A Basic Defense of Christian Identity, Part 1: Perspectives on the Development of Christianity

A Basic Defense of Christian Identity, Part 1: Perspectives on the Development of Christianity

I hope to make this an occasional series, in which I can illustrate our many differences with the various denominations, the organized Churches, and the early Christian writers, and explain why our Christian Identity profession is a more precise understanding of the Christian faith. So I will begin by saying that for the past 1800 years, Europeans have only known Christianity through a Jewish filter, in spite of the fact that Christ Himself was completely opposed to the Jews. As Identity Christians, we endeavor to strip away that Jewish filter, and see the world of Christ in accordance with His Word, and in its original cultural and historical context.

The typical response to that assertion the Christ was opposed to the Jews is usually “but Jesus was a Jew”, however we can refute that with historical facts, because it is not true. It is true that Jesus was of Judah, but the people whom we now know as Jews are not of Judah, so it is not just to identity Jesus with them. If that does not matter to you, then race does not matter, and you will forever stay ignorant as to the nature of God’s Creation and His plans for its ultimate future. By the time of Christ, Judaea had become a multi-ethnic Roman province, and the Edomites and other Canaanites, people who had been accursed by God, who dwelt therein had been forcibly converted to Judaism over the fifty from 125 BC through to about 75 BC. This is documented in great detail in the writings of Flavius Josephus, and it is also attested in the works of several Greek writers, the earliest of whom is Strabo of Cappadocia. This is also admitted in modern Jewish literature, in encyclopedias and books from throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and even in articles found on Wikipedia. The history cannot be denied, but it is generally not taught to Christians, and when they hear it from us, they cannot even process it or realize its consequences.

This is the very reason why Christ had repeatedly described His adversaries as a corrupt race, and today all of the Church interpreters insist He was referring only to a generation, which is not true since the meaning of the Greek terms which were employed relate to race, and since he often spoke concerning not only His adversaries, but also generations of their fathers. In the English of the King James Version, as it was in 1611, a generation is a race, being something which is generated by men. In ancient times, early European Christians would have known that Christ was speaking of a race, however when they had that realization, they imagined Him to have been speaking of Jews who were Israelites. This error must be attributed to their ignorance of Judaean history in the centuries leading up to the ministry of Christ. This error is also absolutely contrary to Paul of Tarsus, who in Romans chapter 9 had explained that not all of those in Israel were of Israel, and he proceeded to compare Jacob and Esau. So there in that chapter, Paul had corroborated what the historians of that same century, Josephus and Strabo, had also explained.

After the corrupt race of Judaea had ensured the crucifixion of Christ, for three hundred years the Romans had persecuted Christianity, and early Christian apologists such as Tertullian and Minucius Felix had described Jews as having been the significant instigators of that persecution. That is also fully evident in the Book of Acts and the epistles of Paul of Tarsus, as Jews had been enlisting both Greeks and Romans to persecute Christians even at that early time.

In the meantime, a theology which was quite different than what had been taught by the prophets, by Christ, and by Paul of Tarsus as well as the other apostles had begun to develop, which is generally called “replacement theology”. This seems to have begun in the 2nd century, since it is first found in the writings of Justin Martyr, a Samaritan convert. Later, it is also found in the Christian theologians of the Alexandrian schools, which include Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Irenaeus, and their later followers, and also in the writings of Tertullian. While Tertullian was not an Alexandrian, he was followed at Carthage by Cyprian. Then a hundred and twenty or so years later, Augustine would study at Carthage, and he had followed Cyprian. These three men represent the earliest notable theologians of so-called Latin Christianity, as they all wrote in Latin, but also had some theological differences with the Alexandrians. Augustine was a contemporary of another Latin writer, Jerome who translated the Latin Vulgate from Hebrew, but even Jerome is said to have left Rome for Jerusalem, to become knowledgeable in Jewish commentary on Scripture. There was a division between the men on the veracity of the Septuagint, where Jerome was inclined to follow the Jewish rabbis.

Most of these men, if not all, were educated as Platonists, Neoplatonists, Aristotelians, Gnostics, or even Stoics, and they had all introduced various aspects of their former beliefs into their Christian understanding. Often, they were also trained in the art of rhetoric, and they could formulate persuasive arguments in favor of their heresies. Many of them were later branded as heretics, at one time or another. But the Roman Catholic Church does not even follow those who escaped the anathema, such as Irenaeus. As the Roman Catholic Church began to organize, a process which took as long as two or even three centuries, it chose later so-called “Church Fathers” to follow, such as Augustine of Hippo.

One apparent reason for doing so is that in many areas, these early Christian writers never had a general consensus on the meaning of the Scriptures, and very often they disagreed with one another even on critical issues. Just as often the Church councils and synods had contrary opinions. Furthermore, the writings of many early Christians were lost, so that in many areas of doctrine, the existence of opposing views cannot be adequately determined, except in the one-sided arguments against certain heretics that these writers whose works survived had themselves produced. For example, many of these early writers refuted Gnostics and Marcionites, and the later among refuted Arians, Manichaeans and Donatists.

