Trump effect forces Germany to reprioritize defense as nation plays catch-up in military spending
Trump effect forces Germany to reprioritize defense as nation plays catch-up in military spending
'Donald Trump was absolutely right about Germany,” former US Ambassador to Berlin Richard Grenell says
By Benjamin Weinthal Fox News
Published March 29, 2025 6:00am EDT | Updated March 29, 2025 8:45am EDT
President Donald Trump's continued criticism of Germany’s failure to pay its defense bills looks to have pushed one of Europe's wealthiest nations into action.
The president's criticism of Berlin has compelled Germany to increase funding for its military forces and infrastructure, which critics say are in a bad state of affairs.
Richard Grenell, U.S. Ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, told Fox News Digital "multiple German leaders ignored the warnings from President Trump that Russia was using energy as a weapon against them.
"The war in Ukraine and the invasion of Putin showed the new German leadership that Donald Trump was absolutely right about Germany feeding the beast that ultimately turned on them," he added.
Trump appointed Grenell as presidential envoy for "special missions" in December.
In 2018, Trump rebuked Germany’s addiction to Russian gas, according to observers of German-U.S. relations. He told the U.N. General Assembly that "Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course. Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers."
During his remarks, the camera panned to Germany’s delegation to the U.N. in 2018, including its then-U.N. Ambassador, Christoph Heusgen, and former Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who all seemingly laughed and smiled at Trump.
However, those smirks soon turned into raw anxiety, when four years later, in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and Germany scrambled for a way to wean itself off Russian gas to avoid helping reward Putin.
Matthew Kroenig, director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, told Fox News Digital, "Every U.S. presidential administration since Eisenhower has complained about European free riding, but asking "pretty please" has not worked. Trump’s tough rhetoric is achieving results that eluded his predecessors.
"The Trump effect is in part due to Trump raising NATO burden sharing to the very top of the transatlantic security agenda and in part due to genuine fears that Washington could abandon NATO and Europe would need to fend for itself."
After Trump and Grenell helped to cajole the Germans out of their security slumber, Berllin reached the NATO goal of spending 2% of gross domestic product spending in 2024. This was the first time Berlin reached 2% since 1991, the end of the Cold War.
Trump, however, called for Germany to spend 5% on defense because, he argues, the U.S. is contributing significant resources to protect the central European country.
The frustration with Germany and other European allies was captured in text messages reported between Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance.
"I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC," Hegseth said in response to Vance, who questioned U.S. leadership in advancing security policies in the Red Sea to counter Houthi aggression and reopen shipping lanes.
Germany’s export trade greatly benefits from free navigation in the Middle East, but it refuses to aid the U.S. in stopping the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist movement via military strikes. Europe and Germany are unwilling to follow Trump’s lead and sanction the Houthis as a terrorist entity.
The so-called Trump Effect has also affected the German parliament’s decision to relax restrictions on debt so it can pump funds into its military superstructure.
The likely new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party, said he would do "whatever it takes" to rebuild Germany’s frail military. Berlin’s mainstream parties aim to invest hundreds of billions of euros in defense and infrastructure. Germany’s armed forces (Bundeswehr) are, according to reports, in a state of disarray, with a mere 181,174 soldiers at the end of last year. Germany’s Defense Ministry seeks to expand its armed forces to 203,000 by 2031.
Recruitment remains an ongoing challenge within a population raised on pacifism. After Germany started two World Wars in the last century, Germany's power politics stressed the role of multilateral institutions like the U.N. and diplomacy in remedying conflicts.
The Associated Press recently reported that Germany's parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, Eva Högl, said, "The biggest problem is boredom. She added "If young people have nothing to do, if there isn’t enough equipment and there aren’t enough trainers, if the rooms aren’t reasonably clean and orderly, that deters people, and it makes the Bundeswehr unattractive."
In an interview earlier this month with German news outlet WELT, the German historian Michael Wolffsohn, who taught at the Bundeswehr University Munich, said of Germany and Western Europe’s failure over the decades to address its severe defense deficits, "Now we get the receipt for everything we neglected."
Fox News Digital sent a detailed press query to the German Foreign Ministry about Trump’s criticism that Berlin has chronically underinvested in defense and remained wedded to Putin’s gas supply after his warnings.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/trump-effect-forces-germany-reprioritize-defense-nation-plays-catch-up-military-spending
Augustinians and Cistercians | Church and Society in the Medieval West
One newly founded order broke with the rule of Benedict, finding its inspiration in a letter of Augustine is that prescribed simply that monks share all their property, pray together at regular intervals, dress alike, and obey a superior. Some of the “Augustinians,” as they called themselves, interpreted these general rules severely, living in silence, performing manual labor, eating and drinking sparingly, and singing psalms; others ate meat, conversed among themselves, and did not insist on manual labor.
Often beginning as small informal foundations, the Augustinians attracted modest donations from relatively modest donors. Unlike Cluny, with its vast collections of buildings crowned by a great and splendid church, the Augustinian foundations were simple and humble. The Augustinians preached, baptized, heard confessions, and helped the poor unobtrusively. They multiplied rapidly, and in the thirteenth century there were thousands of Augustinian houses in England and on the Continent.
Founded only a little later, the Cistercians abandoned the world instead of living in it. Their original house, Citeaux (Cistercium) in Burgundy, lay in a dismal wasteland far from the distractions of the world. There they pioneered land reclamation and launched a period of agricultural expansion. By the twelfth century the Cistercians were looked to for their knowledge of how to make previously uncultivated lands, often swamps, productive. They considered themselves the only true Benedictines, vet the self-denial, poverty, and wholly spiritual life that the Cistercians adopted was often seen by their contemporaries as arrogant, worldly, and even greedy.
Perhaps the best-known Cistercian leader was Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1091-1153), who in 1115 led a band of Cistercians to a new and remote site from which he influenced worldly affairs to a remarkable degree, preaching for a Second Crusade and attacking the scholastic method of teaching. As he wrote, “There are many who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge: that is curiosity. There are others who desire to know in order that they themselves be known: that is vanity. Others seek knowledge in order to sell it: that is dishonorable. But there are also some who seek knowledge in order to edify others. That is love.” He launched significant reforms in teaching, the observance of church rules, and attitudes toward worship.
In the end, the Cistercians, too, changed. Display conquered austerity, and aristocratic traditions quenched humility. By the thirteenth century, great Cistercian monasteries were wealthy centers of production. The expensive arts of architecture and sculpture were lavished on their buildings. These Cistercian monasteries had become great corporations, thoroughly tied into the increasingly complex web of medieval economic life.
https://bigsiteofhistory.com/augustinians-and-cistercians-church-and-society-in-the-medieval-west
The Teutonic Order, or Teutonic Knights of St. Mary’s Hospital at Jerusalem, grew out of the establishment of a field hospital during the siege of Acre in the winter of 1190-91, by pious merchants of Bremen and Lubeck. When these merchants returned to Germany in 1191 they turned over the hospital to the chaplain Conrad and the chamberlain Burkhard.
With the model of the Hospitallers or Knights of St. John the Baptist, later known as Knights of Malta, before them, these men together with other Germans, formed a brotherhood, adopted the rules of the Hospitallers, and named their hospital “The Hospital of St. Mary of the Germans in Jerusalem” “in the hope and confidence that when the Holy City was reconquered they would there establish a house which should become the mother, head and mistress of the entire Order.” The new Order was confirmed by popes Clement III in 1191 and Celestine in 1196; it won as a patron the emperor, Henry VI, who bestowed upon it its first possessions in the West. In 1198 it was changed into a military Order by the adoption of the rules of the Knights Templars in addition to those of the Hospitallers. Unlike both of these older Orders, the Teutonic Knights were a strictly national organization, none but Germans of noble birth being admitted to it. “Like the knights of other orders, the Teutonic Knights lived a semimonastic life under the Augustinian rule, and in the same way they admitted priests and half-brothers (servientes) into their ranks. Like the other two orders, the Teutonic Order began as a charitable society, developed into a military club, and ended as something of a chartered company, exercising rights of sovereignty on the troubled confines of Christianity. Even in its last phase the Order did not forget its original purpose: it maintained several great hospitals in its new home on the southeast shore of the Baltic, in addition to an hotel des invalides at Marienburg for its sick or aged brethren.” F550 Under its fourth grand master, Hermann von Salza, 1210-39, the Order grew rapidly and made the most important advance in its history. After having aided the king of Hungary against the Comans, and receiving from the king the district of Burzenland in Transylvania, which it did not long retain, the Order was invited to assist in subduing the heathen Prussians. A Cistercian monk named Christian had succeeded in establishing the Church among the Prussians, and in 1212 was made bishop of Prussia. When the heathen arose and destroyed his churches, Christian called upon the Teutonic Knights for help and bestowed upon them Kulm, some of the frontier towns and such lands as they should conquer (1228). After driving the enemy out of Kulm and founding the cities of Kulm, Thorn and Marienwerder, the Order began the task of conquering and Christianizing Prussia. In 1235 it absorbed the Order of Dobrzin, which had been founded by bishop Christian, and in 1237 the Knights of the Sword of Livonia, founded by Albert, bishop of Riga, became a province of the Order.
Its successes in Prussia changed the character of the Teutonic Order. It lost all connection with the East, its grand master moved his seat from Acre, first to Venice in 1291, then in 1308 to Marienburg on the Vistula. The Order became a governing aristocracy, its statutes were altered to suit the new conditions. “The Order was at once supreme ecclesiastical and political authority .... The lay subjects of the Order consisted of two classes: on the one hand there were the conquered Prussians, in a position of serfdom, bound in time of war to serve the brethren in foreign expeditions; on the other hand there were the German immigrants, both urban and rural, along with the free Prussians, who had voluntarily submitted and remained faithful.” f551 By the middle of the fourteenth century the Teutonic Knights had become a world power. Their cities belonged to the Hanseatic League and shared in its power; Poland had been deprived of its outlet on the Baltic; the ships of the Order were a power on the sea; Marienburg with its brilliant court was not merely a school of chivalry, but for a time a literary center. Yet the downfall of the Order was close at hand. It alienated its subjects, who allied themselves with Poland; its missionary work was completed when the Lithuanians became Christians and also made common cause with Poland; the Slav reaction made the Germanizing efforts of the Knights still more unpopular. Internally the success of the Order brought with it a secularization which was disastrous. Poland regained a foothold on the Baltic. The Prussian League was formed in 1440 with the real purpose of opposing the Knights, and in 1454 offered Prussia to the Polish king. The peace of Thorn, 1466, left to the Order only East Prussia and made the knights vassals of Poland. But the German master and the Landmeister for Livonia would not serve Poland, and the Order in East Prussia adopted the policy of electing German princes as grand masters in the hope of again regaining independence, without success. The first of these German grand masters was Frederick of Saxony, 1498 to 1511. He was succeeded by Albert of Brandenburg. f552 Albert became involved in a devastating war with Poland, which was provisionally ended by a four years’ truce made in 1521. In September of that year Albert suggested the possibility of a revision of the statutes of the Order by Luther, probably in harmony with the plans outlined in the Open Letter to the German Nobility. So far as known Luther was not consulted at that time. Albert continued to take his place with the Roman Catholic princes. But when in April, 1522, he returned to Germany he came under the influence of Lazarus Spengler and Andreas Osiander and was won for the evangelical party. During the Diet at Nuremberg, 1522- 23, he protested that it was not the proper way to proceed against Luther, “if evident truth be condemned and books burned.”
