's a very important episode in Jewish history.
50:31
Speaker 1: They used the person empire to allow them to rebuild
50:35
Speaker 1: the Temple, to rebuild a theocratic state, and so on,
50:38
Speaker 1: and so they view the West in a similar way
50:42
Speaker 1: that we view the United States in a similar way.
50:44
Speaker 1: We're using the United States to first of all give
50:49
Speaker 1: us back the state of Israel in nineteen forty seven
50:51
Speaker 1: forty eight, but also ultimately to rebuild the Temple and
50:57
Speaker 1: ultimately to give us back our destiny to rule the
51:02
Speaker 1: Middle East. They see the United States as the empire
51:06
Speaker 1: that they are using for that, but ultimately the United
51:11
Speaker 1: States is also Rome, which they had to beat. So
51:14
Speaker 1: they that's why, in fact, if we study what's going
51:19
Speaker 1: on today, we understand that Israel Nitanyau is kind of people.
51:23
Speaker 1: They don't care about the United States. They see now
51:26
Speaker 1: they're strong enough. They're wrong. I think I think they're wrong.
51:30
Speaker 1: They're over overblowing their own capacity. But they somehow believe, well,
51:37
Speaker 1: if the United States declined, that's fine, that's part. That's
51:40
Speaker 1: that's what has to happen. Anyway, They're not true a
51:43
Speaker 1: lie of the United States.
51:45
Speaker 2: If the US pulls all of its support for Israel
51:52
Speaker 2: and Israel gets bombed and destroyed and the Jews scatter
52:00
Speaker 2: into other countries because of the destroyed country, what happens
52:04
Speaker 2: to Christianity?
52:06
Speaker 1: Oh well, that's a good question. What happens to Israel
52:11
Speaker 1: is just another cycle. You know, it would be the
52:15
Speaker 1: remake of seventy a d when you know the Romans
52:20
Speaker 1: destroyed Jerusalem. You know, because in fact, if America abandons
52:28
Speaker 1: Israel for some reason, which might happen, probably not soon,
52:34
Speaker 1: but you know, there is a tenant, there is a
52:37
Speaker 1: historical process going in that direction. Americans are really fed
52:41
Speaker 1: up now that they see they've been used by Israel,
52:45
Speaker 1: so they might at some point decide to And also
52:49
Speaker 1: as they learned about Kennedy's you know, the Kennedy's presidency,
52:53
Speaker 1: all this kind of thing, then they might get really
52:55
Speaker 1: fed up with Israel. So Israel will will probably disappear.
53:00
Speaker 1: I think God will come to the help, but I
53:02
Speaker 1: don't think he will. So what will happen to Christianity?
53:05
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I think in the I think
53:07
Speaker 1: Christianity objectively is dead in Europe. It's it's alive. Maybe
53:17
Speaker 1: in some African countries, Okay, there's a kind of all
53:22
Speaker 1: kinds of a kind of places where it's alive. And
53:25
Speaker 1: in America it's kept alive. We spoke about the Charlie
53:30
Speaker 1: Kirk story. Is very significant because it shows how much
53:35
Speaker 1: money the Jews put into American Christianity, you know, on
53:41
Speaker 1: the condition that it stays a friend of Israel. But
53:46
Speaker 1: you know, if that stops, if you know, if Americans
53:50
Speaker 1: start to I don't know, religious believe do not change suddenly.
53:56
Speaker 1: Takes a few generations, so you know, but it might
53:59
Speaker 1: die also. But the problem is, from my perspective, is
54:04
Speaker 1: that a civilization without some sense of God, some sense
54:10
Speaker 1: of transcendence, some sense of you know, there's something above,
54:15
Speaker 1: is a very miserable situation. And so that's why I'm
54:20
Speaker 1: also very interested in studying and talking about what Christianity destroyed,
54:30
Speaker 1: because it's not completely destroyed. It can serve again, as
54:35
Speaker 1: you know, a metaphysical frame for Western civilization, you know,
54:43
Speaker 1: And and that metaphysical frame is basically Greek or Roman philosophy,
54:49
Speaker 1: which is very which is religious. You know, if you
54:52
Speaker 1: ask me my religion, I say, I'm a philosopher, I
54:54
Speaker 1: mean philosophy. I'm a Stoic. You know. Stoicism is exactly what,
55:00
Speaker 1: for example, the Chinese have in the form of Confucianism.