However Identity Christians reject all of those heresies, the ones refuted by early Christian writers, and the ones which had been formulated and perpetuated by them as well. For example, there is no mention in the writings of early Christians of Christian priests. Wherever priests are mentioned in any of the Ante-Nicene writers, they are all either Levitical or pagan priests, until the time of Eusebius in the early 4th century. The apostles taught that the priesthood was abolished and replaced with Christ alone, not with another priesthood. The Christian assemblies were to select their own pastors and leaders, not have them appointed by Rome. So the very existence of an organized and exclusive Christian priesthood subservient to a Roman bishop is a heresy. Colleges of cardinals and the other trappings of the Roman papacy, along with the existence of a pope, are also heresies, having no foundation in Scripture.

We also reject worldly philosophies, such as the pagans Plato and Aristotle, and we seek our theological understanding from Scripture alone. However our position is not quite the same as the Reformer position called Sola Scriptura by the Church, which basically professes that “all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture.”

While we may agree with that to a certain extent, we have a better realization, that studies of classical and later histories are important in order to help us understand the fulfillment of prophesy, that studies of the early Christian writings are instrumental in order to gain insight into early Christian history, and that studies of archaeological inscriptions and other findings are instrumental in understanding the background culture and history and the context, as well as many of the idioms and allegories of Scripture. Furthermore, studies of the original languages are instrumental in order to even understand Scripture. So I have made exhaustive citations from all of these sources in my commentaries, because you cannot truly understand Paul of Tarsus or the Revelation of Christ unless you first understand the history of the preceding two millennia. Without knowledge of both history and the prophets, you cannot properly understand Christ or the purpose of the Christian Gospel which Paul himself had called a Gospel of reconciliation.

The philosophers may be useful for whatever historical information may be gleaned from them, and especially because the contemporary histories of the period are scant. But we should not care for their philosophy. As Paul had written in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, “19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” If I spend an hour reading a Neoplatonist, I would feel as if I should cleanse my mind with a weekend of reading the Psalms. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in an article titled Augustine of Hippo which has recently been written and revised,

Augustine of Hippo was perhaps the greatest Christian philosopher of Antiquity and certainly the one who exerted the deepest and most lasting influence. He is a saint of the Catholic Church, and his authority in theological matters was universally accepted in the Latin Middle Ages and remained, in the Western Christian tradition, virtually uncontested till the nineteenth century.

Then, under the subtitle Augustine and Philosophy, we read:

From ancient thought Augustine inherited the notion that philosophy is “love of wisdom” (Confessiones 3.8; De civitate dei 8.1), i.e., an attempt to pursue happiness—or, as late-antique thinkers, both pagan and Christian, liked to put it, salvation—by seeking insight into the true nature of things and living accordingly. This kind of philosophy he emphatically endorses, especially in his early work (cf., e.g., Contra Academicos 1.1). He is convinced that the true philosopher is a lover of God because true wisdom is, in the last resort, identical with God, a point on which he feels in agreement with both Paul (1 Corinthians 1:24) and Plato (cf. De civitate dei 8.8).

While it is evident here that Augustine sought to find agreement with both Paul and Plato, reading further:

This is why he thinks that Christianity is “the true philosophy” (Contra Iulianum 4.72; the view is common among ancient, especially Greek, Christian thinkers) and that true philosophy and true (cultic) religion are identical (De vera religione 8).

Yet Augustine was reluctant to abandon Plato, where a little further on in the same paragraph we read:

In his early work he usually limits this verdict to the Hellenistic materialist systems (Contra Academicos 3.42; De ordine 1.32); later he extends it even to Platonism because the latter denies the possibility of a history of salvation (De civitate dei 12.14).

While we cannot do an entire survey of Augustine’s work here, even if he ultimately had rejected the worldly philosophies in word, he seems not to have rejected them in substance. In the same article, under the subtitle Illumination, we read:

Augustine’s theory of knowledge—his so-called doctrine of illumination—is a distinctly non-empiricist epistemology based on a probably Neoplatonic reading of Plato’s doctrine of recollection (Burnyeat 1987; MacDonald 2012b; King 2014a: 147–152; Karfíková 2017). Like Plato and his followers, Augustine thinks that true knowledge requires first-hand acquaintance; second-hand information, e.g., from reliable testimony, may yield true and even justifiable belief, but not knowledge in the strict sense.

