Christianity in the Old Testament, Part 1, an Introduction: What is a Catholic?

 Christianity in the Old Testament, Part 1, an Introduction: What is a Catholic?

Here we are going to discuss Christianity in the Old Testament, and this evening’s program is going to serve as an introduction to the subject. As we commence with subsequent parts of the series, we shall present a critical review of Bertrand Comparet’s sermon, Christianity in the Old Testament. Because of its length, which is comparatively extraordinary for Comparet, the review will take at least a couple of presentations to complete, depending on how many of our own comments we choose to interject. But a lengthy introduction is necessary, because even before we begin, there are a couple of related subjects that I feel there is urgent need to discuss, and as I discuss these things, I am going to prove one bold assertion: that Identity Christians are the original and true catholics, even though what we call Christian Identity as we know is only about a hundred and eighty years old, counting it from the time that it began to develop with British exploration and archaeological discovery within the British empire. The discoveries which the British and others made in that era led to Christian Identity.

So many people are convinced for so many years that the Old Testament and the New Testament are different books, representing different covenants, and with different peoples. Nothing could be further from the truth, and as we have said in the past, this belief is absolutely contrary to the words of the books themselves. We shall soon see that the earliest Christian writers, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Lactantius, all agree with us in this regard.

When the Old Covenant was broken, and the children of Israel were in the process of losing their kingdom and being divorced by Yahweh their God, we read promises of their ultimate reconciliation and of a new covenant between God and those same people. This is recorded in Jeremiah chapter 31 where we read, in part: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah... I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Paul of Tarsus cited this at length in Hebrews chapter 8. We also see a similar promise in Ezekiel, who wrote in relation to the children of Israel taken away into captivity, in Ezekiel chapter 37, and he said, in part: “15 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, 16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: 17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. 8 And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? 19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand… 23… I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God…. 26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. 27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 28 And the Nations shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.”

Then, after Ezekiel and Jeremiah, over 600 years later, when the New Covenant was proclaimed in the Gospel of Christ, we read that His purpose was that “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, as we read in Matthew 15:24, and then in Luke chapter 1 “68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, 69 And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; 70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: 71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; 72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; 73 The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, 74 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, 75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.”

Studying the promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the subsequent twelve tribes of Israel, we see that they were to become many nations, and to inherit the earth, and to inherit the nations, which at the time those promises were made describes the other Adamic nations descended from Noah and listed in Genesis chapter 10. Unbeknown to many, the promise to Abraham was made over twelve hundred years after the flood of Noah, and all of the old Adamic nations had gone off into paganism. During those twelve centuries, there is an entire history of the dispersion of our race throughout Mesopotamia, Asia and Europe which is now lost, and can only be pieced together in small part from archaeology, the Classics, and inscriptions.

But from the Hebrew Exodus to the time of Christ, the promises to Abraham were slowly fulfilled, one century at a time. So the Trojans and Romans and the Danaan, or Mycenaean, Greeks descended from the Israelites of the Exodus who took to the sea rather than following Moses, as Diodorus Siculus and other classical poets describe to one degree or another. The Dorians departed from Palestine and came through Crete to conquer the Pelopponesus from the kindred Danaans, a narrative we can put together from Homer, Josephus, and the apocryphal I Maccabees, and the epistles of Paul. Later, the Phoenicians, the Israelites of ancient Tyre, settled much of Northern Africa and the far points of Western Europe and the British Isles. This all happened by the 8th century before Christ. After that, the Germanic tribes began to migrate into Europe from Asia, the Kimmerians, Sakae, Scythians and Galatae, which are all names for the same people, the Israelites of the Assyrian captivity. The Parthians who remained behind, also Israelites, came to dominate Persia and the East for many centuries. All of the details sufficient to establish this narrative as factual history are found in the essays at Christogenea.org.

So Paul of Tarsus assured the Romans, in chapter 4 of his epistle to them, that “13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” and “16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed… of Abraham; who is the father of us all….” Then writing the Dorian Greek Corinthians he told them “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea…” and later in that same chapter, speaking of the pagan idolatry which all of the Israelites of these ancient dispersions had adopted, “18 Behold Israel after the flesh [which means according to the flesh, a reference to genetic Israel]: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?… 20 But I say, that the things which the Nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God…” Again, he said to the Galatians in chapter 4 of his epistle to them, that “4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law…”, which is the dispersed of Israel who at one time were under the law. Now there is some language there that is confused and poorly translated by so-called “universal” churches, but once it is properly understood and properly translated, the racial covenant message of the Scriptures becomes even much further unmistakable.