55:04
Speaker 1: It's both a wisdom, a religion, a philosophy. It fulfills
55:09
Speaker 1: everything you need to create a civilization. It talks about God,
55:13
Speaker 1: it talks about the cosmos, It talks about harmony, unity
55:18
Speaker 1: of all mankind. It talks about values. It talks about
55:23
Speaker 1: everything you need to create civilization with a vertical axis.
55:31
Speaker 2: It's funny you mentioned that one of the most famous
55:34
Speaker 2: Stoics was the Roman emperor himself, Marcus Aurelius.
55:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Actually at the time of Marcus Aurelius one
55:42
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty, you know, forty maybe with the you know, anyway,
55:48
Speaker 1: middle of the second century, Stoicism was really the major,
55:52
Speaker 1: the most popular philosophy. But Stoicism included Platonism, you know,
56:00
Speaker 1: of you know, people people were there were different schools
56:03
Speaker 1: of philosophy, but basically people were interested in all kinds
56:06
Speaker 1: of all the schools. But Stoicism was really, in my view,
56:10
Speaker 1: the most accomplished philosophy. It had everything. It had a
56:15
Speaker 1: cosmology and understanding of the cosmos of the divine. It
56:20
Speaker 1: had logic, it developed based on Aristotle and so on,
56:25
Speaker 1: a very strong sense of reason, you know. So it
56:29
Speaker 1: had a scientific dimension, and it had a metaphysical and
56:36
Speaker 1: an ethical dimension, which was extremely inspiring because it's an
56:44
Speaker 1: ethical teaching that teaches you if you understand how things work,
56:49
Speaker 1: you understand how to be a factor of harmony, you
56:53
Speaker 1: understand how to be part of the cost. Cosmos means harmony,
56:57
Speaker 1: you know, And for the Stoics, Cosmos is God basically,
57:00
Speaker 1: because God is basically the principle of order and harmony
57:04
Speaker 1: in the world. So you know, based on that, you
57:07
Speaker 1: have a lot of you have something very powerful to
57:12
Speaker 1: me and to many people. Stoicism is very popular today. Unfortunately,
57:15
Speaker 1: popular Stoicism is a little bit most of the time,
57:20
Speaker 1: a little bit erasing the metaphysical dimension, which is in
57:25
Speaker 1: fact the foundation, you know. So it's you know, the
57:29
Speaker 1: popular stoicism emphasizes overcome your emotion and these kind of things,
57:35
Speaker 1: which is not bad, but it's good in the sense
57:39
Speaker 1: that there is an awareness that there is a wealth
57:43
Speaker 1: of wisdom in Stoicism. And in fact, if you study
57:49
Speaker 1: that period of Markets Aurelius, you can see that it
57:55
Speaker 1: could have. The Roman Empire could have made Stoicism like
57:59
Speaker 1: an official philosophy, exactly as China did at some point
58:03
Speaker 1: with Confucianism, you know, in a sense that Confucianism became
58:09
Speaker 1: became official wisdom. You had to be a Confucianist to
58:13
Speaker 1: become a functionary to work in the state. You had
58:16
Speaker 1: to study Confusis, you had to show that you are,
58:22
Speaker 1: you know, a man of Confucian wisdom to become part
58:26
Speaker 1: of the state. So that could have evolved in that direction.
58:29
Speaker 1: That's interesting to think what could have happened. Then, of
58:34
Speaker 1: course the Roman Empire would not have needed Christianity. In
58:38
Speaker 1: other words, instead of having a Constantine converting to Christianity,
58:42
Speaker 1: we could have had a Constantine converting to Stoicism and
58:45
Speaker 1: kind of you know, promoting Stoicism as the universal wisdom
58:50
Speaker 1: of the empire. That would have been That's imaginable.
58:55
Speaker 2: If somebody were to walk away from this conversation, what
59:00
Speaker 2: in a nutshell would you like them to walk away with.