Then after distinguishing sensible objects from what he calls intelligible objects, speaking of the latter we read:

… such cognition requires personal intellectual activity that results in an intellectual insight, which we judge by a criterion we find nowhere but in ourselves. The paradigm of this kind of cognition are mathematical and logical truths and fundamental moral intuitions, which we understand not because we believe a teacher or a book but because we see them for ourselves (De magistro 40, cf. De libero arbitrio 2.34). The condition of possibility and the criterion of truth of this intellectual insight is none other than God (a view attributed, with explicit approval, to the Platonists in De civitate dei 8.7), who, in the manner of a Neoplatonic immaterial principle, is both immanent and transcendent in relation to our soul.

It is true that the realization of certain things which cannot be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands can be known intellectually, but we do not need Plato to understand that. As Paul of Tarsus has written in Romans chapter 1:

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

So the Romans had turned to idolatry. Yet the Scriptures inform us that God is a spirit who may only be known through His Word, and in the person of Yahshua (Jesus) Christ, whom Paul had attested “… is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Colossians 1:15).

Furthermore, we must sharply disagree that “fundamental moral intuitions” come from within ourselves, and both history and Scripture as well as our own experience all teach us that morality is relative when it is left to the inner feelings of men, so that such a morality itself is not moral at all. So we read in Jeremiah chapter 17 that “ 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” To the contrary of that statement on morality, Paul had written in Romans chapter 7: “7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” Paul certainly must have known what covetous was, but he could not have known it as sin without learning that in the law. The Christian must recognize that man cannot be moral within himself, that man needs the law of God, and that only by seeking to follow that law may he achieve any degree of morality. Yet Plato never advocated for the law of God, and in the Republic he argued in favor of justice founded upon man’s determination of what is just, therefore Christians can only be misled by Plato.

We do not need worldly philosophers, who transmit influences and opinions which had been mingled with both good and evil, and whatever good they may contain is not necessarily the good which is of God, so even that is not really good. Therefore in my own opinion, Augustine and all of the other early Christian writers should have cleansed their thoughts of all worldly philosophies once they became Christians, and instead, they all found ways to weave their philosophies into their Christian thoughts, and subsequently into their writings, upon which Roman Catholic doctrines were later founded. The result is not truly Christian.

The very word “catholic”

Additionally, we would even dispute the meaning of the word catholic itself, since in its original Greek meaning and its original usage, in writings such as those of Irenaeus, it describes the reception of the faith, and not its application, as the modern Church defines it. Catholic does not mean “universal”, and in the early centuries of Christianity, it never did. The word catholic is from a compound of the Greek words kata meaning down, and holos meaning whole, of which one Genitive form is holikos. An elision occurs when the words are joined, and kata holikos becomes katholikos. So the original Greek form of catholic means “down whole”, and therefore also “according to the whole”, and it described the correct Christian attitude towards Scripture as a faith which must be derived from the writings of both Old and New Testaments. At the time, there were Jews who rejected the Gospels and apostles, and then on the other side of the coin there were sects such as the Marcionites who rejected the Old Testament as being “Jewish”, while the term catholic was employed to describe those who correctly accepted all of the Scriptures, New Testament and Old.

The twelve tribes and the promises to Abraham

The original apostolic Christianity is expressed in what we would call Christian Identity, a label which we must use only for want of a better way to distinguish ourselves from denominational sects. We are the only Christians who actually believe every word of the prophets, of Paul, as well as the balance of Scripture, and apply them all in the confession of our faith. We are not a denomination, but a Christian worldview which is founded on a historical perspective of Scripture.

For example, the Church errantly teaches that believers from of many nations, and even from any nation, somehow become Abraham’s seed when they profess Jesus. But in the Scriptures, God had promised Abraham that his seed would become many nations, and from of those would come His church. In Romans chapter 4, Paul taught the fulfillment of these words in the nations of Europe, including the Romans, and he wrote that the promise to Abraham was fulfilled “as it was written”. All Identity Christians should, at least, have an understanding which is also reflected in the studies from archaeology and classical history which we and many others have produced, which fully elucidate the truth of Paul’s profession. Furthermore, Christ makes an example of certain men who had professed to believe Him, and even claimed to have performed miracles in His Name, to whom He says “I never knew you, depart from Me”. Therefore a mere profession of belief does not make one a Christian. To Israel He said “You only have I known of all the families of the earth”, in Amos chapter 3, and it is to the twelve tribes of that same Israel whom the apostles had taken the Gospel, which Paul had also described as the “word of reconciliation”.

When the promise was made to Abraham that his seed would become many nations, there were no Dorian or Danaan Greeks, no Trojans or Romans, no British, English, French, Germans or Scandinavians, no Poles or Serbs or Russians, etc. There were some people who inhabited parts of many of those places in Europe, such as the Ionian or Pelasgian Greeks or the Lydians or Thracians or others, however these newer nations had indeed descended from the seed of Abraham through Israel, and Paul of Tarsus also informed them of that fact. The Classical histories and ancient poets have sufficient materials which can be used to demonstrate that those newer nations had migrated into Europe from the Near East at a relatively recent time, and the archaeological record supports that demonstration.