Paul of Tarsus was learned in the Greek Classics, and quoted them frequently, perhaps to the same degree that he was learned in the Hebrew scriptures. So he was not speaking in riddles. Rather, he was bringing the Gospel of Reconciliation, as he himself described his ministry, to the scattered twelve tribes of Israel, and he brought his gospel to Europe because he knew from the classical writings that those tribes were in Europe. This he explained in Acts chapter 26, speaking to Herod Agrippa II, as he defended himself against the accusations of the Jews and 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.”

This was the original Christian message, and it is found in the Gospels, in the Revelation, and all of the epistles of the apostles to one degree or another: James, Peter, Jude, and John as well as in Paul. And as we have explained, this is also the message found in the liturgy of Alexandria in the 5th century, which is reflected in the original Book of Odes of the famous Codex Alexandrinus. The Book of Odes is a liturgical collection of 15 passages of Scripture which nearly all have to do with the national relationship of the children of Israel to Yahweh God through Christ. The passages from the New Testament selected for inclusion were all from Luke and related to the fulfillment of the promises of God to the fathers and the delivering of the Gospel to the nations of Israel.

This is also the original meaning of the word catholic, a meaning which was perverted in the early Middle Ages, as the Christian churches were united politically and the resulting unification of doctrine was tailored for the convenience of the Empire. The original meaning of the word catholic as it was used in the earliest Christian writers is quite different than the perceived meaning which is attributed to the term today. In April of 2012 we gave a presentation of 2 Peter chapter 3 here, and said the following in regard to this word:

Contrary to popular belief, the word catholic – a word so often misused to describe these seven epistles of the apostles of Christ which are buried in the back of our Bibles - does not mean “universal” in the sense that the later Romish Church asserts that it means. It was never used in that sense by any of the early Christian writers, although they did on occasion use the term. Rather, catholic comes from two Greek words, kata meaning down, and holos meaning whole, of which one Genitive form is holikos. An elision occurring when the words are joined, kata holikos becomes katholikos. The word's immediate parent is a Greek adverb of like meaning, which is katholou, which means on the whole, or in general. But early Christians used the term to describe the derivation of their faith, and not its application! They used the term to signify that they received the whole faith, that they received the faith “down whole”, or completely. This distinguished [the original] orthodox Christians from the Jews who rejected the Gospel, and it also distinguished them from sects such as the followers of Marcion and some other more-or-less-Christian Gnostics who rejected the Old Testament. An original catholic was one who accepted the entire Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, although there was never a single official canon that determined exactly what that Scripture was composed of in each Testament. Rather, they called their faith catholic – with a small “c” - because they accepted Moses, the Writings, the prophets, and the Gospel. Therefore if a Christian claims to be a “New Testament Christian”, he is instead only relinquishing the Truth in exchange for the lies of the Jews, or Marcion.

The term “catholic epistles” is of course not found in Scripture itself. But because it is used so frequently, today people often think that they are called “catholic epistles” because they were written to everyone, whereas Paul’s epistles were written to particular Christian assemblies or individuals. That is certainly not true, but rather it is Roman Catholic propaganda. As Paul professed that his ministry was to the twelve tribes, the epistle of James was written to the “twelve tribes scattered abroad”, to specific people and nobody else. The historian Flavius Josephus records the murder of that same James to have happened around 61 or 62 AD, eight or nine years before the destruction of Jerusalem, in Antiquities Book 20 where he refers to him as “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ”. On close inspection, it can be established that both of the epistles of Peter were written to Christian assemblies of Greeks, Romans and Galatians which Paul had established in Anatolia. John, in his last days in Ephesus, wrote his last two epistles to particular individuals, and the first to an audience with which he was evidently quite familiar and quite fond of. Even Jude wrote his epistle in an exhortation to his readers that they “should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,” in reference to the faith of the Old Testament of which he subsequently speaks.

So if the “catholic epistles” were written to particular people or groups, then it is apparent that the term catholic must have a meaning other than universal, as it is commonly and errantly interpreted, because none of these epistles are universal. Furthermore, the term catholic was applied not only to these epistles, but also to the faith and to the Gospels by the early Christian writers. They discussed catholic faith and catholic gospels as well as catholic epistles.