Pope Hadrian VI urged upon Albert a reformation of the Order. In June, 1523, Albert secretly turned to Luther for advice concerning the reformation of the Order in head and members. On November 29th the two met at Wittenberg, and Luther advised Albert “to throw aside the foolish and absurd rules of the Order, to marry, and to convert the religious state into a secular state, either a principality or a duchy.” Melanchthon, who was present at the interview, gave the same advice. The grand master smiled and said nothing. But “with that evangelical protestant advice Luther laid the foundations for the development of the Prussian state, of the Prussian kingdom, and of the German empire which is inseparable from the development of the Prussian kingdom.” f554 Soon after this meeting Luther prepared the following treatise, intended, as Kawerau suggests, to be a “feeler, which should test the attitude of the knights of the Order as well as of the Prussian bishops, and prepare them for coming events.” The older collected editions of Luther’s works date the treatise March 28, 1523. But, as Kawerau points out, it is improbable that the treatise was written before the last month of 1523, and the date may be a mistake for December 12th. The original prints are undated; the editors may have confused the festivals of the Annunciation and of the Conception of the Virgin Mary, the latter of which may have been the date attached to the manuscript.
After the evangelical principles had been gradually introduced into Prussia by the two bishops, Georg von Polentz and Erhard von Queiss, the grand master returned to Prussia and carried out Luther’s suggestion. Peace was made with Poland, Prussia was converted into a duchy held as fief of the king of Poland and hereditary in the family of Albert. July 1, 1526, Albert was married to Dorothea, the daughter of the Danish king, and thus was founded the evangelical house of the Hohenzollern.
The progress of the Gospel in Prussia gave Luther much joy. In 1525 he wrote to the Bishop of Samland, Georg von Polentz: “Behold the wonder!
In rapid course, with full sails, the Gospel hastens to Prussia, whither it was not called, and where it was not sought after, while in Upper and Lower Germany, whither it came of its own accord, it is blasphemed, repelled and put to flight with all rage and madness.” f556 The Teutonic Order in its German and Livonian branches continued to exist, and laid claim to the rights of the Order in Prussia. It was finally suppressed in 1809, and its lands passed into the hands of the secular princes within whose territories they lay. But in 1840 the Order was resuscitated in Austria, and again engaged in hospital service, in which it is presumably active during the present war. But this Teutonic Order is not the same as that which became secularized at the time of the Reformation.
The Prussian branch passed into the Prussian kingdom, not into the restored Order. A Protestant branch exists in the ancient bailiwick of Utrecht, the members of which must profess the Calvinistic faith, and are dispensed from celibacy. See Catholic Encyclopedia, xiv, 542.
The subject of the monastic vows and of the marriage of monks had been discussed at great length before this treatise was written. For the development of that discussion we must refer here to the introduction to the Treatise on Monastic Vows, which was excluded from this volume because of its size. But the careful student will find that Luther has not merely repeated older arguments nor restated older positions. He has gone farther, his position is more advanced. In fact, upon the advance beyond the position taken in the Formula Missae Kawerau bases an argument for the later date of our treatise. “For the writing of this treatise immediately after the FormuIa Missae we find an argument in the remarkable agreement between the statements in the two concerning those who want to wait for decrees of a council and desire permission to be given them (to use the two kinds in the Lord’s Supper, or, in the later treatise, to marry) by such decrees. He who reads the analogous portions in the two treatises will easily recognize in the Exhortation to the Teutonic Knights the bold heightening of the thought to a paradox, and thus see in the Formula Missae the older form.” f558 The German text is found in Weimar Ed., xii, 232-244; Walch Ed., xix, 2157-76; Erlangen Ed., xxix 16-33; St. Louis Ed., xix, 1730-45; Berlin Ed., iv, 32-47. Literature : Introduction by KAWERAU in Weimar Ed., xii, 228-31; Prot. Realencyklopadie, 3d ed., Arts., Albrecht von Preussen, I, 310-23; Deutschorden, iv, 589-95; Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., Arts., Albert, i, 497, and Teutonic Order, xxvi, 676-9. The literature is given fully in all these articles. Compare also Schaff, Church History, vi, 588-600, and Kostlin-Kawerau, Martin Luther, i, 620-623. W. A. LAMBERT. LEBANON,PA.
WORKS OF MARTIN LUTHER - TO THE KNIGHTS OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER AN EXHORTATION THAT THEY LAY ASIDE FALSE CHASTITY AND TAKE UPON THEM THE TRUE CHASTITY OF WEDLOCK (godrules.net)
https://www.godrules.net/library/luther/NEW1luther_c8.htm
The origins of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem date back to the First Crusade, when its leader, Godfrey de Bouillon, liberated Jerusalem. As part of his operations to organize the religious, military and public bodies of the territories newly freed from Muslim control, he founded the Order of Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. According to accounts of the Crusades, in 1103 the first King of Jerusalem, Baldwin I, assumed the leadership of this canonical order, and reserved the right for himself and his successors (as agents of the Patriarch of Jerusalem) to appoint Knights to it, should the Patriarch be absent or unable to do so.The Order’s members included not only the Regular Canons (Fratres) but also the Secular Canons (Confratres) and the Sergentes. The latter were armed knights chosen from the crusader troops for their qualities of valor and dedication; they vowed to obey Augustinian Rule of poverty and obedience and undertook specifically, under the command of the King of Jerusalem, to defend the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Places.Very soon after the First Crusade the troops – including the Knights of the Order of Canons of the Holy Sepulchre – began to return to their homelands. This led to the creation of priories all over Europe, which were part of the Order as they came under the jurisdiction of the noble knights or prelates who had been invested on the Holy Sepulchre itself and who, although they were no longer in the direct service of the King of Jerusalem, continued to belong to the Order of Canons.The Order first began to fail as a cohesive military body of knights after Saladin regained Jerusalem in 1182, and completely ceased to exist in that format after the defeat of Acre in 1291. The passing of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem left the Order without a leader, though it continued to survive in the European priories thanks to the protection of sovereigns, princes, bishops and the Holy See. The priories kept alive the ideals of the Crusader Knights: propagation of the Faith, defense of the weak, charity towards other human beings. With the exception of events in Spain, it was only rarely that the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre ever took part again in military action to defend Christianity.In the 14th century, the Holy See made an extremely high payment to the Egyptian Sultan so that he would grant the right to protect the Christian Sanctuaries to the Franciscan Friars Minor. Throughout the whole period of the Latin Patriarchate’s suppression, the right to create new Knights was the prerogative of the representative of the highest Catholic authority in the Holy Land: the Custos.In 1847 the Patriarchate was restored and Pope Pius IX modernized the Order, issuing a new Constitution, which placed it under the direct protection of the Holy See and conferred its government to the Latin Patriarch. The Order’s fundamental role was also defined: to uphold the works of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, whilst preserving the spiritual duty of propagating the Faith.In 1949, Pius XII decreed that the Grand Master of the Order should be a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and assigned the position of Grand Prior to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. In 1962 Pope John XXIII and, in 1967, Pope Paul VI reorganized and revitalized the Order by adding more specific regulations to the Constitution with the intention of making the Order’s activities more co-coordinated and more effective.In February 1996, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II enhanced the Order’s status. Today it is a Public Association of faithful with a legal canonical and public personality, constituted by the Holy See under Canon Law 312, paragraph 1:1.
https://eohsjeastern.org/a-brief-history/
The Priory of Sion is an initiatory Order of chivalry, founded on July 15 1099 in Jerusalem, by Godfrey of Bouillon, at the Abbey "Our Lady of Mount Sion" as "Order of our Lady of Mount Sion."The Order, after being registered for the first time in history, in 1956, and then being dissolved in 1993, was newly registered in 2015, perpetuating the legitimate Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair's lineage, through the actual Grand Master, Marco Rigamonti.The Priory of Sion is characterized by a gnostic and rosicrucian influence, who sets himself the task of supporting and nurturing personal growth, moral and spiritual, with respect and in harmony with the personal objectives that each of us, by nature, has to carry through in life experience.It's also our purpose the esoteric research as the study and experience related to the transcendent and mystical in an environment of communion with our Brothers and Sisters, Members of the Order.The Priory of Sion today inherits a tradition of esoteric, philosophical, spiritual and cultural legacy, which favors the cultivation of values and principles that offers the way to live a more aware and noble personal dimension.We work through symbols, ancient rituals, theurgic practice and traditions, in order to live a personal and collective sprirituality in communion with our Brothers and Sisters.The Order is apolitical and forbids its members to be made a place of political debate, or even worse, to be exploited for such purposes."
http://www.prieure-de-sion.com/
The equites (/ˈɛkwɪtiːz/; lit. 'horse' or 'cavalrymen', though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques (Latin: [ˈɛ.kʷɛs]).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equites
Horses: the extent to which they can be possessed in our houses [575, 576]; the extent to which they can be used on missions [574, 625]
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
The Prieuré was cited by name in references extending from the twelfth to the early seventeenth century. Then, in documents dating from 1619, it was stated to have incurred the displeasure of King Louis XIII of France, who evicted them from their seat at Orléans and turned the premises over to the Jesuits.5 After that, the Prieuré de Sion seemed to vanish from the historical record, at least under that name, until 1956, when it appeared again, registered in the French Journal officiel. And yet the present-day Order had repeatedly cited certain of its activities between 1619 and the twentieth century, certain historical events in which it had played a role, certain historical developments in which it had some sort of vested interest. When we examined the events and developments in question, we found indisputable evidence attesting to the involvement of an organised and coherent cadre working in concert behind the scenes, sometimes using other institutions as a façade. This cadre was not named specifically, but everything indicated that it was indeed the Prieuré de Sion. What was more, it proved to involve precisely the same network of interlinked families claiming Merovingian descent. Whether it was the intrigues and the Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century, the insurrection known as the Fronde in the seventeenth century or the Masonic conspiracies of the eighteenth century, successive generations of precisely the same families were implicated, operating in accordance with a single consistent pattern."
The Messianic Legacy
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UV7FwghOOhdkp4fdk2SzG7oem2nRleW0/view?usp=sharing
The Counter-Reformation (Latin: Contrareformatio), also sometimes called the Catholic Revival,[1] was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to, and as an alternative to, the Protestant Reformations at the time. It is frequently dated to have begun with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and to have ended with the political conclusion of the European wars of religion in 1648, though this is controversial.[2] The broader term Catholic Reformation (Latin: Reformatio Catholica) also encompasses reforms and movements within the Church in the periods immediately before Protestantism or Trent and lasting later.
Initiated in part to address the challenges of the Protestant Reformations,[3] the Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort arising from the decrees of the Council of Trent. The effort produced apologetic and polemical documents, anti-corruption efforts, spiritual movements, the promotion of new religious orders, and the flourishing of new art and musical styles. Such policies (e.g., by the Imperial Diets of the Holy Roman Empire) had long-lasting effects in European history with exiles of Protestants continuing until the 1781 Patent of Toleration, although smaller expulsions took place in the 19th century.[4]
Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life by returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focusing on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality.[1] It also involved political activities and used the regional Inquisitions.
A primary emphasis of the Counter-Reformation was a mission to reach parts of the world that had been colonized as predominantly Catholic and also try to reconvert nations such as Sweden and England that once were Catholic from the time of the Christianisation of Europe, but had been lost to the Reformation.[1] Various Counter-Reformation theologians focused only on defending doctrinal positions such as the sacraments and pious practices that were attacked by the Protestant reformers,[1] up to the Second Vatican Council in 1962–1965.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Reformation
In a letter dated May 28, 1784 from Hanau, Prince Charles of Hesse wrote thus to
Willermoz, to whom he had just communicated the death of the famous Count of Saint-
Germain, unexpectedly in Feburary 28 th at his home in Gottorp:
“I asked him: Didyou know a certain Marshall of Bieberstain?