This is described by Paul himself, where in Acts chapter 26, in reply to Herod Agrippa II, Paul had said “6 And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: 7 Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews.” Paul’s statement that he had labored on behalf of “our twelve tribes”, which can only be the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, is a direct refutation of any concept of a universal church as any sort of replacement for Israel. It is also a refutation of any claim that the Jews themselves represent Israel. Likewise the lone epistle of James is addressed to the “twelve tribes scattered abroad”. Paul knew where they were, and to them alone he had taken the Gospel. Evidently James also had learned where they were, for which reason he wrote that epistle.

The Folly of Replacement Theology

Furthermore, the Church errantly teaches that the Jews are no longer the people of God because they rejected Christ. So they were not His people because they did not believe Him. This belief is contrary to the law, the prophets, and to all of the promises of God, which Paul had also attested cannot be broken. However as it is recorded in John chapter 10, Christ had quite explicitly told the Jews that they did not believe Him because they were not His sheep, which is to say, His people. He also explained this to them in a different manner in John chapter 8. So the Jews which had opposed Him were not His people in the first place, and because they were not His people, for that reason they did not believe Him, which is precisely what He said, and our historical studies reveal that they were actually Edomites and other mongrels. We believe the words of Christ are true, but the Church has twisted them. We also actually study and read Koine Greek and the earliest extant manuscripts of the Scriptures, and we understand them quite well, so we may better see that these things are true.

Replacement theology is not taught in the law, in the prophets, in the Gospel, or in the epistles of Paul. It is absolutely contrary to the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Rather, Paul had explicitly taught the Romans that Abraham was their forefather, and that they once had the truth of God but had turned it into a lie. He also taught the Corinthians that their fathers were with Moses in the Exodus, and he taught the Galatians that their fathers had been under the law. All of these things could be said only of the children of Israel. We take Paul’s words for truth, and our historical observations prove that truth, while the Roman Church and its many daughters virtually ignore them, or explain them away in a sophistic manner which is contrary to their plain meanings. There are many other places in the prophets which verify Paul’s words, directly and indirectly.

Acceptance of Jews

But the major fault which we find in the Church is its acceptance of Jews, which was to a great extent based on the false claim that Jews could be utilized in order to gain a more thorough understanding of the Old Testament. Jews were the sworn and open enemies of Christendom throughout the centuries of persecution, but once Christianity prevailed in spite of those persecutions and they no longer had the upper hand, suddenly Jews appeared as the veritable arbiters of the faith. Men such as Augustine and Jerome had facilitated and enabled such Jews. That is probably the real reason why we know their names today, and why they are esteemed as great scholars. If they had a proper Christian view of Jews, they would have been forgotten by the world, just as Christ had warned.

The acceptance of Jews in the formative years of the Christian Church is more detrimental than it appears on the surface. It is very likely that the trinity doctrine was devised to benefit Jews, so that they could be imagined to be worshipping the Father as an entity separate from the Son. But Christ Himself had said “I and My father are One”, and not three, or not 1/3rd each of One. Likewise, Replacement Theology is a cope, because the early Christians were unlearned in history and scripture and therefore they did not properly understand Paul of Tarsus or the prophets, even when they quoted them. So by that, the Jewish claims to be Israel were without a sufficient challenge.

All of this is in spite of the Book of Acts. The Jews hated Christianity, and even more so they hated the thought of taking the Gospel to nations outside of their own. As it is recorded in Acts chapter 22, the Jews of Jerusalem did not want to kill Paul for being a Christian, but they did want to kill him for taking the Gospel to nations outside of Judaea. So while Paul was explaining himself to the people of the mob which had assaulted him in the temple, as soon as he said that he was told to take the gospel to nations far off, we read: “22 And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.” We know that those nations far off are the same twelve tribes whom Paul had professed later, before Herod Agrippa II, but the Jews did not even wait to hear that before reacting with threats to kill him.

Some of the problems with Justin Martyr:

Justin Martyr was a Samaritan convert to Christianity, and a Platonist who, just like Augustine, had continued to defend and cite Plato as a Christian apologist. Having had a Greek education, he too seemed not to understand the ethnic differences among Judaeans, although only a fraction of his writings survive.

But he also seems to never have known Paul of Tarsus, who is never cited or even mentioned in any of his surviving writings. The letters of Paul basically reveal the identity of the children of Israel as they had been spread abroad in the pre-Classical period, which in many indirect ways is acknowledged in Classical literature. Those letters also describe the racial divisions in Judaea, although it was written in a manner which is rather enigmatic to the unlearned, and difficult to understand. So it is very likely that Justin did not know Paul, or at least, did not acknowledge him, because the Judaeans had rejected Paul for reason that they wrongly believed that Paul had rejected Moses. This is evident in the words of James to Paul which are recorded in Acts chapter 21, and in the doctrines of the later Ebionite Christians of Judaea who had also rejected Paul.