Do not misinterpret me. The early Christian writers were not ideal, and they did not always agree among themselves. For example, Justin Martyr did not even seem to know of the epistles of Paul of Tarsus, and – if the manuscripts are not adulterated – it is apparent that he taught nearly the same sort of replacement theology that the later Roman Catholic Church teaches. But here we endeavor only to demonstrate the meaning of the word catholic, so we shall give some lengthy examples from early Christian writers which substantiate our perception of the meaning of the word.

Irenaeus was a Greek Christian writer of the 2nd century AD living in Lugdunum in Gaul, or what we now know as Lyon in France. In his Against Heresies, Book III Chapter XI, we see one of the earliest uses of the term catholic by a Christian writer. This was written perhaps around a hundred and fifty years before the Council of Nicaea. This portion of his work is part of a continuing defense of the Gospels, not only in the authority of their content, but also in their number and their provenance. So in paragraph 8 of the chapter, in an obscure part of his argument discussing the perfection of the Word of God, he says the following, in part, where he is speaking of Christ:

Afterwards, being made man for us, He sent the gift of the celestial Spirit over all the earth, protecting us with His wings. Such, then, as was the course followed by the Son of God, so was also the form of the living creatures; and such as was the form of the living creatures, so was also the character of the Gospel. [He refers to the creatures described in Ezekiel, and similarly in the Revelation.] For the living creatures are quadriform, and the Gospel is quadriform, as is also the course followed by the Lord. For this reason were four principal (καθολικαί) covenants given to the human race: one, prior to the deluge, under Adam; the second, that after the deluge, under Noah; the third, the giving of the law, under Moses; the fourth, that which renovates man, and sums up all things in itself by means of the Gospel, raising and bearing men upon heavenly kingdom.

It is beyond the scope of our purpose here to give a commentary on the Greek of Irenaeus, in relation to his world-view, even if we would like to do that. However here we see a word, καθολικαί, which is a plural form of καθολική, and it is translated as principle. Now, we would not necessarily translate it in that same manner, however it is clear from this translation that the word is an adjective modifying the noun for covenants, and it is feminine in form because the Greek noun for covenant, which is typically διαθήκη, is naturally feminine in its grammatical form. The word καθολική is the nominative feminine singular form of καθολικός. So by Irenaeus, all of the covenants of Yahweh God, in both the New Testament and the Old Testament, were considered to be catholic. We would agree, and only a Jew or a papist, who both seek to pervert the scripture, may dispute with that assessment.

Clement of Alexandria was born about 20 years after Irenaeus, and followed him in death by about 13 years, in 215 AD. From his work titled The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Book VII, Chapter XVII.—The Tradition of the Church Prior to that of the Heresies, he wrote:

Therefore in substance and idea, in origin, in pre-eminence, we say that the ancient and Catholic Church is alone, collecting as it does into the unity of the one faith—which results from the peculiar Testaments, or rather the one Testament in different times by the will of the one God, through one Lord—those already ordained, whom God predestinated, knowing before the foundation of the world that they would be righteous.

So before 215 AD there were a collection of heresies, but the catholic church, a phrase we should spell without capital letters, accepted both Old and New Testaments. Notice that Clement wrote “ancient and catholic church”, whereby he seems to imply that the Old Testament church is the same as the New Testament church, as Christ and the apostles themselves had also professed. So he also accounted those two testaments as one, and not two, merely distinguishing them by the times in which they were put into effect for those whom God had both ordained and predestinated. That is indeed the faith which was handed down by the apostles which we have already described.

Here is a passage from a Christian writer nearly as old as Irenaeus and Clement. Tertullian was born in 160 AD, ten years after Clement, and he lived until 240. This is from his The Five Books Against Marcion, Book IV:

Chapter V.—By the Rule of Antiquity, the Catholic Gospels are Found to Be True, Including the Real St. Luke’s. Marcion’s [is] Only a Mutilated Edition. The Heretic’s Weakness and Inconsistency in Ignoring the Other Gospels.