“Reply: Y es, verv well...
Where didyou see him?
“-At Varsovia.
Did he know something?
“-Relata refero... Doyou understand me, my child?
“— Yes, my dear Count, I see that that implies he had papers, and that this
instruction could be given by him to others?
" - Exactly that.
“ - The late Hund would not hâve wanted to lie to us, would he?
“ - No, he was a good man.
“I said to him out of the blue:
“— Who was the Marshall’ s predecessor?
“ The response was prompt, without a moment’ s reflection:
"— Baron Rod, from Kœnigsberg.
“Here, of ail the proofs of our lineage, was the only gift 9 10 that I hâve ever had.
But it might not be as convincing to others ; I thought I would amuse you by
communicating this anecdote. ”
Bord, who gave us this letter drawn from the ancient archives in his book
“ Freemasomy in France ”, also gives us the name of the real founder of the “ Templar
Strict Observance” , without doubt around 1620, according to our personal investigations.
In fact, G. Montchal, Honorary Grand Prior of Switzerland, quotes five important
dates in his work “The Independent Grand Priory of Switzerland, Scottish Rectified Rite”,
also reproduced a more ancient text, drawn from the archives of the Priory, and published
for the fîrst time in 1909, but not for public circulation:
1644 In the entourage of James II, gentlemen affiliated with the Order of Scottish Masters
constituted the Order of Scottish Masters of Saint Andrew, which they linked to the
chivalric Order of that name.
1688 H. -G. de Marschall, hereditary Marshal of Thuringe, founded the Scottish Rectified Rite,
Corning out of the Order of Scottish Masters of Saint Andrew.
1730 From this date, we find a Templar Chapter established at Unwurden (Haute-Lusace).
Some historians believe that it was there that the Strict Templar Observance was initiated.
1 741 In 1 741, in Hamburg, a Chapter of Scottish Masters of Saint Andrew was founded in the
Lodge “Judica”. This is a significant fact, since this establishment thus revealed the
existence of a Templar System.
1749 An important date, which marked the official introduction of the Templar Rite, both by
H. -G. de Marschall, hereditary Marshal of Thuringe, and by his friend, Barond von
Hund, in the Lodge of Kittlitz, near Lobau.
9 Bonne - PV.
10 “ Mais elle ne saurait l’être pour d’autresV’ . I’m sure I’ve mistranslated this but I can’t think what else it
might mean.- Pv.
10
Templars & Rose Croix, Translatée! by Piers A Vaughan © 2005
You will note that, geographically speaking, ail these towns are located in the
provinces where the Teutonic Order of olden times had previously flourished. Let us
continue to quote G. de Montchal:
1755 Convent of Dresden, known under the name o/Rectification of Dresden , from which was
created the Rectified Rite of that name, and through which the Templar System was
established in a Masonic Workshop which took the name of Grand Lodge.
1763 Convent of Altenberg, near Iena. There the régime was submitted to a drastic reform,
and ail the Alchemists, Kabbalists and other were chased out. Its administrative
organization, which was that of the old Order of the Temple, was knit even doser still. It
took the name o/’Strict Templar Observance.
How, in a Order which had shown itself so terribly steeped in the aristocratie
morgue (in the words of European Masons), had occultists managed to gain admission?
Montchal tells us that at the Convent of Kohlo in 1742, a fïrst purging had already
occurred. That is a piece of history of secret societies and chivalric Orders which ....
It is very probably by and with the support of the Princes of the House of Hesse-
Cassel...
We know, in fact, from sure historié sources, that William IV of Hesse-Cassel,
called “The Wise ”, was an enlightened sovereign, remarkable for his broad and extended
knowledge, above ail in the realm of occultism.
Born on June 14, 1533, died August 25, 1592, he was the author of Astrological
Tables, and published the resuit of his observations in this area. He possessed an
astronomical observatory where he worked for rnany years with his friends, Christ
Rothmann, the wise Mathematician, and Just Borge, who was the best Physician-Optician
of the âge. He was also the friend and constant protector of Tycho de Brahé.
Now, from the appearance of the heraldry of the House of Hesse-Cassel, we can
note a curious fact. According to the genealogist La Chesnay des Bois, in his
“ Dictionary of Nobility ” (Ed. from 1776), quoting du Buisson, and according to J. B.
Rietstap in his book “General Heraldry”, both famous heraldists, the Princes of Hesse-
Cassel bore shields: “of silver with a red Lating cross with broad ends, with a second
crossbar in red 11 ...”
So the House of Hesse-Cassel bore as the distinctive family emblem the Latin
cross with a second red crossbar, which was the exclusive privilège of the high
dignitaries of the Order of the Temple, of the living Order...
For this red cross was its exclusive privilège, and none other among the knightly
Orders coming from the Crusades was given the right to work under the white mande!
11 “D ’ argent à la Croix pâtée et alésée de gueules, à la double traverse de gueules
il
Templars & Rose Croix, Translatée! by Piers A Vaughan © 2005
This privilège was conceded to the Templars by Pope Eugenius III in 1 146, at the request
of St. Bernard. (Cf. Probst-Biraben, in "The Mystery of the Templars ”, p. 29). As for the
double cross, it was the mark of high dignitaries of the Temple, as John Charpentier tells
us in his work "The Order of the Templars ” (p. 41).
But this is not ail. We hâve mentioned Tycho de Brahé, and here is a still more
surprising fact!
Son of the Grand Bailiff of Scanie, belonging to the oldest Swedish nobility (still
Sweden, or rather already Swedish), Tycho de Brahé had a château constructed which
was devoted to his alchemical and astrological studies, with a splendid library and
observatory, ail narned Uranienborg.
Born in 1 546 in Scanie, Denmark (which State was still a province of Sweden), he
died in Prague in 1601. Note this place, for we will return to it as a meeting place for
Jewish Kabbalists, Alchemists and Rosicrucian Theurgists in the years which follow,
right up to the end of the 18 th Century.
Now, one beautiful day in 1590, which disembarked in Uranienborg? King James
VI of Scotland, (future King of England under the name of James l st ), who had just
legally reinstated the Order of Chardon of Saint Andrew of Scotland, which Order was a
perpétuation of the Templars, as we hâve seen. . . From Uranienborg, the King and Tycho
de Brahé went to Cassel, and stayed near to William IV, the Wise. In 1591, a year later,
James VI published a flrst treatise on pneumatology, in which he treated at length on the
diverse nature of Spirits, developing the théories of his predecessor in this domain,
Reginald Scott, but perhaps also those of his friends: William IV the Wsie and Tycho de
Brahé. This book was “ Daemonologia , hoc est adversus incantationem sive magiam
institutio, auctore serenissimo potentissimioque principe.’’'’
This same sovereign, with the flrst English Rosicrucians, constituted the “ Royal
Rose Croix ”, composed of thirty-two knights (in remembrance of the thirty-two Paths of
Wisdom of the Kabbalah), and who was certainly the point of departure for the Jacobite
Rose-Croix, which became the 18 th Degree of Scottish Masonry of the 19 th Century.
How can one not accept that it was the resurgence of a vast initiatory movement
which perpetuated the Temple, which in one program and towards a coinmon aim was
able to unité these two sovereigns which, being occultists, both at the head of a defunct
Order of the Temple, bearing arms of foreign monks, like those of the high dignitaries of
the Temple for William IV the Wise, and those who took as a collective Symbol of the
Rose-Croix of the 18 th Century, for James VI of Scotland: “silver, with a red St. Andrews
Cross, four red roses in the quarters . . .” ?
“D ’ argent , au sautoir de gueules, cantonné de quatre roses du même”.
13 Which equates, graphically, to a cross of Saint Andrew, with four roses spread across the four angles of
this cross. Valentin Andrea bore this sign on his ring; it figures on a drawing decorating the upper région
of his portrait reproduced in the work by Wittermans: “ History of the Rose-Croix ”, p. 31.
12
Templars & Rose Croix, Translatée! by Piers A Vaughan © 2005
So, according to our own conclusions and to the light which preceded it, this is
the reason for the Alchemists, Kabbalists, Theurgists as well as commoners, entering an
Order as aristocratie as that of the Teutonic Knights or that of the Strict Templar
Observance from which it came.
We note that certain authors, notably Philléas Lebesgue, supported the theory that
Marshall von Ludendorff had been one of the last représentatives of an esoteric Teuronic
kernel, perpetuating certain théories from the Gibelins to exclusively pangennanist ends.
What the famous devise of the Austrian Emperors claimed to affinn with their
“A.E.I.O.U.”, when translated from Latin into English signified something like this:
“Austria is destined to dominate the world”. And it was Ludendorff who made Hitler!
Templars & Rose Croix, Translatée! by Piers A Vaughan © 2005
https://archive.org/stream/AmblelainRTemplarsRoseCroix/Amblelain%20R%20Templars%20%26%20Rose%20Croix_djvu.txt
Rosicrucianism is a theosophy advanced by an invisible order of spiritual knights who in spreading Christian Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and Gnosis seek to enliven and to preserve the memory of Divine Wisdom, understood as a feminine flame of love called Sofia or Shekhinah, exoterically given as a fresh unfolded rose, yet, more akin to the BLUE fire of alchemy, the BLUE virgin. Rosicrucians have no organisation and there are no recognizable Rosicrucian individuals, but the order makes its presence known by leaving behind engrammatic writings in the genre of Hermetic-Platonic Christianity.1 The historical roots of Hermeticism is to be located in Ancient Egypt. Long before the rise of Christianity, Hermetic texts were structured around the belief that organisms contain sparks of a Divine mind unto which they each strive to attend. Things easily transform into others, thereby generating certain cyclical patterns, cycles that periodically renew themselves on a cosmic scale. These transformations of life and death were enacted in the Hermetic Mysteries in Ancient Egypt through the gods Isis, Horus, and Osiris. In the Alexandrian period these myths were reshaped into Hermetic discourses on the transformations of the self with Thot, the scribal god. These discourses were introduced in the west in 1474 when Marsilio Ficino translated the Hermetic Pimander from the Greek. The story of Christian Rosencreutz can be seen as a new version of these mysteries, specifically tempered by German Paracelsian philosophy on the Lion of the darkest night, a biblical icon for how the higher self lies slumbering in consciousness.2"
Rose Cross Over The Baltic
by Suzanne Ackerman
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vWI_uTVg5lzNCDm16itq-PLSavozNR_F/view?usp=sharing
Around 1530, more than eighty years before the publication of the first manifesto, the association of cross and rose already existed in Portugal in the Convent of the Order of Christ, home of the Knights Templar, later renamed Order of Christ. Three bocetes were, and still are, on the abóboda (vault) of the initiation room. The rose can clearly be seen at the center of the cross.[34][35] At the same time, a minor writing by Paracelsus called Prognosticatio Eximii Doctoris Paracelsi (1530), containing 32 prophecies with allegorical pictures surrounded by enigmatic texts, makes reference to an image of a double cross over an open rose; this is one of the examples used to prove the "Fraternity of the Rose Cross" existed far earlier than 1614.[36]"
Rosicrucianism - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucianism
“Rosa Jesuitica, oder Jesuitische Rottgesellen, das ist, Eine Frag ob die Zween Orden, der ganandten Ritter von der Neerscharen Jesu, und der Rosen-Creuzer ein einiger Ordensen: per J. P. D. a S. Jesuitarum Protectorum. Prague, 1620.” (4to). This is a truly curious tract upon the “relations of the Jesuits and the Rosicrucians."