The Judaeans simply did not understand that Paul had never spoken of an abolition of the law, but only of the abolition of the rituals of the law, something which had also been prophesied in Daniel chapter 9 and in Zechariah chapter 11. Likewise, neither did early Christians understand this distinction, and probably on account of those same Jews. Paul had explained in his epistle to the Hebrews that one significant circumstance in the coming of the Messiah was the end of the Levitical priesthood, as Christ now heads His household, Israel and Judah, under the Melchizedek priesthood, which is also according to prophecy, and that priesthood is older than the priesthood of Levi, according to Moses.

Later, the Talmud would prohibit Jews from teaching the Torah to non-Jews, and demands that non-Jews who study the Torah are executed (Sanhedrin 59).

So we read, in Sanhedrin 59, according to Sefaria.org:

And Rabbi Yoḥanan says: A gentile who engages in Torah study is liable to receive the death penalty; as it is stated: “Moses commanded us a law [torah], an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob” (Deuteronomy 33:4), indicating that it is an inheritance for us, and not for them.

The Gemara challenges: But if so, let the tanna count this prohibition among the seven Noahide mitzvot. The Gemara explains: According to the one who says that the verse is referring to the Torah as an inheritance, this prohibition is included in the prohibition of robbery, as a gentile who studies Torah robs the Jewish people of it. According to the one who says that the verse is referring to the Torah as betrothed, as the spelling of the Hebrew word for betrothed [me’orasa], is similar to that of the word for inheritance [morasha], the punishment of a gentile who studies Torah is like that of one who engages in intercourse with a betrothed young woman, which is execution by stoning.

If there is any motivation for Jews, who were seen as the source of Scriptural understanding by the early Christian writers, for teaching Christians that the law was done away with in Christ, then it is found in those paragraphs of the Jewish Talmud. So covering their tracks, Paul became the scapegoat, but Paul always taught that the law should be upheld, and not abolished. 

More on the problems with Augustine:

Augustine of Hippo applauded the Jews for keeping various aspects of the law, in spite of the fact that Christ Himself had explained why they had kept the law in vain. The pharisees and scribes of the time of Christ had professed to keep the law, but Christ Himself had explained to them, in Matthew chapter 23, how they had only kept it in pretense and hypocrisy, and elsewhere He described their having been teachers of men as the blind leading the blind, whereby they would all fall into a ditch.

One of the doctrines for which Augustine was most noted is his so-called “Witness Doctrine”, where he had theorized that by their presence, Jews would play a role in the spread of Christianity. Augustine’s doctrine of keeping Jews in Christian society as “unwilling witnesses” has proven destructive, as Jews have only used their presence in order to subvert Christian society, forever being hostile to Christ and to non-Jews in general. Furthermore, Augustine, as well as his proponents, were ignorant of the Jewish attitudes relating to this, which are reflected in the Talmud. The Talmud advocates that Jews should abuse and oppress Christians, and lie and cheat in order to take advantage of them. Essentially, Augustine was promoting the admittance of wolves into the sheepfold, as if that would somehow facilitate the spread of the sheep.

His arguments in favor of Jews portray Christ and the apostles as having been Jews, but that is not true, since being of Judah, and being a citizen of Judaea and a Jew by practice, were not all one and the same. It is apparent that Augustine was ignorant of the history of Judaea, and for that reason he, like his predecessors, had taken it for granted that the Old Testament scriptures were “Jewish”. We would insist that they were not, either racially or philosophically, and offer proof texts from John chapters 8 and 10, Romans chapter 9 and elsewhere, along with our explanation of the history of Judaea. On account of this ignorance, all of Augustine’s other remarks concerning Jews are inherently flawed. The same may be said of practically all of the early Christian writers, even Justin Martyr.

More importantly, or even more disastrously, as we find in an article titled St. Augustine and the Jews by Thomas McDonald, Augustine had written that:

The Jewish people are Ham, the middle son between Shem and Japheth, because ‘they neither held the first place with the apostles, nor believed subsequently with the Gentiles.’ Ham is condemned to be a servant to his brothers. The Jews saw their father’s nakedness, ‘that is, he is those Jews who consent to Jesus’ death.’ Their ‘curse’ is that they still live under the Law. Their ‘servitude’ is that they must carry the scripture for their brothers, the gentiles.

We should ignore the silly allegory drawn from the life of Ham, but we cannot. In our opinion, it is exemplary of how easy it was for the early Christian writers, who were trained in rhetoric, law and philosophy, to make allegories of the accounts of the Old Testament, while ignoring the true significance of those same accounts. Then, with such allegories, they also ignore the actual words of the prophets concerning the so-called Jews. For example, the prophet Jeremiah in the parable of the good and bad figs in Jeremiah chapter 24 had told us the actual reason why the Jews were evil, and accursed, and that was supported in the words of other prophets as well as in the New Testament. Evidently, Augustine was ignorant of all of that and made up his own silly reasons with this allegory of Ham, so we shall address this once again later in this presentation.