On the whole, then, if that is evidently more true which is earlier, if that is earlier which is from the very beginning, if that is from the beginning which has the apostles for its authors, then it will certainly be quite as evident, that that comes down from the apostles, which has been kept as a sacred deposit in the churches of the apostles. [While he does not use the term, here Tertullian certainly does describe what is meant by catholic.] Let us see what milk the Corinthians drank from Paul; to what rule of faith the Galatians were brought for correction; what the Philippians, the Thessalonians, the Ephesians read by it; what utterance also the Romans give, so very near (to the apostles), to whom Peter and Paul conjointly bequeathed the gospel even sealed with their own blood. We have also St. John’s foster churches. For although Marcion rejects his Apocalypse, the order of the bishops (thereof), when traced up to their origin, will yet rest on John as their author. In the same manner is recognised the excellent source of the other churches. I say, therefore, that in them (and not simply such of them as were founded by apostles, but in all those which are united with them in the fellowship of the mystery of the gospel of Christ ) that Gospel of Luke which we are defending with all our might has stood its ground from its very first publication; whereas Marcion’s Gospel is not known to most people, and to none whatever is it known without being at the same time condemned. It too, of course, has its churches, but specially its own—as late as they are spurious; and should you want to know their original, you will more easily discover apostasy in it than apostolicity, with Marcion forsooth as their founder, or some one of Marcion’s swarm. Even wasps make combs; so also these Marcionites make churches. The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage—I mean the Gospels of John and Matthew—whilst that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter’s whose interpreter Mark was. For even Luke’s form of the Gospel men usually ascribe to Paul. And it may well seem that the works which disciples publish belong to their masters. Well, then, Marcion ought to be called to a strict account concerning these (other Gospels) also, for having omitted them, and insisted in preference on Luke; as if they, too, had not had free course in the churches, as well as Luke’s Gospel, from the beginning. Nay, it is even more credible that they existed from the very beginning; for, being the work of apostles, they were prior, and coeval in origin with the churches themselves. But how comes it to pass, if the apostles published nothing, that their disciples were more forward in such a work; for they could not have been disciples, without any instruction from their masters? If, then, it be evident that these (Gospels) also were current in the churches, why did not Marcion touch them—either to amend them if they were adulterated, or to acknowledge them if they were uncorrupt? For it is but natural that they who were perverting the gospel, should be more solicitous about the perversion of those things whose authority they knew to be more generally received. Even the false apostles (were so called) on this very account, because they imitated the apostles by means of their falsification. In as far, then, as he might have amended what there was to amend, if found corrupt, in so far did he firmly imply that all was free from corruption which he did not think required amendment. In short, he simply amended what he thought was corrupt; though, indeed, not even this justly, because it was not really corrupt. For if the (Gospels) of the apostles have come down to us in their integrity, whilst Luke’s, which is received amongst us, so far accords with their rule as to be on a par with them in permanency of reception in the churches, it clearly follows that Luke’s Gospel also has come down to us in like integrity until the sacrilegious treatment of Marcion. In short, when Marcion laid hands on it, it then became diverse and hostile to the Gospels of the apostles. I will therefore advise his followers, that they either change these Gospels, however late to do so, into a conformity with their own, whereby they may seem to be in agreement with the apostolic writings (for they are daily retouching their work, as daily they are convicted by us); or else that they blush for their master, who stands self-condemned either way—when once he hands on the truth of the gospel conscience smitten, or again subverts it by shameless tampering. Such are the summary arguments which we use, when we take up arms against heretics for the faith of the gospel, maintaining both that order of periods, which rules that a late date is the mark of forgers, and that authority of churches which lends support to the tradition of the apostles; because truth must needs precede the forgery, and proceed straight from those by whom it has been handed on.

This Marcion whom Tertullian assails was a Christian of the church of Rome who departed from the faith by rejecting the Old Testament and the epistles of Paul completely, and then butchering references to the Old Testament in Luke so as to support his heresy. So the term catholic in relation to the Scriptures was used to refer to what Tertullian describes: the writings which were handed down from the apostles themselves and from their original students, as opposed to the spurious works which were being offered by heretics. With this we also see that heretics were indeed corrupting the Christian Scriptures as early as the second century after Christ. As Tertullian proceeds from this point, chapter 6 of the book discusses Marcion’s object in adulterating the Gospel, and in chapter 7, he explains in further detail Marcion’s rejection of portions of Luke’s Gospel.

What follows is also from Tertullian, from another and similar book titled The Prescription Against Heretics, Chapter XXX.—Comparative Lateness of Heresies. Marcion’s Heresy. Some Personal Facts About Him. The Heresy of Apelles. Character of This Man; Philumene; Valentinus; Nigidius, and Hermogenes.