Rosa jesuitica, oder, Jesuitische Rottgesellen (1620) - Google Drive
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dT28PyPUPfqDfC0iVg7nGFsle8vYBXLf/view
The Knight’s Templar was expelled from the Papacy in 1312 by Pope Clement V and Philip IV of France. The few Templars who escaped went to the powerful kingdom of Aragon and became known as the Order of the Calatrava, who would later align with the the Montessa. In 1534, a Spanish nobleman by the name of Ignatius Loyola would revive the Templars and call them the "Society of Jesus." Loyola was a Templar, and a member of a secret society called the "Alumbrados." The third Superior General and co-founder of the order was Francis Borgia. The Borgia bloodline is part of the notorious "Black Nobility" which dates back to the ancient Ptolemaic period in history."
Exposing the Jesuits and the Papacy: The Jesuits are the revived Knights Templar (jesuitinquisition.blogspot.com)
http://jesuitinquisition.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-jesuits-are-revived-knights-templar.html
Alcaraz’s fervor, which in the past had given him successes in his proselytizing activities, was once again causing trouble. Hamilton opines, “Alcaraz continued to engineer his own downfall. He made no secret of his disapproval of those numerous individuals who had fallen under the spell of Ocaña and Olmilllos or who had been duped by Francisca Hernández.” Visions and trances were a point of contention for Alcaraz as it was for other alumbrados including Isabel de la Cruz. Alcaraz, however, had already had some disagreements for some time with Fray Francisco Ortiz and Francisco de Osuna concerning the value of these mystical endeavors. Alcaraz considered trances, visions and prophecy to be ataduras and thus undesirable. To engage in such activity would hinder one’s dejamiento or abandonment to God by refocusing the mind on prophecies that concerned themselves with the material.22 In his attempts to denounce Ocaña and Olmillos to the Franciscan provincial Alcaraz instead succeeded in calling attention to himself. In May of 1524 Francisco de Quiñones, the general of the Franciscan order, held the Inquisitorial chapter of Toledo in Escalona. On the 22nd of May a decree was issued that condemned the practices and activities of Isabel de la Cruz and Pedro Ruíz de Alcaraz.23
EL SABOR DE HEREJIA: THE EDICT OF 1525, THE ALUMBRADOS AND THE INQUISITORS’ USAGE OF LOCURA
by Javier A. Montoya
https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/.../85/00001/montoya_j.pdf
Self-love, Progress measured by abandoning
Senses, Application of
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
Head:
1. See Illness, mental
2. The superior general, head of the Society [666]"
page 463
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Revelation 13:18
New International Version
18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[a] That number is 666.
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Revelation 13:18 Or is humanity’s number
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2013%3A18&version=NIV
The Order of Calatrava (Spanish: Orden de Calatrava, Portuguese: Ordem de Calatrava) was one of the four Spanish military orders and the first military order founded in Castile, but the second to receive papal approval. The papal bull confirming the Order of Calatrava was given by Pope Alexander III on September 26, 1164. Most of the political and military power of the order had dissipated by the end of the 15th century, but the last dissolution of the order's property did not occur until 1838.'
Modern Times
In 1931, once again unilaterally, the Second Spanish Republic suppressed the Spanish Orders. To survive, they had to resort to the Ley de Asociaciones Civiles ("Law of Civil Associations"), leading a precarious existence until the Concordat of 1953 recognized the Priory. Afterward, by the papal bull Constat militarium, the Priory was reduced to a mere title of the Bishop of Ciudad Real.In 1980, upon request by his august father, who was appointed Dean President of the Council, King Juan Carlos I by royal initiative caused the rebirth of the Orders. Under the Apostolic Pastoral Tertio millennio adveniente, the Spanish Orders began their renewal in 1996.Today, the aim of the Spanish Orders is basically the same as they had when founded: the defense of the Catholic faith. The sword has been put aside, but their doctrine, example, self-sanctification, and divine worship remain active, aside from their cultural and social activities.Their two hundred and fifty members guard the spirit and life of the Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara, and Montesa under their Grand Master, King Felipe VI, and the Real Consejo de las Órdenes (Royal Council of the Orders) presided over by his Royal Highness Pedro of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria.[4]The Swiss luxury watchmaker Patek Philippe took the cross of the order in 1887 and established it as its company logo as a tribute to the knights, which remains until today.[5][6]""
Order of Calatrava - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Calatrava
The Oculus was positioned as part of the World Trade Center masterplan by Daniel Libeskind and designed by SANTIAGO CALATRAVA. The structure’s white metal-clad steel ribs reach up and out in a monumental move symbolic of a hand releasing a dove.The structure's orientation serves as a lasting reminder of the attacks of September 11, 2001. It is in alignment with the sun’s solar angles on each September 11, from 8:46 am, when the first plane struck, until 10:28 am, when the second tower collapsed. Its central skylight fits this alignment and washes the Oculus floor with a beam of light."
World Trade Center Oculus
50 Church Street New York, NY 10007
Oculus Transportation Hub | World Trade Center (officialworldtradecenter.com)
https://www.officialworldtradecenter.com/en/local/learn-about-wtc/oculus-transportation-hub.html
The Cistercian Order
Main article: Cistercians
In 1075 Robert de Molesme, a Benedictine monk from Cluny Abbey, had obtained the permission of Pope Gregory VII to found a monastery at Molesme in Burgundy. At Molesme, Robert tried to restore monastery practice to the simple and severe character of the original Rule of Saint Benedict, called "Strict Observance". Being only partly successful in this at Molesme, Robert in 1098 led a band of 21 monks from their abbey at Molesme to establish a new monastery. The monks acquired a plot of marsh land just south of Dijon called Cîteaux (Latin: "Cistercium") and set about building a new monastery there which became Cîteaux Abbey, the mother Abbey of the newly founded Cistercian Order.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluniac_Reforms
Finally, the Constitutions train us all for perfection, instructing us in the weapons to be used in combatting our three fierce and raging adversaries. They teach us how to counter the lust of the flesh with chastity, the lust of the eyes with poverty, and the pride of life with obedience. I shall say nothing of our observance of chastity (in which we should imitate the purity of the angels so far as our frailty allows), or of our OBSERVANCE of poverty (which is so STRICT that neither churches nor professed houses may acquire any rents, lands, or even perpetual endowments). As for obedience, however, by which we consecrate the chief and noblest part of ourselves to God, our Constitutions require of us that it be so prompt, eager, perfect, and integral that we do not swerve even a hairsbreadth from our superiors commands. In matters falling under obedience, not only must our action be guided by the superior s command and our will by his will, but even something much more difficult our understanding by his understanding.
To sum up: men crucified to the world, and to whom the world itself is crucified[7] such would our Constitutions have us to be; new men, I say, who have put off their affections to put on Christ;[8] dead to themselves to live to justice; who, with St. Paul in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Spirit, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, show themselves ministers of God[9] and by the armor of Justice on the right hand and, on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, by good success finally and ill success, press forward with great strides to their heavenly country. This is the sum and aim of our institute.
And so I beseech you, brothers in the Lord, that we may walk in a manner worthy of our vocation,[10] and, in order to know that vocation, may read and reread these Constitutions that have been bestowed upon us by the gift of God. Let us study them day and night. Let us vie with each other in learning them, pondering them, and keeping them. If we do so, our name will be matched by our lives and our profession made manifest in deed.
Farewell in Christ.
Rome, the house of the Society of Jesus, 1559 [7]
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Katharina von Bora (German: [kataˈʁiːnaː fɔn ˈboːʁaː]; 29 January 1499? – 20 December 1552), after her wedding Katharina Luther, also referred to as "die Lutherin" ('the Lutheress'),[1] was the wife of the German reformer Martin Luther and a seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation. Although little is known about her, she is often considered to have been important to the Reformation, her marriage setting a precedent for Protestant family life and clerical marriage.[2]
Ancestry
Katharina von Bora was the daughter to a family of Saxon lesser nobility.[3][4][5] According to common belief, she was born on 29 January 1499 in Lippendorf, but there is no evidence of this in contemporary documents. Due to there being multiple branches in her family and the uncertainty of her birth name, there are diverging theories about her place of birth.[6] One of them proposes that she was born in Hirschfeld and that her parents were Hans von Bora zu Hirschfeld and his wife, born Anna von Haugwitz.[7][8] It is also possible that Katharina was the daughter of Jan von Bora auf Lippendorf and his wife Margarete, both of whom were only mentioned in 1505.[9]
Early life
A portrait of Martin Luther in 1526 by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Her father sent then five-year-old von Bora to a Benedictine convent in Brehna in 1504 to be educated, according to a letter Laurentius Zoch sent to Martin Luther in 1531.[10] At the age of nine, she was moved to Nimbschen Abbey, Cistercian community named Marienthron ('Mary's Throne') near Grimma, where her maternal aunt was a nun.[11] Von Bora's presence is in the financial accounts of 1509/10.[12]
Plaque on the ruins of Nimbschen Abbey, commemorating von Bora's time there and her escape.