Neither Paul nor any other prophet or apostle, ever taught that Jews should be the bearers of the Scriptures for Christians. Paul spoke of the Judaean, not necessarily the Jew, where he wrote in Romans chapter 3 that “that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” Later in the epistle, he prayed for his fellow Israelites in Judaea, but not for those who were not of Israel, limiting his prayer to his “kinsmen according to the flesh” because many Judaeans were actually Edomites, and therefore they were not his brethren.

But furthermore, even that does not mean that the books of the Old Testament were committed to them exclusively. The same Paul had written in chapter 15 of that same epistle that “4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Peter had also written in that manner, in 1 Peter chapter 4: “11 If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” The apostle James, writing to the “twelve tribes spread abroad”, mentioned the Scripture three times in his epistle, in ways which reflect a belief that they had access to and were familiar with Scripture. Paul wrote to Timothy in chapter 3 of his second epistle to his younger colleague that “16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” Therefore, the apostles had also professed that the Scriptures had belonged to all Christians, and not to Judaeans alone. They expected Christians to possess copies of the Scriptures for themselves.

So furthermore, no apostle had ever said that Christians should be dependent on Jews as a source of the Scriptures. There is not one statement reflecting any such profession. The apostle John had written in his second epistle that “10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: 11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” That statement by John compels Christians to disassociate from every Jew. The same apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 that Jews “please not God, and are contrary to all men”, so Christians certainly should not be expected to beg for Scriptures from a Jew. Additionally, Paul had also taught the precise opposite of what Augustine had claimed, where in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 he explained that the Old Testament was essentially a Christian work, and that no man could understand Moses without first understanding the words of Christ.

So no Jew can possibly understand Moses, because no Jew has accepted or understood Christ. Second only to their rejection of the Messiah, the Talmud serves as a signal proof of the veracity of that statement. We would go so far as to assert that the “replacement theology” and “trinity” heresies, along with claims that the law was abolished, were all developed to accommodate Jews, but that is another issue entirely, and we shall address the trinity heresy at another time. However none of those heresies are supported by Scripture. Tertullian was evidently the first Latin writer to use the word trinitus in relation to the New Testament, and he himself had denied the Deity of Christ, rather having seen Christ as an element of the Creation who was subordinate to God the Father.

The law was never abolished

As we have seen that Augustine also taught that the curse of the Jews is that “they still live under the Law”, it is manifest that, as he had written elsewhere, he thought that Christians were completely free of the law. But neither Christ nor Paul had ever rejected the laws of Moses. Paul had taught, in Romans chapter 7 explicitly, that Christians were freed from the judgment of the law, which are the punishments the law establishes for sin, but that can only be understood from a Christian Identity perspective, because it is applicable only to Israelites. According to the prophets, one important aspect of the passion of Christ is that the rituals were abolished, as prophesied in Daniel chapter 9. But the commandments in law were never abolished, and that is a theological argument in which Paul of Tarsus had described those rituals in Greek as the “works of the law”, distinct from the law itself. This can be demonstrated, as the rituals of the law are also called “works of the law” in both the Greek Septuagint, and in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

If Paul had taught that the law was abolished, as Augustine and many others had wrongly claimed, then on what basis did Paul write, in 1 Corinthians chapter 6: “9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” If Paul taught that the law were abolished, on what basis could he have called people who committed these sins “unrighteous”, and how could Paul have even spoken of such things as sin? According to John, sin is transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), and Paul professed not having known sin except by the law (Romans 7:7).

Furthermore, here where we read “abusers of themselves with mankind” in the King James Version, the underlying Greek text consists of only one compound word, a plural form of ἀρσενοκοίτης, from which the entire phrase was translated. If we wanted to translate the term into modern English using only one word, the only valid equivalent would be homosexuals.

Yet neither the Greeks nor the Romans had ever prohibited homosexuality, which we really prefer to call Sodomy. While it was socially unacceptable in some circumstances, and while it was forbidden in certain contexts, such as within the Roman military in the time of the Republic, it was never completely forbidden. To the Greeks, homosexual relations between grown men was socially unacceptable, but such acts were not forbidden by law, and between men and boys, as with the Romans, it was not unacceptable even if some writers expressed a contempt for the practice. Others actually celebrated pederasty. For the most part, even pagans who did not accept Sodomy nevertheless had a libertarian attitude towards homosexuals. So how did Paul prohibit it, except by the law of Moses? Ostensibly, Paul’s only authority for calling homosexuality a sin is the Hebrew law of Moses, which states in Leviticus chapter 18 that “22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Paul repeated the prohibition against homosexuality in 1 Timothy chapter 1, where he also added other sins which are not found in the primary ten commandments, such as whore-mongering and lying. If Paul forbid these things, they could only have been on the authority of Moses, and that alone proves that Paul had never attempted to set aside the law.