Where was Marcion then, that shipmaster of Pontus, the zealous student of Stoicism? Where was Valentinus then, the disciple of Platonism? For it is evident that those men lived not so long ago, – in the reign of Antoninus for the most part [138 to 161 AD], – and that they at first were believers in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in the church of Rome under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherus, until on account of their ever restless curiosity, with which they even infected the brethren, they were more than once expelled. Marcion, indeed, [went] with the two hundred sesterces which which he had brought into the church, and, when banished at last to a permanent excommunication, they scattered abroad the poisons of their doctrines. Afterwards, it is true, Marcion professed repentance, and agreed to the conditions granted to him—that he should receive reconciliation if he restored to the church all the others whom he had been training for perdition: he was prevented, however, by death. It was indeed necessary that there should be heresies; and yet it does not follow from that necessity, that heresies are a good thing. As if it has not been necessary also that there should be evil! It was even necessary that the Lord should be betrayed; but woe to the traitor! So that no man may from this defend heresies. If we must likewise touch the descent of Apelles, he is far from being “one of the old school,” like his instructor and moulder, Marcion; he rather forsook the continence of Marcion, by resorting to the company of a woman, and withdrew to Alexandria, out of sight of his most abstemious master. Returning therefrom, after some years, unimproved, except that he was no longer a Marcionite, he clave to another woman, the maiden Philumene (whom we have already mentioned), who herself afterwards became an enormous prostitute. Having been imposed on by her vigorous spirit, he committed to writing the revelations which he had learned of her. Persons are still living who remember them,—their own actual disciples and successors,—who cannot therefore deny the lateness of their date. But, in fact, by their own works they are convicted, even as the Lord said. For since Marcion separated the New Testament from the Old, he is (necessarily) subsequent to that which he separated, inasmuch as it was only in his power to separate what was (previously) united. Having then been united previous to its separation, the fact of its subsequent separation proves the subsequence also of the man who effected the separation. In like manner Valentinus, by his different expositions and acknowledged emendations, makes these changes on the express ground of previous faultiness, and therefore demonstrates the difference of the documents. These corrupters of the truth we mention as being more notorious and more public than others. There is, however, a certain man named Nigidius, and Hermogenes, and several others, who still pursue the course of perverting the ways of the Lord. Let them show me by what authority they come! If it be some other God they preach, how comes it that they employ the things and the writings and the names of that God against whom they preach? If it be the same God, why treat Him in some other way? Let them prove themselves to be new apostles! Let them maintain that Christ has come down a second time, taught in person a second time, has been twice crucified, twice dead, twice raised! For thus has the apostle described (the order of events in the life of Christ); for thus, too, is He accustomed to make His apostles—to give them, (that is), power besides of working the same miracles which He worked Himself. I would therefore have their mighty deeds also brought forward; except that I allow their mightiest deed to be that by which they perversely vie with the apostles. For whilst they used to raise men to life from the dead, these consign men to death from their living state.

Today most Christians do seek to separate the New Testament from the Old Testament, and they think that the Testaments represent covenants made with two different groups of people. But both of the testaments themselves inform us that eachof the covenants are made with the same group of people, the twelve tribes of Israel! Every reference to the “world”, which is not the “planet”, every reference to “all men”, which only includes men of the same race within that world, must be understood within this context.

By now it should be clear, that the original catholic is one of those people to whom the apostles endeavored to bring the Gospel, one of the ancient people of the twelve tribes of Israel, who accepted the Faith of Christ from both testaments, who accepted the entire body of the Scriptures handed down by the apostles, the writings of both Old Testament and New Testament, and that each testament pertained to no other people than themselves.

These people called themselves, their faith, and their Scriptures catholic because they esteemed all of these things to represent the faith handed down by the apostles, in contradistinction to the heresies which cut out either one testament or the other, and which furthermore cut out parts of each testament in order to accommodate the cutting out of the other. So it was not enough for someone such as Marcion to dispense with the Old Testament. He and his followers had realized that much of the New Testament was directly related to the Old, so they had to cut those parts out as well. The modern denominational churches are actually closer to Marcion today than they are to the apostles of Christ.

From the same work by Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics, Chapter XXXVIII.—Harmony of the Church and the Scriptures. Heretics Have Tampered with the Scriptures, and Mutilated, and Altered Them. Catholics Never Change the Scriptures, Which Always Testify for Them.