After years of being a nun, von Bora became interested in the growing reform movement and grew dissatisfied with cloistered life. Conspiring with several other sisters, she contacted Luther and begged for his assistance.[13] On 4 April 1523, Holy Saturday, Luther sent Leonhard Köppe, a merchant and councillor of Torgau who regularly delivered herring to the convent. The nuns escaped by hiding in his covered wagon among the fish barrels, and fled to Wittenberg.[14]
Luther asked the family of the nuns to admit them into their houses, but they declined, possibly because this would have made them accomplices to a crime under canon law.[15]
Within two years, Luther was able to arrange marriages or find employment for all of the escaped nuns except von Bora. She was first housed with the family of Philipp Reichenbach, the municipal clerk of Wittenberg, then with Lucas Cranach the Elder and his wife, Barbara. Von Bora had a number of suitors, including Hieronymus Baumgartner from Nuremberg, and a pastor, Kaspar Glatz from Orlamünde, but none of the proposals resulted in marriage. She told Luther's friend and fellow reformer, Nicolaus von Amsdorf, that she would be willing to marry only Luther or von Amsdorf.[16]
Marriage to Luther
Three depictions of Katharina von Bora
Martin Luther, as well as many of his friends, was at first unsure of whether he should marry. Philip Melanchthon thought that this would hurt the Reformation by causing scandal. Luther eventually decided that his marriage would 'please his father, rile the pope, cause the angels to laugh, and the devils to weep'.[16] 26-year-old Von Bora and 41-year-old Luther married on 13 June 1525, before witnesses including Justus Jonas, Johannes Bugenhagen, and Barbara and Lucas Cranach.[17] A small wedding breakfast was held the next morning, and a more formal, public ceremony on 27 June, presided over by Bugenhagen.[18]
The couple took up residence in the former dormitory and educational institution of Augustinian friars studying in Wittenberg (known as the 'Black Monastery'), a wedding gift from John, Elector of Saxony, brother of Luther's protector Frederick III, Elector of Saxony.[19] Katharina immediately took on the task of managing the monastery's vast holdings. She bred and sold cattle and ran a brewery to provide for their family, the numerous students who boarded with them, and her husband's visitors. In times of epidemics, she operated a hospital with nurses, working alongside them. Luther called her the 'boss of Zulsdorf', after the farm they owned, and the 'morning star of Wittenberg' for her habit of rising at 4 a.m.[2]
Based on Luther's descriptions, his wife, whom he nicknamed 'Herr Käthe', exerted much control over his life. She might have even influenced his decisions to a degree; Luther said that his wife 'convince[d] [him] of whatever' she pleased', and explicitly afforded her 'complete control' over the household, as long as 'his rights' were 'preserved', since '[f]emale government has never done any good'.[20] She thus assisted her husband with running their estate and directed renovations when necessary.[21] Anecdotal evidence suggests that Katharina Luther played a wife's role as taught by her husband's movement: she depended on him financially (although she also increased their estate's profits), and respected him as a 'higher vessel', always calling him 'Herr Doktor'. He reciprocated by occasionally consulting her on church matters.[22]
Katharina bore six children: Hans (1526–1575), Elisabeth (1527–1528), Magdalena (1529–1542), Martin (1531–1565), Paul (1533–1593), and Margarete (1534–1570). She also suffered a miscarriage on 1 November 1539. The Luthers raised four orphaned children, including Katharina's nephew, Fabian.[23]
Significance of the marriage
The marriage of von Bora to Luther is very important in the history of Protestantism, specifically in regard to the development of its views on marriage and gender roles. While Luther was not the first cleric to marry because of Reformation ideas, he was one of the most prominent. As he argued publicly for clerical marriage and produced much anti-Catholic propaganda, his marriage became a natural target for his enemies.[24]
After Luther's death
von Bora in 1546
von Bora's gravestone engraving at Saint Mary's Church in Torgau, Germany
When Martin Luther died in 1546, Katharina was left in difficult financial straits without Luther's salary as professor and pastor, even though she owned land, properties, and the Black Cloister. She had been counselled by Martin Luther to move out of the old abbey and sell it after his death, and move into much more modest quarters with the children who remained at home, but she refused.[25] Luther had named her his sole heir in his last will. His will could not be executed, however, because it did not conform with Saxon law.[26]
Almost immediately after, Katharina had to leave the Black Cloister, now called Lutherhaus, by herself, at the outbreak of the Schmalkaldic War, fleeing to Magdeburg. After she returned, the approaching war forced another flight in 1547, this time to Braunschweig. In July 1547, at the close of the war, she was able to return to Wittenberg.[citation needed]
After the war, the buildings and lands of the monastery had been torn apart and laid waste. Cattle and other farm animals had been stolen or killed. If she had sold the land and the buildings, she could have had a good financial situation. Financially, they could not remain there. Katharina was able to support herself thanks to the generosity of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, and the princes of Anhalt.[27]
She remained in Wittenberg in poverty until 1552, when an outbreak of the Black Plague and a harvest failure forced her to leave the city once again. She fled to Torgau, where she was thrown from her cart into a watery ditch near the city gates. For three months, she went in and out of consciousness, before dying in Torgau on 20 December 1552, at the age of 53. She was buried at Torgau's Saint Mary's Church, far from her husband's grave in Wittenberg. She is reported to have said on her deathbed, 'I will stick to Christ as a burr to cloth.'[28]
By the time of Katharina's death, the surviving Luther children were adults. After Katharina's death, the Black Cloister was sold back to the university in 1564 by his heirs.[citation needed]
Margareta Luther, born in Wittenberg on 27 December 1534, married into a noble, wealthy Prussian family, to Georg von Kunheim (Wehlau, 1 July 1523 – Mühlhausen [now Gvardeyskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast], 18 October 1611, the son of Georg von Kunheim [1480–1543] and wife Margarethe, Truchsessin von Wetzhausen [1490–1527]) but died in Mühlhausen in 1570 at the age of thirty-six.[29]
Commemoration
Katharina von Bora is commemorated on 20 December in the Calendar of Saints of some Lutheran churches in the United States.[30] In 2022, she was officially added to the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar with a feast day on 20 December.[31]
In addition to a statue in Wittenberg and several biographies, an opera of her life now keeps her memory alive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharina_von_Bora
I do further declare that I will help, assist, and advise all or any of His Holiness’s agents, in any place where I should be, in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Ireland or America, or in any other kingdom or territory I shall come to, and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestant or Masonic doctrines and to destroy all their pretended powers, legal or otherwise. I do further promise and declare that, notwithstanding, I am dispensed with to assume any religion heretical for the propagation of the Mother Church’s interest; to keep secret and private all her agents’ counsels from time to time, as they entrust me, and not to divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, writing or circumstances whatever; but to execute all that should be proposed, given in charge, or discovered unto me by you, my Ghostly Father, or any of this sacred order.
I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own or any mental reservation whatever, even as a corpse or cadaver (perinde ac cadaver), but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of the Pope and of Jesus Christ. That I will go to any part of the world whithersoever I may be sent, to the frozen regions north, jungles of India, to the centres of civilisation of Europe, or to the wild haunts of the barbarous savages of America without murmuring or repining, and will be submissive in all things, whatsoever is communicated to me.
I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition, and that will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants’ heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poniard, or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honour, rank, dignity or authority of the persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agents of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus.
In confirmation of which I hereby dedicate my life, soul, and all corporal powers, and with the dagger which I now receive I will subscribe my name written in my blood in testimony thereof; and should I prove false, or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the militia of the Pope cut off my hands and feet and my throat from ear to ear, my belly be opened and sulphur burned therein with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth, and my soul shall be tortured by demons in eternal hell forever.
That I will in voting always vote for a Knight of Columbus in preference to a Protestant, especially a Mason, and that I will leave my party so to do; that if two Catholics are on the ticket I will satisfy myself which is the better supporter of Mother Church and vote accordingly. That I will not deal with or employ a Protestant if in my power to deal with or employ a Catholic. That I will place Catholic girls in Protestant families that a weekly report may be made of the inner movements of the heretics. That I will provide myself with arms and ammunition that I may be in readiness when the word is passed, or I am commanded to defend the Church either as an individual or with the militia of the Pope.
The Jesuit Oath
https://www.jamesjpn.net/religion/the-jesuit-oath/
11 Traditional Wedding Vows to Exchange During Your Ceremony
Opt for a classic with these time-honored scripts.
By Blythe Copeland Updated on February 26, 2025
If reciting promises you wrote yourself in front of a large group of family, friends, and in-laws sounds more like a public speaking nightmare than a romantic start to a new life with your partner, relying on traditional wedding vows is a time-honored alternative.
Many traditional vows are determined by the religion that underlies your marriage ceremony, though interfaith and non-denominational ceremonies also have their own traditions. From the recited vows to the wording of the ring exchanges, these age-old promises are familiar, constant, and enduring.
You can use our traditional wedding vow scripts below word for word—or you can work with your partner or officiant to identify parts that resonate. Either way, inspiration awaits.
Reciting Traditional Wedding Vows
In many (but not all) religions, the declaration of vows symbolizes the moment when a couple officially becomes one—though the wordings vary according to the specific religion. There are several ways to perform the following monologue-style vows: You can memorize the words ahead of time, repeat them after the officiant, or the officiant can recite them in the form of a question, prompting a response of "I do" or "I will." Your religious official can often accommodate variations on the traditional wording.
At most wedding ceremonies, the exchange of rings immediately follows the recitation of vows and serves to seal those promises, though not all religions or ceremonies include a ring exchange. The ring symbolizes the unbroken circle of love, and, at many ceremonies, more vows are spoken as rings are exchanged.
While in some religious ceremonies (such as Orthodox and some Conservative Jewish weddings) only one partner usually receives a ring, many couples choose to have a double-ring ceremony. This is where both partners give and receive rings, although this practice did not become popular in the United States until after World War II.
Reciting Traditional Wedding Vows
In many (but not all) religions, the declaration of vows symbolizes the moment when a couple officially becomes one—though the wordings vary according to the specific religion. There are several ways to perform the following monologue-style vows: You can memorize the words ahead of time, repeat them after the officiant, or the officiant can recite them in the form of a question, prompting a response of "I do" or "I will." Your religious official can often accommodate variations on the traditional wording.
At most wedding ceremonies, the exchange of rings immediately follows the recitation of vows and serves to seal those promises, though not all religions or ceremonies include a ring exchange. The ring symbolizes the unbroken circle of love, and, at many ceremonies, more vows are spoken as rings are exchanged.
While in some religious ceremonies (such as Orthodox and some Conservative Jewish weddings) only one partner usually receives a ring, many couples choose to have a double-ring ceremony. This is where both partners give and receive rings, although this practice did not become popular in the United States until after World War II.
The Vows
In Jewish ceremonies, vows are recited only when the ring is given (or rings are exchanged).
The Rings
The groom says: "Harey at mekuddeshet li B'taba'at zo k'dat Moshe V'israel," which means, "Behold, thou are consecrated unto me with this ring according to the law of Moses and of Israel." Then the groom places the ring on the bride's finger.
If the wedding is a double-ring ceremony, the bride recites the same words (with changes for gender) and places the ring on the groom's finger.
The phrase, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine," is often recited in Hebrew, as well.
Catholic Wedding Vows
The Vows
"I, ___, take you, ___, for my lawful [wife/husband/partner], to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I will love and honor you all the days of my life."
The Rings
The priest will bless each ring one at time, after which each partner should place it on the other's finger. Each says: "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Take and wear this ring as a sign of my love and faithfulness."
Episcopal Wedding Vows
The Vows
"In the name of God, I, ___, take you, ___, to be my [wife/husband/partner], to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until parted by death. This is my solemn vow."
The Rings
Before placing the ring on their partner's finger, "___, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
If the wedding is a double-ring ceremony, the other partner does and recites the same.
Presbyterian Wedding Vows
The Vows
"I, ___, take you, ___, to be my [wife/husband/partner], and I do promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful [husband/wife/partner] in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live."
The Rings
Before placing the ring on their partner's finger, "This ring I give you, in token and pledge of our constant faith and abiding love."
If the wedding is a double-ring ceremony, the other partner does and recites the same.
Protestant Wedding Vows
The Vows
"I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded [wife/husband/partner], to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith."
The Rings
After the blessing from the celebrant, one partner says, "I give you this ring as a symbol of my love; and with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." The ring is then slipped on their love's finger.
If the wedding is a double-ring ceremony, the other partner does the same.
Muslim Wedding Vows
The Vows
"I,___, offer you myself in marriage and in accordance with the instructions of the Holy Quran and the Holy Prophet, peace and blessing be upon him. I pledge, in honesty and with sincerity, to be for you an obedient and faithful [wife/husband/partner]."
The other partner responds: "I,___, in accordance with the instructions of the Holy Quran and the Holy Prophet, peace and blessing be upon him. I pledge, in honesty and sincerity, to be for you a faithful and helpful [wife/husband/partner]."
Hindu Wedding Vows
The Vows
At Hindu weddings, couples recite a set of vows known as saptapadi, or the Seven Steps. This list of promises are recited as the couple walks around a ring of fire to honor Agni, the Hindu god of fire. As they walk, they state the following:
"I take this vow for (1) the fulfillment of the material needs of the family and for prosperity, (2) for the development of physical, mental, and spiritual strength, (3) to acquire wealth by pure and righteous means and to spend it wisely, (4) for a harmonious relationship, (5) to excel in raising strong and virtuous children, (6) for togetherness and compatibility, and (7) for friendship—to be dependable and faithful and for lifelong companionship."
Quaker Wedding Vows
The Vows
"In the presence of God and these our friends, I take thee to be my wife/husband, promising with divine assistance to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband/wife so long as we both shall live."
The Rings
While wedding bands are not part of Quaker wedding tradition, many couples opt to add a ring exchange during (or after) the marriage ceremony.
What to Do With Your Engagement Ring During the Wedding
Unitarian/Universalist Wedding Vows
The Vows
"I, ___, take you, ___, to be my [wife/husband/partner], to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish always."
The Rings
One partner places the ring on their beloved's finger and says: "With this ring, I wed you and pledge you my love now and forever." If the wedding is a double-ring ceremony, the bride does the same.