As it is recorded in John chapters 14 and 15, Christ had taught His disciples that “If you love me, keep My commandments”. When He was asked what was the most significant commandment of the law, as it is found in Matthew chapter 22, “37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” There Christ had cited Deuteronomy chapter 6 for His description of the first great commandment, and Leviticus chapter 19 for the second. In verse 18 of that chapter the word neighbor is also defined, where it says: “18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”

But while the principle of the first great commandment is found in the primary list of the ten commandments presented by Moses in Exodus chapter 20 and elsewhere, there are many other “thou shalt not” commandments in the law, and we see Paul uphold some of them in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, where the prohibition against homosexuality is from Leviticus chapter 18, while Christ found the second greatest commandment in the law in Leviticus chapter 19. Therefore all of the commandments of the law should be followed by Christians, and the law was never abolished. When Paul demanded that a fornicator, who had taken his father’s wife, be put out of the assembly at Corinth, as it is in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, he was instructing them according to a law found in Leviticus chapter 18: “8 The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father's nakedness”, and Leviticus chapter 20: “11 And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Now there should be no doubt that Paul upheld the keeping of the law for Christians, even if he did not instruct them to uphold the judgments of the law, which at the time were controlled by Roman authorities, but which are actually in the hands of Christ. 

However Augustine, and all of the other early Christian writers, wrongly thought that Christians were free from keeping the law, and that is a simplistic argument which was made only in part from a superficial view of some of Paul’s teachings on the law and the mercy, or grace of Christ. In Romans chapter 3 Paul had addressed this from one perspective, which is boasting in works while he had taught that those of the faith should not boast in such works, referring to the rituals and explicitly to circumcision, where he also wrote in part “31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”

Then Paul also addressed it from another perspective in Romans chapter 6, where he had been explaining that even though his readers had the promises of Abraham and had received grace on account of those promises, which the law could not supersede, they should nevertheless keep the commandments, and he wrote in part: “14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” The apostle John explained that sin is transgression of the law, in 1 John chapter 3, and Paul had also exemplified that profession in many places.

Likewise, John understood that Christ had replaced and therefore had done away with the need for the rituals, in 1 John chapter 2 where he wrote “2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” With Christ as our propitiation, the rituals are no longer necessary, yet we know that we are of Christ if we keep the commandments, so once again, Christians are expected to keep the commandments of that Old Testament law of Moses which Christ had also professed. Then John went so far as having written that “4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

The early Christian writers had, for the most part, utterly failed to make these distinctions. So the writings of Augustine settled the matter, the Church dismissed the law, and Jews were admitted among Christians, and they were also considered useful interpreters of Scripture and useful witnesses of Christ, even if they were arguing against Christ. After Augustine, and throughout the Middle Ages, Jews were mostly accepted and their rabbis were accepted as authorities on Scripture. Converso Jews such as Paul of Burgos wrote comprehensive Bible commentaries which were even often cited by men such as Martin Luther, who even cited Burgos and other Jews in a positive, supportive, manner in his treaties On the Jews and Their Lies. Therefore, both Catholics and Protestants alike have much of their basic Christian understanding through Jewish filters, and that has caused many more issues and divisions within Christianity than there had been at the beginning.

What we know as Christianity was jewed as soon as it began to spread, so that the Christianity which was actually taught by the apostles was suppressed and practically forgotten. But Identity Christians seek to understand and believe the Scriptures first, and would rather forget the errors of the Church.

The divergences in doctrine from the 4th century on, from the time of Constantine, betray the fact that the Romans, not being able to suppress the spreading Christian faith, had instead sought to co-opt the faith, and adapt it to fit the needs of the empire. So primacy was given to the bishop of Rome as a matter of law by the emperor Justinian, the office of the Papacy was thereby established, the college of cardinals replaced the Roman Senate, the bishops became the new Proconsuls of the subject provinces, and Church propaganda was created in large quantities to help it assert its own legitimacy.

Why the so-called “Jews” are truly cursed

As we have already mentioned, in his article St. Augustine and the Jews, Thomas McDonald had cited Augustine as having written that: “The Jewish people are Ham, the middle son between Shem and Japheth, because ‘they neither held the first place with the apostles, nor believed subsequently with the Gentiles.’ Ham is condemned to be a servant to his brothers. The Jews saw their father’s nakedness, ‘that is, he is those Jews who consent to Jesus’ death.’ Their ‘curse’ is that they still live under the Law. Their ‘servitude’ is that they must carry the scripture for their brothers, the gentiles.”