Where diversity of doctrine is found, there, then, must the corruption both of the Scriptures and the expositions thereof be regarded as existing. On those whose purpose it was to teach differently, lay the necessity of differently arranging the instruments of doctrine. They could not possibly have effected their diversity of teaching in any other way than by having a difference in the means whereby they taught. As in their case, corruption in doctrine could not possibly have succeeded without a corruption also of its instruments, so to ourselves also integrity of doctrine could not have accrued, without integrity in those means by which doctrine is managed. Now, what is there in our Scriptures which is contrary to us? What of our own have we introduced, that we should have to take it away again, or else add to it, or alter it, in order to restore to its natural soundness anything which is contrary to it, and contained in the Scriptures? What we are ourselves, that also the Scriptures are (and have been) from the beginning. Of them we have our being, before there was any other way, before they were interpolated by you. Now, inasmuch as all interpolation must be believed to be a later process, for the express reason that it proceeds from rivalry which is never in any case previous to nor home-born with that which it emulates, it is as incredible to every man of sense that we should seem to have introduced any corrupt text into the Scriptures, existing, as we have been, from the very first, and being the first, as it is that they have not in fact introduced it who are both later in date and opposed (to the Scriptures). One man perverts the Scriptures with his hand, another their meaning by his exposition. For although Valentinus [the early second century Roman Gnostic] seems to use the entire volume, he has none the less laid violent hands on the truth only with a more cunning mind and skill than Marcion. Marcion expressly and openly used the knife, not the pen, since he made such an excision of the Scriptures as suited his own subject-matter. Valentinus, however, abstained from such excision, because he did not invent Scriptures to square with his own subject-matter, but adapted his matter to the Scriptures; and yet he took away more, and added more, by removing the proper meaning of every particular word, and adding fantastic arrangements of things which have no real existence.

Now concluding our exhibition from the early Christian writers, we have one more passage, from the 3rd century Christian writer Lactantius. He was not born until all of the other writers mentioned here had died, in 250 AD. Late in his life he was an advisor to the emperor Constantine I, and he died in 325 AD. This is from The Divine Institutes, Book IV. Of True Wisdom and Religion:

But some, not sufficiently instructed in heavenly learning, when they were unable to reply to the accusers of the truth, who objected that it was either impossible or inconsistent that God should be shut up in the womb of a woman, and that the Majesty of heaven could not be reduced to such weakness as to become an object of contempt and derision, a reproach and mockery to men; lastly, that He should even endure tortures, and be affixed to the accursed cross; and when they could defend and refute all these things neither by talent nor learning, for they did not thoroughly perceive their force and meaning, they were perverted from the right path, and corrupted the sacred writings, so that they composed for themselves a new doctrine without any root and stability. But some, enticed by the prediction of false prophets, concerning whom both the true prophets and he himself had foretold, fell away from the knowledge of God, and left the true tradition. But all of these, ensnared by frauds of demons, which they ought to have foreseen and guarded against, by their carelessness lost the name and worship of God. For when they are called Phrygians [Montanists], or Novarians, or Valentinians, or Marcionites, or Anthropians, or Arians, or by any other name they have ceased to be Christians, who have lost the name of Christ, and assumed human and external names. Therefore it is the Catholic Church alone which retains true worship.

Now we should know what catholic means. To accept the entirety of the Scriptures as they apply to ourselves, if indeed we are of those nations to which the original apostles endeavored to present the Scriptures. Of all of the sects of Christians today, only one sect is, at least in its ideal form, exclusively comprised of people from those nations to which the apostles originally sought to bring the Gospel of Christ. Only one sect believes, as the apostles and Christ Himself had professed, that they and their kinsmen are the recipients of the promises found in both Old and New Covenants. Only one sect accepts both Testaments as applying to themselves, but at different times. Only one sect believes in the fulfillments of the promises to the fathers in Christ, as those promises were originally stated and as the apostles themselves had explained. That sect is Christian Identity. We are the true and original catholics, as the term catholic was originally used by Irenaeus, by Clement of Alexandria, by Tertullian, by Lactantius, and by others as well, which we can easily elucidate from the writings of Justin Martyr and others, although we excluded Justin Martyr here this evening since he seemed to be totally ignorant of the epistles of Paul.