Interfaith Wedding Vows
The Vows
"I,___, take you, ___, to be my wife/husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life."
The Rings
An interfaith ceremony is designed by the engaged couple and their officiant to accommodate any type or number of religions, so each couple decides individually on the text accompanying the ring exchange.
Nondenominational Wedding Vows
The Vows
"___, I now take you to be my wedded [wife/husband/partner], to live together after God's ordinance in the holy relationship of marriage. I promise to love and comfort you, honor and keep you, and forsaking all others, I will be yours alone as long as we both shall live."
The Rings
A nondenominational wedding can also include the couple's choice of wording during the ring exchange.
https://www.marthastewart.com/7888175/traditional-wedding-vows
The Ring of the Fisherman (Latin: Anulus piscatoris; Italian: Anello Piscatorio), also known as the Piscatory Ring, is an official part of the regalia worn by the pope, who according to Catholic theology is the head of the Catholic Church and successor of Saint Peter, who was a fisherman by trade. It used to feature a bas-relief of Peter fishing from a boat, a symbolism derived from the tradition that the apostles were "fishers of men" (Mark 1:17). The Fisherman's Ring is a signet used until 1842 to seal official documents signed by the pope.[1] Since at least the Middle Ages it has been a tradition for Catholics meeting the pope to show their devotion by kissing the ring.[2]
History
A letter written by Pope Clement IV to his nephew Pietro Grossi in 1265 includes the earliest known mention of the Ring of the Fisherman, which was used for sealing all the pope's private correspondence. Public documents, by contrast, were sealed by stamping a different papal seal onto lead which was attached to the document. Such documents were historically called papal bulls, named after the stamped bulla (seal) of lead.[3]
Use of the Fisherman's Ring changed during the 15th century when it was used to seal official documents called papal briefs. That practice ended in 1842, when the sealing wax was replaced by a stamp which affixed the same device in red ink.[4]
Creation, transfer, and destruction
A new ring is cast for each pope as a general practice in tradition. Around the relief image is the reigning pope's Latin name. During the ceremony of a papal coronation or papal inauguration, the Camerlengo traditionally slips the ring on the ring finger of the new pope's right hand.[5] Benedict XVI had the dean of the College of Cardinals give him the ring, which he then placed upon himself.[6] Pope Francis was bestowed his ring by Cardinal Sodano at his installation.[7]
Upon a papal death, the ring used to be ceremonially destroyed using a hammer in the presence of other cardinals by the Camerlengo.[citation needed] This was done to prevent issuance of forged documents during the sede vacante.[8] Today, the destruction of the ring's device with deep scratches is a symbol of the end of rule of the pope who used to wear that ring.[citation needed] This custom was followed after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI by applying two deep cuts, in the shape of a cross, on the signet with a chisel.[9]
Wear
Pope Benedict XVI wearing his papal ring in 2005
Although Pope Benedict XVI wore his Fisherman's Ring daily, it is no longer the custom for popes to wear it at all. Generally, a new pope will either inherit the daily-wear ring of his predecessor, keep an old ring of his own preference, or will choose a new daily-wear style. Pope John Paul I usually wore a wide gold band similar in design to the mitre-shaped Second Vatican Council ring; in imitation of this, Pope John Paul II wore a wide gold crucifix shaped into a ring that had belonged to Pope Paul VI.[citation needed]
In former times, a special coronation ring was placed on the pope's finger, designed very large since it was worn over the pope's glove. That custom and the use of a coronation ring ended with Pope Paul VI.[citation needed]
Generally, popes of the past wore episcopal rings in keeping with the fashions of the time. Pope Pius XII, for example, often wore a heavily ornate ring set with a stone. Pope Pius IX most often wore a cameo of himself, made entirely of tiny diamonds, whilst Pope Pius X wore a simple, smaller stone-set ring. In keeping with the modern spirit suggested by Pope John XXIII and actually practiced in his later years by Pope Paul VI, Pope Francis only wears a simple gold-plated silver ring for papal ceremonies, preferring to wear a small silver ring from his days as a cardinal.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_the_Fisherman
Thus, it is only after having finished his second course, first as a simple Scholar, and then as an approved Scholar, and if at the end of his course of study as a scholar he is "regarded as highly promising," is the Jesuit Scholar allowed to pass into the third class-the Coadjutors. This later class is divided still into two further chapters-temporal and spiritual. Only the spiritual Coadjutors are admitted into holy orders as priest (Examen 6, sec. 1); the temporal go out into the various trades, vocations and professions to fulfill their assigned roles in the GRAND DESIGN. And note reader, that some, says Wylie, "are retained to minister in the lowest offices: they become college cooks, porters, or purveyors." For the "greater glory of God" it is held expedient that these should be "content to serve the society in the careful office of Martha [a servant]."
On the other hand, the spiritual Coadjutors are sent on the most difficult or important assignments: either as priests to royalty, leaders, and the affluent or as teachers in the best schools, and universities and institutions of PUBLIC POLICY. As priests, the Coadjutors would seek to reach and mold the youth, the wealthy, and the leaders. The work of reason, says Wylie, "he is required to be a priest of adequate learning, that he may assist the Society [the Jesuit Order] in hearing confessions, and giving instructions" in Catholic doctrine. In short, the Coadjutors are top-flight agents, selected for the most difficult assignments."
Chapter 13 "Crack Troops-The Training of a Jesuit"
Codeword Barbelon book One
by P.D. Stuart
Final years, illness and death
Luther on his deathbed, a portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Luther's grave in Schlosskirche, Wittenberg
Luther had been suffering from ill health for years, including Ménière's disease, vertigo, fainting, tinnitus, and a cataract in one eye.[237] From 1531 to 1546, his health deteriorated further. In 1536, he began to suffer from kidney and bladder stones, arthritis, and an ear infection which ruptured an ear drum. In December 1544, he began to feel the effects of angina.[238]
His poor physical health made him short-tempered and even harsher in his writings and comments. His wife Katharina was overheard saying, "Dear husband, you are too rude," and he responded, "They are teaching me to be rude."[239] In 1545 and 1546 Luther preached three times in the Market Church in Halle, staying with his friend Justus Jonas during Christmas.[240]
His last sermon was delivered at Eisleben, his place of birth, on 15 February 1546, three days before his death.[241] It was "entirely devoted to the obdurate Jews, whom it was a matter of great urgency to expel from all German territory," according to Léon Poliakov.[242] James Mackinnon writes that it concluded with a "fiery summons to drive the Jews bag and baggage from their midst, unless they desisted from their calumny and their usury and became Christians."[243] Luther said, "we want to practice Christian love toward them and pray that they convert," but also that they are "our public enemies ... and if they could kill us all, they would gladly do so. And so often they do."[244]
Luther's final journey, to Mansfeld, was taken because of his concern for his siblings' families continuing in their father Hans Luther's copper mining trade. Their livelihood was threatened by Count Albrecht of Mansfeld bringing the industry under his own control. The controversy that ensued involved all four Mansfeld counts: Albrecht, Philip, John George, and Gerhard. Luther journeyed to Mansfeld twice in late 1545 to participate in the negotiations for a settlement, and a third visit was needed in early 1546 for their completion.
The negotiations were successfully concluded on 17 February 1546. After 8 p.m., he experienced chest pains. When he went to his bed, he prayed, "Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God" (Ps. 31:5), the common prayer of the dying. At 1 a.m. on 18 February, he awoke with more chest pain and was warmed with hot towels. He thanked God for revealing his Son to him in whom he had believed. His companions, Justus Jonas and Michael Coelius, shouted loudly, "Reverend father, are you ready to die trusting in your Lord Jesus Christ and to confess the doctrine which you have taught in his name?" A distinct "Yes" was Luther's reply.[245]
An apoplectic stroke deprived him of his speech, and he died shortly afterwards at 2:45 a.m. on 18 February 1546, aged 62, in Eisleben, the city of his birth. He was buried in the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, in front of the pulpit.[246] The funeral was held by his friends Johannes Bugenhagen and Philipp Melanchthon.[247] A year later, troops of Luther's adversary Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor entered the town but were ordered by Charles not to disturb the grave.[247]
A piece of paper was later found on which Luther had written his last statement. The statement was in Latin, apart from "We are beggars," which was in German. The statement reads:
No one can understand Virgil's Bucolics unless he has been a shepherd for five years. No one can understand Virgil's Georgics, unless he has been a farmer for five years.
No one can understand Cicero's Letters (or so I teach), unless he has busied himself in the affairs of some prominent state for twenty years.
Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles.
Do not assail this divine Aeneid; nay, rather prostrate revere the ground that it treads.
We are beggars: this is true.[248][249]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther
[82] 27. 1Likewise, in addition to the other pilgrimages and probations explained above, the professed before making their profession, the coadjutors before taking their vows, 2and (when the superior thinks it wise) the scholastics before becoming approved and pronouncing their vows with the promise mentioned above, 3should engage in door-to-door begging for the love of God our Lord[49] for a period of three days at the times assigned to them, thus imitating the Society s earliest members. 4The purpose is that, going against the common manner of human thinking, they may be able in God s service and praise to humble themselves more and make greater spiritual progress, giving glory to his Divine Majesty. 5Another purpose is to enable them to be more disposed to practice begging when they are so commanded, or find it expedient or necessary 6when they are traveling through various parts of the world, according to what the supreme vicar of Christ our Lord may order or assign to them; or, in his place, the one who happens to be superior of the Society. 7For our profession requires that we be prepared and very much ready for whatever is enjoined upon us in our Lord and at whatsoever time, 8without asking for or expecting any reward in this present and transitory life, but hoping always for that life which lasts for all eternity, through God s supreme mercy.
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Galatians 4:9
1599 Geneva Bible
9 But now seeing ye know God, yea, rather are known of God, how turn ye again unto impotent and [a]beggarly rudiments, whereunto as from the beginning ye will be in bondage [b]again?
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Galatians 4:9 They are called impotent and beggarly ceremonies, being considered apart by themselves without Christ: and again, for that by that means they gave good testimony that they were beggars in Christ, when as notwithstanding, for men, to fall back from Christ to ceremonies, is nothing else, but to cast away riches, and to follow beggarly.
Galatians 4:9 By going backward.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204%3A9&version=GNV
SECTION 4:
POVERTY CERTAIN GENERAL PRINCIPLES
157 Voluntary religious poverty is the attempt of fallen human beings, in the radical following of the humble and poor Christ, to achieve that freedom from every inordinate attachment which is the condition for a great and ready love of God and neighbor.[39]
158 The principle and foundation of our poverty is found in a love of the Word of God made flesh and crucified.[40] Therefore in the Society that way of life is to be maintained which is as far as possible removed from all infection of avarice and as like as possible to evangelical poverty, which our first fathers experienced as more gratifying, more undefiled, and more suitable for the edification of the neighbor.[41]
159 §1. Our poverty in the Society is apostolic: our Lord has sent us to preach in poverty. [42] Therefore our poverty is measured by our apostolic purpose, so that our entire apostolate is informed with the spirit of poverty.[43] §2. Efficiency in the apostolate and the witness of apostolic poverty are two values that are closely united and must be held in an ongoing tension; this is a rule for apostolic institutes as well as for individuals.[44]
160 Our poverty is the condition of our apostolic credibility,[45] as the total expression of our trust in God and our freely given service to others,[46] when we are made witnesses of the freely bestowed love of God, who gave his Son for us in the total emptying of the incarnation and the cross.[47]
161 The forms of our poverty must truly suit the mentality, life, and apostolate of our times and give a visible witness to the Gospel. Therefore, our contemporary poverty must be especially characterized by these qualities: sincerity, by which our lives are really poor; devotion to work, by which we resemble workers in the world; and charity, by which we freely devote ourselves and all we have for the service of the neighbor.[48]
162 Let our poverty, sincerely and profoundly renewed,
be simple in community expression and joyous in the following of Christ,
happy in sharing all goods among ourselves and with others,
apostolic in its active indifference and readiness for any service,
inspiring our selection of ministries and turning us to those most in need,
spiritually effective, proclaiming Jesus Christ in our way of life and in all we do.[49]
163 The preferential option for the poor, as proposed by the Church, which the Society wishes to make its own, should find some concrete expression directly or indirectly in the life of every companion of Jesus, as well as in the orientations of our existing apostolic works and in our choice of new ministries.[50]
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/pfbid02BFkJz7qjJDHbJkyGpmiBb4xXLEsan8JiAyEosQgCcP1idnQSLHUK449vwy1x1RgRl
The bora is a northerly to north-easterly katabatic wind in areas near the Adriatic Sea. Similar nomenclature is used for north-eastern winds in other littoral areas of eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea basins.