There are errors here on several levels, which we shall now explain. First, Ham was not cursed nor condemned, and the descendants of some of his sons, particularly Cush and Mizraim, had developed into great empires which had endured for many centuries. When they met their end, it was no different an end than those of many of the great nations which had sprung from Shem or from Japheth. Only the children of Israel who descended from Abraham were to inherit the earth, and although descendants of the other Adamic nations are certainly found among them, those nations do not exist today in any recognizable form. Even where their names survive, their people do not. A Turk in Greece is not the same as an Ionian, and an Arab in Egypt is not Mizraim.

Secondly, Ham’s sin of seeing his father’s nakedness is explained in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20, First we read, in chapter 18, that “8 The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father's nakedness.” Then in chapter 20: “11 And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Of course, Ham was not put to death, because in that earlier time, there was no such law. But Canaan was cursed even before he was born, so Canaan must have been the result of Ham’s sin, since Ham himself and his other sons were not cursed.

But the curse of the Jews is first explained in Jeremiah chapter 24, where in the opening verses we read: “1 The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. 2 One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. 3 Then said the LORD unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil. 4 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 5 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. 6 For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart. 8 And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt: 9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them. 10 And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.”

Notice that the evil figs are not of Judah, but that for their punishment, certain men of the noble class of Judah would be given over to evil figs, along with a more numerous remnant. Looking at the subsequent history of Judah leading up to the time of Christ, the prophet Malachi told us how that was fulfilled, that certain men of Judah had been given over to evil figs, where he wrote: “11 Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.”

So the Canaanites and Edomites of Judah were represented by the evil figs. Of course, there is an allusion to the patriarch Judah in that text, however Jerusalem did not belong to Israel in his lifetime, so he is only being used allegorically, because he had also married a Canaanite woman during his lifetime. While the tribe of Judah descended principally from Judah’s legitimate sons with Tamar, which is demonstrated as the inheritance had fallen to them, Judah becomes a prophetic type for what would later happen to his descendants in Canaan.

So there in Malachi, the prophecy that “Judah married the daughter of a strange god”, which had concerned the Judaea of his own time, was fulfilled shortly thereafter, when the high priests in Judaea began conquering and converting the surrounding Edomites and Canaanites, and subsuming them into Judaean religion and citizenship. The end result of this was the undermining of the high priests by the first Herod, an Edomite who had curried favor with the Romans so that he could usurp the kingdom for himself, and after he accomplished that and was appointed king by Rome, he destroyed much of the Judahite nobility, according to Flavius Josephus. Once Herod was settled in the kingdom, he began appointing his own priests, and all of the officials, from among his own Edomite countrymen.

Therefore, when Christ prophesied the fall of the temple in Luke chapter 21, speaking of his enemies there is language which is nearly identical to the end of the bad figs in Jeremiah chapter 24, where we read in Luke: “22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

The end of the evil figs being the end of the enemies of Christ in Jerusalem, in a prophecy which had been fulfilled in its immediate sense beginning in 70 AD with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, that is why the Jews are scattered in all nations, and that is why they are accursed and persecuted, as it reads in Jeremiah where the Word of Yahweh had said, speaking of those of Judah who were turned over to the evil figs: “9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them. 10 And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.” With that it is apparent, that the offspring of the wicked nobles of Judah and the remnant of Jerusalem having mixed themselves with the Edomite Jews, are indeed the Jews of today, the only people who were spread among the Christian nations to be a taunt, a reproach and a curse.

There is another way to verify that these prophecies are connected in this manner, by comparing another verse in that chapter of Malachi and the exclamation that Judah had married the daughter of a strange God to an event in the ministry of Christ. Immediately following the proclamation which had concerned Judah in Malachi chapter 2, we read a rhetorical response by the people: “10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?” Then, during the ministry of Christ, in John chapter 8 He had explained to His adversaries that their father was not the same father as His Father, that they were not of God, and knowing what He meant, they protested and said “41 … We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.” So Malachi chapter 2 actually prophesies the events which lead to the outcome seen in John chapter 8.

In Malachi it is further evident that the Levites in Judaea wold suffer a similar fate, where the prophet recorded the Word of Yahweh concerning them which said: “1 And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. 2 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. 4 And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.” Later in that chapter we read: “8 But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.” This was also fulfilled where the Judaeans had mingled with the Edomites, and in that manner the seed of the priests was corrupted, and the dung can be seen on their faces to this very day.

The difference in this exegesis with that of Augustine is fundamental: Augustine had apparently treated Scripture as a collection of stories from which he could invent his own allegories and teach lessons of convenience, the convenience which also happened to have accommodated the forming of the Church in a fashion which was compatible with needs of the Roman Empire of his time. So Augustine made up his own excuses as to why the Jews were cursed, rather than accepting the reasons given in Scripture, which we have just presented from Malachi chapter 2, Jeremiah chapter 24 and Luke chapter 21. There are yet other reasons and other Scriptures demonstrating the reasons for their curse, and we may have opportunity to discuss those when we return to this series of presentations, which we hope will become a series.