Now, we have already made the assertion that the “world” is not the “planet”. Here we want to quantify that statement. There are statements throughout the early Christian writers that refer to the “whole world”. For instance, Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, Book 1, Chapter 9, makes the remark that “The Universal Church, moreover, through the whole world, has received this tradition from the apostles.” Unfortunately, the translators themselves display a Roman Catholic bias here. But if we examine the Greek manuscripts, the word καθολικός was translated as “universal”, however we have already demonstrated that such was not the meaning of the word. The corresponding Latin phrase in Irenaeus is Ecclesia autem omnis per universum orbem hanc accepit ab apostolis traditionem. The English translation here is deceptive, as universum is an adjective modifying orbem, or world, but definitely not ecclesia, or church. Literally, it should say, in regard to what had preceded, that “The whole assembly throughout the entire world received this from apostolic tradition.” This one example, among many, helps to establish that the world of Irenaeus was not the entire planet. In his time, Christians were not spread all over the planet, but only within the White European world. The “world” of Irenaeus was the Roman world, and not the entire planet.

Here we will cite a much later source, which is Martin Luther. In our estimation, poor Martin Luther was a man conflicted with himself, because having learned his Christianity from Jewish commentators such as Paul of Burgos and Nicholas of Lyra, he had many incorrect Jewish concepts of Scripture. Luther admitted in his own work that he was influenced by these men, and he cited them frequently.

But nevertheless, to Luther the whole world was not the entire planet. This is evident where Luther mentions the “world”, in Chapter 13 of On the Jews and Their Lies. There he wrote:

It is a great, extraordinary, and wonderful thing that the Gentiles in all the world accepted, without sword or coercion, with no temporal benefits accruing to them, gladly and freely, a poor Man of the Jews as the true Messiah, one whom his own people had crucified, condemned, cursed, and persecuted without end.

Luther was most likely confused and thought that Jesus was a Jew because he learned much of his Christianity from converso-Jews. Now, we can certainly establish with many proofs from History and Scripture that Christ was a Judaean, but He was certainly not a Jew – not as we know the term Jew or the people it represents. His sheep heard His voice, and they followed Him. The Edomites, Canaanites and other bastards rejected Him because they, who retained the label of Jew to this very day, are not His sheep, as He Himself had told them. Notice, however, that Luther said that “the Gentiles in all the world accepted” Christ, using the past tense. At Luther's time, the Indians, Asians, Arabs, Turks and others were rejecting Christ while Roman Catholicism, which Luther rejected as Christianity, was being forced on the squat monsters of the Americas by the sword: in a manner which Luther also rejected! Therefore, to Luther, Christian Europe alone represented “the Gentiles... all the world”.

Again, Luther wrote in that same chapter, concerning early Christian martyrs:

They did and suffered so much for his sake, and forsook all idolatry, just so that they might live with him eternally. This has been going on now for fifteen hundred years. [Luther counted those who died in the wars against Islam, the Arabs, Turks and Mongols, as Christian martyrs, and they are.] No worship of a false god ever endured so long, nor did all the world suffer so much because of it or cling so firmly to it. [“All the world” not including China, for example.] And I suppose one of the strongest proofs is found in the fact that no other god ever withstood such hard opposition as the Messiah, against whom alone all other gods and peoples have raged and against whom they all acted in concert, no matter how varied they were or how they otherwise disagreed.

Luther again means to refer to the Christian society alone as “all the world”, compared to “other gods and peoples”. This would be the same White Adamic world which the apostles also perceived, in places such as Luke 2:1, Acts 17:6, Acts 19:27 and elsewhere. So according to Luther, “other gods and people” are not a part of the “world” which was to receive the Gospel. According to Luther, “all the world” already had the Gospel! Perhaps Luther's universalism which is perceived in other statements is a reflection of his own confusion in these matters, or perhaps he never intended certain statements to be understood in the general way in which they are understood today. However it is clear that Luther’s theology in his later life is much different than what he believed which is reflected in his writings as a younger man – especially in relation to the Jews.

Of all the Christian denominations and sects of today, only Identity Christians understand the concept of the “world” in the manner in which the early Christian writers, all the way up to the time of Martin Luther, had understood it.

Now I will speak a little about an insignificant but horrible and dangerous part of the rest of the planet. I will speak a little bit about niggers. I believe, and this is only an opinion, that the word nigger originated from nekar, which is a Hebrew term for a racial stranger, and just like the Latin term Afer, for Africa, came from the Hebrew word Ophir, so did the Latin term Niger, from the Hebrew nekar, describing an alien. There is another Hebrew word, balag, Strong’s # 1082, from which I believe we get the English words plague and black, with which concepts such as plague and evil are associated. Niggers are certainly aliens, and they are certainly a plague.