59:07
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I'm trying to talk to people
59:11
Speaker 1: who have the same sense that Christianity is a problem,
59:16
Speaker 1: you know, So I don't want to disturb Christians who
59:19
Speaker 1: need Christianity. You know, I prefer they don't read or
59:23
Speaker 1: listen to me, because you know, I don't want to
59:25
Speaker 1: disturb people in effect. But many people are like me.
59:28
Speaker 1: They are religious. I mean, they feel we need some
59:31
Speaker 1: kind of religion. But I also understand Christianity is dead.
59:35
Speaker 1: They cannot believe Jesus came out of his tomb, they
59:37
Speaker 1: cannot believe it's born of the Virgin. So in fact,
59:39
Speaker 1: they're not Christian in a strict sense. But some of
59:42
Speaker 1: them feel well without Christianity, what do I have, you know,
59:45
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to give these people a sense first
59:49
Speaker 1: that Christianity is really a problem. It's part of the
59:52
Speaker 1: Jewish question, the flip side of it is a Christian question.
59:56
Speaker 1: It's really a big part of it. And when you
59:58
Speaker 1: understand the Jewish Christian when you understand the problem of
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Israel in the world, and how can you not understand,
1:00:04
Speaker 1: you know that Israel is a huge problem in the world.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: How can you not see this is a sociopathic nation.
1:00:10
Speaker 1: It's a nation which is possessed by an evil god,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: an evil demon. You know, so when you start to
1:00:17
Speaker 1: see like this, you understand there is a very deep problem.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: This problem is deeply within Christianity. So we have to
1:00:23
Speaker 1: solve that problem. But to solve that problem, we have
1:00:26
Speaker 1: to find something else. And we and to find something else,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: we have to understand the the process of Christianization. What happened,
1:00:34
Speaker 1: you know, the Christianity appear out of nowhere, and because
1:00:40
Speaker 1: Roman tradition was dead, no, we have to study that
1:00:42
Speaker 1: and see it was a religious war against the tradition
1:00:45
Speaker 1: which was very much alive and rich, and we have
1:00:51
Speaker 1: to find you know, study this. So I think one
1:00:57
Speaker 1: of the best thing to do is to really study
1:00:59
Speaker 1: Stoy for example, and also study the Renaissance. I think
1:01:04
Speaker 1: it's kind of together because then if you study the Renaissance,
1:01:07
Speaker 1: you understand that the greatness of our civilization is not
1:01:10
Speaker 1: based on Christianity. It is based on the Renaissance, which
1:01:14
Speaker 1: is a rediscovery of this tremendous wealth of wisdom, science,
1:01:22
Speaker 1: metaphysics of the Greek or Roman world. So rediscover the
1:01:27
Speaker 1: Greek or Roman tradition. That would be my advice. And
1:01:31
Speaker 1: if you want to take a shortcut, just go straight
1:01:33
Speaker 1: to the Stoicism. It's a great, great tradition.
1:01:38
Speaker 2: How can I follow your work.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: Well at this moment? If you can check my book
1:01:44
Speaker 1: on Amazon. My Yahweh from Yahweh to Zion is a
1:01:48
Speaker 1: book that you know, kind of a big is a
1:01:50
Speaker 1: little bit big, but that's maybe a good approach of
1:01:55
Speaker 1: There's another one called Our God is your God too,
1:01:58
Speaker 1: but he has chosen us. It's gets into them. It's
1:02:02
Speaker 1: kind of a continuation from Yahway to Zion. But at
1:02:06
Speaker 1: this moment, you can follow me on my sub stack
1:02:09
Speaker 1: called rag bods Lament rag Bod's Lament, where I write
1:02:14
Speaker 1: every one article basically every two weeks at this moment,
1:02:19
Speaker 1: continuing on the Christianization problem of Christianity, and then when
1:02:23
Speaker 1: I finish, I will move to something else. But yeah,
1:02:27
Speaker 1: that's how you can follow my work. So thank you
1:02:31
Speaker 1: very much Chairm for this invitation, and so I appreciate
1:02:35
Speaker 1: the opportunity to try to share my research.
1:02:42
Speaker 2: Lauren, the pleasure is all mine. Thank you for joining
1:02:44
Speaker 2: me in the trenches.