Name
It is known in Greek as μπόρα (mpóra, pronounced bora) and Italian as bora. In English, the name bora is used.[1][2] The Serbo-Croatian name bura and Slovene burja are not etymologically related to bora; they derive from Common Slavic burja 'storm' (from the verb *burĭti), and the meaning 'bora' developed later.[3]
The same root as bora is found in the name of the Greek mythological figure of Boreas (Βορέας), and the Modern Greek word for the north wind βοράς. Historical linguists speculate that the name may derive from a Proto-Indo-European root *gworhx- 'mountain', which gave rise to Slavic gora and Sanskrit giri-, both 'mountain'.[4]
Features
The changeable bora can often be felt all over Adriatic Croatia, the Montenegrin Littoral, the Slovenian Littoral, Trieste, and the rest of the Adriatic east coast. It blows in gusts. The bora is most common during the winter. It affects coastal areas and it weakens into the open sea.
It blows hardest when a polar high-pressure area sits over the snow-covered mountains of the interior plateau behind the Dinaric coastal mountain range and a calm low-pressure area lies further south over the warmer Adriatic.[5] As the air grows even colder and thus denser at night, the bora increases. Its initial temperature is so low that even with the warming occasioned by its descent it reaches the lowlands as a cold wind.[6]
The wind takes two different traditional names in areas of Italy and Croatia depending on associated meteorological conditions: the "light bora" (Italian: bora chiara) is a bora in the presence of anticyclone clear skies, whereas cyclone clouds gathering on the hilltops and moving towards the seaside with rain or snow characterize the "dark bora" (Italian: bora scura, Croatian: škura bura).[7]
Areas affected
The area where some of the strongest bora winds occur is the Velebit mountain range in Croatia. This seaside mountain chain, spanning 145 km, represents a huge weather and climatic divide between the sharp continental climate of the interior, characterized by significant day/night temperature differences throughout the year, and the Adriatic coast, with a Mediterranean climate. The bora occurs because these two divided weather systems meet and tend to equalize over the mountain range.
Sailing during the bora can be challenging and it requires caution, regarding readiness of both the boat and its crew. Short, high waves with white crests are its characteristics, making the navigation difficult. The small drops formed by the wind create a so-called "sea smoke" that reduces the visibility significantly. Experienced seamen have a proverb: "When the bora sails, you don't!"[8] Sailing can be extremely dangerous for an inexperienced navigator in the Velebit Channel because the wind can start suddenly on a clear and calm day and result in major problems, frequently also affecting road traffic.
Near the towns of Senj, Stara Novalja, Karlobag and the southern portal of the Sveti Rok Tunnel in Croatia, it can reach speeds of up to 220 km/h. On 21 December 1998 the speed of a gust on the Maslenica Bridge (north of Zadar) was measured at a record speed of 69 m/s or 248 km/h.[9][10] Wind shields were installed on that part of the highway.[11] During 22 to 25 December 2003 on A1 highway near Sveti Rok Tunnel a reading measured the speed of 304 km/h, but this is not considered an official record because the instruments were not calibrated for such speed.[7]
Incidents where the Adriatic Sea becomes covered in ice during a bura storm have been recorded in 1956 in Senj and 1963 in Makarska.[12] The maximum duration of constant intense bura winds has been measured at 67–68 hours in Dalmatia.[12] In February 2012, during the early 2012 European cold wave, the shoreline in Senj froze and snow piled up after a 150 km/h bora plummeted the temperature to −14 °C, with 7 meter-high waves. The bora ripped the trees from the soil and destroyed roofs of houses.[13] On the island of Pag, the Bora threw fish out of the sea. In many Croatian coastal cities, fresh water froze inside the pipes.[14]
The wind is also an integral feature of Slovenia's Vipava Valley and, to a lesser extent, the Karst Plateau (known as Carso in Italian), an area of limestone heights over the Gulf of Trieste stretching towards the Istrian peninsula. Because the region separates the lower Adriatic coast from the Julian Alps range, extreme bora winds often occur there. They have influenced the region's traditional lifestyle and architecture. Towns on the coast, where the bora frequently occurs, are built densely with narrow streets in part because of the wind. Buildings in several towns and villages in Slovenia and the Province of Trieste (Italy) have stones on their roofs to prevent the roof tiles from being blown off. Chains and ropes are occasionally stretched along the sidewalks in downtown Trieste, Italy, to facilitate pedestrian traffic – gusts in the city are usually above 120 km/h reaching to maxima of near 200 km/h. A strong bora will often be reported on Italian television news. Slovenian towns where the strongest bora occurs are Ajdovščina, Vipava and, to a lesser extent, Nova Gorica. In Slovenia, the most affected section is usually the upper part of the Vipava Valley, stretching from Ajdovščina to Podnanos, where the speed of the wind can exceed 200 km/h.[15]
Strong bora winds also occur in the Tsemes Bay of the Black Sea near the Russian port of Novorossiysk, where they are known as nordost 'northeastern'.[16] They can reach speeds of up to 220 km/h.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bora_(wind)
The Tower of the Winds, known as the Ωρολόγιο του Κυρρήστου in Greek, and by other names, is an octagonal Pentelic marble tower in the Roman Agora in Athens, named after the eight large reliefs of wind gods around its top. Its date is uncertain, but was completed by about 50 BC, at the latest, as it was mentioned by Varro in his De re Rustica of about 37 BC.[1] It is "one of the very small number of buildings from classical antiquity that still stands virtually intact", as it has been continuously occupied for a series of different functions.[2]
Formerly topped by a wind vane, it is the only surviving horologium or clock tower from classical antiquity.[3] It also housed a large water clock and incorporated sundials placed prominently on its exterior faces; "citizens were thus able by using this building to orient themselves in space and time. Architecture, sculpture and the new science were perfectly integrated".[4]
According to A. W. Lawrence, "the originality of this building is exceptional, and of a character out of keeping with Hellenistic architecture as we know it ... the design is obviously Greek, both in the severity of decorative treatment and in the antiquated method of roofing. The contrast with work of the Roman Empire is extraordinary, considering the date", which is long after the Roman conquest of Greece.[5]
Names
The English name Tower of the Winds—personified on the building as the Anemoi—is ultimately a calque of the ancient Greek name Pýrgos tōn Anémōn (Πύργος των Ανέμων). It has also been known as the Horologium in Latin, the term used by Varro, or Horologion (Ancient Greek: Ὡρολόγιον, Hōrológion), from hṓra (ὥρα, "time period, hour") lógos (λόγος, "writing, recording") + -ion (-ιον), together usually meaning a sundial, clepsydra, or other timekeeping device but here used to describe the location housing them.
It is now known in Greek as the "Blowing Winds" (Greek: Αέρηδες, Aérides) and as the "Clock of Cyrrestes" (Greek: Ωρολόγιο του Κυρρήστου, Orológio tou Kyrrístou).
Design
Raised on three steps, the Tower of the Winds is 12 metres (39 ft) tall and has a diameter of about 8 metres (26 ft). In antiquity, Vitruvius tells us it was topped by a bronze statue of a Triton, holding a rod that acted as a weather vane indicating the wind direction; this has completely disappeared.[6][7] The frieze has reliefs, rather over life-size, of the eight wind deities—Boreas (N), Kaikias (NE), Apeliotes (E), Eurus (SE), Notus (S), Livas (SW), Zephyrus (W), and Skiron (NW)—there are eight sundials.[8] A cornice above is decorated with lions' heads in relief, functioning as water spouts.
Inside, there is a single large room. From ancient mentions by Varro and Vitruvius, it seems that time was measured by a water clock, driven by water coming down from the Acropolis. There are holes and channels in the floor relating to this, but the mechanism, presumably of metal and wood, has gone. Research has shown that the considerable height of the tower was motivated by the intention to place the sundials and the wind-vane at a height visible from the Agora, effectively making it an early example of a clocktower.[9]
It had two porches with pediments, supported by two Corinthian columns at the front, now disassembled, though the lower parts of three columns remain in place. At least as they are now, they have no bases, unusual in the Corinthian. There also seem to be the earliest use of small versions of formal columns for porches, later a very common feature.[10] The roofs of the porches probably used wood, the only parts of the building to do so, and eventually collapsed. Parts of the stone pediment of one may be seen set up beside the tower.[11]
These columns had capitals of a design now sometimes known as "Tower of the Winds Corinthian", a "late variant form" lacking the volutes ordinarily found in Corinthian capitals.[12] The capital on the roof, which supported the Triton weather-vane, used the same form; the broken lower part of this remains in place. None of these have survived complete, but there are enough fragments to make a confident reconstruction. There is a single row of acanthus leaves at the bottom of the capital, with a row of "tall, narrow leaves" behind.[13] These cling tightly to the swelling shaft, and are sometimes described as "lotus" leaves, as well as the vague "water-leaves" and palm leaves; their similarity to leaf forms on many ancient Egyptian capitals has been remarked on.[14] The form is found in smaller columns, both ancient and modern. The porch of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Queen Street, Edinburgh, has four examples, but conventional Corinthian capitals are used elsewhere in the building.