First, I will offer something I wrote awhile ago, citing the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. A couple of years ago I wrote the following at Christogenea:

In spite of the Hollywood propaganda, the ancient Greeks and Romans hardly knew the African negro, except perhaps as a passing spectacle in the desert or by the surviving population of mixed races in certain places in Egypt. One literary example which demonstrates the truth of this assertion is found in the Library of History, Book 3, by the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, whose work was published around 36 BC.

After describing the cultured people of Ethiopia, who were originally not black and who had many things in common with the rest of the civilized world, Diodorus says in Book 3 chapter 8:

"1 But there are also a great many other tribes of the Ethiopians, some of them dwelling in the land lying on both banks of the Nile and on the islands in the river, others inhabiting the neighbouring country of Arabia, and still others residing in the interior of Libya. 2 The majority of them, and especially those who dwell along the river, are black in colour and have flat noses and woolly hair. As for their spirit they are entirely savage and display the nature of a wild beast, not so much, however, in their temper as in their ways of living; for they are squalid all over their bodies, they keep their nails very long like the wild beasts, and are as far removed as possible from human kindness to one another; 3 and speaking as they do with a shrill voice and cultivating none of the practices of civilized life as these are found among the rest of mankind, they present a striking contrast when considered in the light of our own customs." (Library of History, 3.8.1)

What Diodorus described sounds exactly like what is seen today in the streets of Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis, Philadelphia, Baltimore,Cleveland, Detroit and most other American cities on a regular basis.

Now there are people who imagine themselves to be Christians, especially those traditional so-called orthodox types, who would be offended by this citation from Diodorus Siculus, and who may imagine that Jesus cleanses niggers too. Nothing is further from the truth, and I will establish that from some of the earliest Christian writings.

Many years ago I read a work titled The Pastor, or Shepherd of Hermas. Now I do not think that at that time, perhaps 1997 or 1998, I was far enough along in my studies to understand it fully, and perhaps it is time to read it all again. But I will indeed cite a passage from it here. The book is a work from as early as the the late 1st century, but if later, it is not much before the middle of the second, as Irenaeus knew it and he included it in his canon. It is said to have been quite popular among Christians before the Council of Nicaea, where it was excluded from canon at the first Christian council of the Empire, and that is no wonder once we read it. But in spite of this official exclusion, it was nevertheless included in the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus, and in the 6th century Codex Claromontanus, being placed in each of them following the Book of Acts and before the epistles of Paul of Tarsus.

The following is from the edition of The Pastor of Hermas which is found in The Ante-Nicene Fathers by Roberts and Donaldson, the volumes of the early Christian writers which we have employed throughout this presentation. This is from Book Third—Similitudes, Similitude Ninth, The Great Mysteries in the Building of the Militant and Triumphant Church, Chapter XIX:

“From the first mountain, which was black, they that believed are the following: apostates and blasphemers against the Lord, and betrayers of the servants of God. To these repentance is not open; but death lies before them, and on this account also are they black, for their race is a lawless one. And from the second mountain, which was bare, they who believed are the following: hypocrites, and teachers of wickedness. And these, accordingly, are like the former, not having any fruits of righteousness; for as their mountain was destitute of fruit, so also such men have a name indeed, but are empty of faith, and there is no fruit of truth in them. They indeed have repentance in their power, if they repent quickly; but if they are slow in so doing, they shall die along with the former.” “Why, sir,” I said, “have these repentance, but the former not? for their actions are nearly the same.” “On this account,” he said, “have these repentance, because they did not blaspheme their Lord, nor become betrayers of the servants of God; but on account of their desire of possessions they became hypocritical, and each one taught according to the desires of men that were sinners. But they will suffer a certain punishment; and repentance is before them, because they were not blasphemers or traitors.”

In our Christian Identity opinion, this certainly does represent sound doctrine in the “Building of the Militant and Triumphant Church”, since Christianity is only for White Europeans, and Niggers are certainly unredeemable. And any of our White brethren who do not repent, and who have not yet been blasphemers or traitors, had certainly better repent soon or they are going to end up in the Lake of Fire along with the Niggers. All blasphemers and traitors to our race and our God are already headed in that very direction. [That would accord with the Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant professions, which are not necessarily true. But they shall indeed be destroyed in this world for not coming out of Babylon, for continuing to partake in its sins.]

Yahweh God be willing, we shall present the next portion of this series very soon, and commence with the original sermon by Bertrand Comparet.