To the rear a "turret" held the water for the clock; only part of this has survived. The main roof is essentially original (exceptionally rare in an ancient building), with 24 triangular stone slabs, carved on the outside to look like tiles;[15] here rows of modern standard rounded roof tiles now cover the joins. Inside eight very small columns, less than four feet high but with richly carved shafts, stand at each corner of the octagon, on a circular cornice, running up to a circular architrave.[16]
Functionality
Andronicus of Cyrrhus, the designer, seems to have written a book on the winds. A passage in Vitruvius's chapter on town planning in his On Architecture (De architectura) seems to be based on this missing book. The emphasis is on planning street orientations to maximize the benefits, and minimize the harms, from the various winds.[17]
The London Vitruvius, the oldest surviving manuscript, includes only one of the original illustrations, a rather crudely drawn octagonal wind rose in the margin. This was written in Germany in about 800 to 825, probably at the abbey of Saint Pantaleon, Cologne.[18]
Although often described as a clocktower, it is not clear if, or how, the readings on the water clock inside could be communicated to people outside the building; it may have been necessary to go inside. The sundials on each face are individually customised to allow for the very differing times of the day that they were in direct sunlight. There was a further sundial on the turret at the back; the further parts of the lines can still be seen.[19]
The bronze gnomons (shadow-creating rods) had disappeared, but the holes for them remained, and modern replacements have been fitted. The straight lines engraved in the stone, from which the hours were taken, were originally painted and would have stood out more clearly. The ancient Greeks divided the day, when it was light, into twelve equal "hours" regardless of the time of year. The east and west faces only have four lines each, for the hours that face was in sunlight, whereas the south facing one has eight.[20]
The turret at the back was a water tank, fed from a spring on the Athens acropolis above. A valve mechanism allowed water to flow into the clock mechanism via a channel cut in the floor; it may also have branched into two other channels to the side. The central mechanism was surrounded by circular railings, fitted into depressions in the floor that remain. It was apparently possible to walk around the clock and see it from all angles. There have been various attempts to reconstruct on paper how the clock worked, but this remains uncertain.[21]
It may have been an astronomical clock, showing a calendar, and the movements of the major star groups. The Antikythera mechanism, the only ancient Greek clock mechanism to partially survive, found in a shipwreck, is of this type. The roof has traces of blue paint, and may have depicted the sky in some way, even been some form of planetarium; there were no windows in the original building. it is carved differently from the outside, to give a smooth shallow dome.[22]
Later, the water supply was converted from underground pipes to a small aqueduct, the last section of which partially remains next to the tower. The large, slightly curving, channel in the floor leading from the turret tank to the central hole may also have been added at this point.[23]
The eight reliefs of the winds
The Greeks had long had various theories on the number of classical compass winds, but eight was by this period the usual number. The anemoi were named and regarded as minor deities. The large reliefs characterize each wind in terms of the things they carry, and often spill out from containers, the warmth of their clothing, and to some extent their physiques and expressions. All have large wings and are male, but of differing ages.[24] These representations of the winds are the largest known from antiquity.[25] They were originally painted, and had various extra elements in other materials, probably bronze.[26] Their names are carved above them; these are now hard to read from the ground, with the modern metal restraining cable passing through them.
In the table the prints are illustrations from the first volume of The Antiquities of Athens (London, 1762), and the start of the descriptions of the winds are given. The tower was one of only five ancient Greek buildings given a full treatment in this work. It had been surveyed and drawn by James "Athenian" Stuart and Nicholas Revett on an expedition in 1751–54, and the engravings were by James Basire (later the master of William Blake) back in London. These clearly tidy up the worn reliefs, but were also recorded when they had over 250 years less exposure to weather than today.
History
According to Vitruvius and Varro, the astronomer Andronicus of Cyrrhus designed the Tower of the Winds.[32] But very little is known about his life, not even whether he came from the Cyrrhus in Macedonia or the larger Seleucid city (named after it) on the Euphrates.[33] From the style of the sculptures the tower is usually dated around 50 BC,[34] not long before Varro and Vitruvius mention it. An alternative possibility is that it was part of the generosity of Attalus III of Pergamon (d. 131 BC) who built the Stoa of Attalus in the city. This would place it earlier than the rest of the Roman forum,[35] and explain how such an expensive build was financed.
If the usual dating is correct, it formed part of the reconstruction of Athens after it was mostly levelled by the Roman legions under Sulla in 86 BC following the Siege of Athens and Piraeus during the First Mithridatic War.[36]
From a cross on an inside wall, and traces of paintings, the building was probably used as a martyrium for an apostle,[37] church or baptistry in late antiquity.[38] By the time of Ottoman rule it was buried up to half its height, and traces of this can be observed in the interior, where Turkish inscriptions may be found on the walls. It was fully excavated in the 19th century by the Archaeological Society of Athens.[citation needed] The idea that there was an Athens Mevlevi Convent or its ritual hall in the Tower and that the other buildings belonging to the Convent were located around it is incorrect. The Tower, which was converted into a Qadirî tekke sometime between 1749 and 1751, was used by Qadirî dervishes to perform their religious rituals for 70 years between 1751 and 1821, and was evacuated after the Greek revolt of 1821.[39]
The building became better known outside Greece from 1762, when a description and several careful measured engraved illustrations were published in London in the first volume of The Antiquities of Athens. The tower was one of only five ancient Greek buildings given a full treatment in this important work. It had been surveyed by James "Athenian" Stuart and Nicholas Revett on an expedition in 1751–54. When it was seen by them the dervishes operated on a wooden floor built above the rubble of the ancient floor level, which Stuart and Revett were allowed to remove temporarily. They had cut out a mihrab in the wall, which starts just above the lower cornice,[40] slightly above the level of their wooden floor.
By this point depictions and early photographs show that the surrounding ground level had risen by several feet, and entry was by a sort of trench around part of the building. In the later 19th and 20th centuries the surrounding area was cleared of modern buildings and excavated, restoring the original ground level around most of the building.
The Athens Ephorate of Antiquities performed restoration work, cleaning and conserving the structure, between 2014 and 2016.[41]
Ancient octagonal buildings
By far the most famous ancient octagonal building was the Pharos of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which partly survived long enough to be described by Islamic writers. This began with a square plan, but had an octagonal middle section below a final circular one. The octagonal middle would have been considerably larger than the Athens tower, and the tower must have suggested the Pharos to ancient visitors.[42] The Pharos was also decorated with statues of Tritons, usually shown at the top of the octagonal section on coins, and perhaps one on each of the eight sides, but it is not known whether it showed interest in the winds, or had sundials, a weather-vane or a clock.
The Pharos dates to the 3rd century BC, perhaps around 270 BC,[43] as does a much smaller mausoleum further along the coast at Abusir, which seems to be a scaled down version, as it also rises through square, octagonal and round sections, though with very different proportions between the heights of the sections.
Legacy
Several buildings are based, often very loosely, on the design of the Towers of the Winds, including:
The 18th-century Tower of the Winds on top of the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford, England,
The Temple of the Winds, which stands in the grounds of Mount Stewart near Newtownards in Northern Ireland, designed by James "Athenian" Stuart who had studied and published the original.[44]
St Pancras Church (1822) designed by William Inwood and his son Henry William Inwood, located in Euston, London. This is a unique Greek-revival church, that features two sets of Caryatids and a tower that was based on the classical Tower of the Winds.
The Daniel S. Schanck Observatory (1865) an early astronomical observatory at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The mausoleum of the founder of the Greek National Library Panayis Vagliano at West Norwood Cemetery, London.
The 15th-century Torre del Marzocco in Livorno.
The tower on St Luke's Church, West Norwood, in London, designed by Francis Octavius Bedford after he visited Athens on a Society of Dilettanti scholarship circa 1810.
A similar tower in Sevastopol, built in 1849.
The Carnaby Temple near Carnaby, East Riding of Yorkshire, built in 1770.
The Maitland Robinson building in Downing College, Cambridge, designed by Quinlan Terry in 1992.
The "Storm Tower" in Bude, Cornwall (1835), by George Wightwick
The upper part of the Tempio della Vittoria, a memorial in Milan to the fallen in WWI (adjacent to the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio,
The chapel of the Flanders Field American Cemetery built in 1930 in Waregem, Belgium, by Paul Cret.[45]
The "Four Winds" brick chimney of the former hydraulic power station beside Glasgow Harbour at Prince's Dock, Glasgow, designed by Burnet, Son and Campbell and built in 1894 for the Clyde Navigation Trust.
The Temple of the Winds at West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire, dating from the late 18th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_the_Winds
Coat of Arms of Pope John XXIII
In the centre of the pavement is the coat of arms of Pope John XXIII (r. 1958-63), which records his opening of the second Vatican Council on October 11th 1962.
The pavement also sports the coats of arms of Pope Clement (r. 1700-21)and Pope Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903).
walking Tours of Rome
Copyright © David Lown 2001-2025 All Rights Reserved.
https://www.walksinrome.com/portico-of-st-peters-basilica.html
World, the: 1. It is proper to our vocation: to go to diverse places and live in whatever part of the world and to be sent wherever the greater service of God and the help of souls can be hoped for [82, 92, 304, 308, 588, 603, 605, 626, 749]; to this purpose is directed the vow of special obedience to the supreme pontiff regarding missions, FI no. 3 [603, 605], 2 §1; consequently a complete availability, mobility, and universality are necessary, 110, 121 4°, 242 §3, 246 7°, 248, 259, 411; at the service of which is chastity, 144 §2; consequently our community is a community for dispersion, 255 §1, 312, 314 §2, 315, 317; thus also the need for communicating with different cultures of the world and for insertion into them, 99 §2, 106 §2, 110, 111, 246 2°; and for promoting that perfect and open cooperation among the members of the entire Society, of whatever province or region they may be, 396 §2. See also Cooperation, interprovincial and supraprovincial; Culture(s); Insertion 2. God is present in the world: exercising the ministry of healing and reconciliation, 246 4°; thus he is there to be sought and found, 223 §§3-4; the world, in great part afflicted with atheism and injustice and increasingly divided by diverse economic, social, and ethnic systems and by other sources of division and opposition, 59 §2, 223 §3, 246 4° 3. The world, as distinguished from religious life: is to be left behind, trampled underfoot, and renounced [30, 50, 53, 61, 66, 297]; it is to be despised because of the love for and imitation of Christ [101]; contempt for it assists in the union of minds and hearts [671]: customs which smack of the world are not to be introduced, 322.
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Pope John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes XXIII; Italian: Giovanni XXIII [dʒoˈvanni ventitreˈɛːzimo]; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Italian: [ˈandʒelo dʒuˈzɛppe roŋˈkalli];[a] 25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death in June 1963.
Roncalli was among 13 children born to Marianna Mazzola and Giovanni Battista Roncalli in a family of sharecroppers who lived in Sotto il Monte, a village in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy.[8] He was ordained to the priesthood on 10 August 1904 and served in a number of posts, as nuncio in France and a delegate to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In a consistory on 12 January 1953 Pope Pius XII made Roncalli a cardinal as the Cardinal-priest of Santa Prisca in addition to naming him as the Patriarch of Venice. Roncalli was unexpectedly elected pope on 28 October 1958 at age 76 after Pope Pius XII's death. Pope John XXIII surprised those who expected him to be a caretaker pope by calling the historic Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the first session opening on 11 October 1962, which is now his feast.
John XXIII made many passionate speeches during his pontificate. His views on equality were summed up in his statement, "We were all made in God's image, and thus, we are all Godly alike."[9][10] He made a major impact on the Catholic Church, opening it up to dramatic unexpected changes promulgated at the Second Vatican Council and by his own dealings with other churches and nations. In Italian politics, he prohibited bishops from interfering with local elections, and he helped the Christian Democracy party to cooperate with the Italian Socialist Party. In international affairs, his Ostpolitik engaged in dialogue with the communist countries of Eastern Europe. He especially reached out to the Eastern Orthodox churches.
His overall goal was to modernize the Church by emphasizing its pastoral role, and its necessary involvement with affairs of state. He dropped the traditional rule of 70 cardinals, increasing the size to 85. He used the opportunity to name the first cardinals from Africa, Japan, and the Philippines. He promoted ecumenical movements in cooperation with other Christian faiths. In doctrinal matters, he was a traditionalist, but he ended the practice of automatically formulating social and political policies on the basis of old theological propositions.[11]
He did not live to see the Second Vatican Council to completion. In September 1962, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died eight months later on June 3, 1963. His cause for canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 by his successor, Pope Paul VI, who declared him a Servant of God. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2000. On 5 July 2013, Pope Francis – bypassing the traditionally required second miracle – declared John XXIII a saint, based on his virtuous, model lifestyle, and because of the good which had come from his opening of the Second Vatican Council. He was canonized alongside Pope John Paul II himself on 27 April 2014.[12][13] John XXIII today is affectionately known as "the Good Pope" (Italian: il papa buono).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_XXIII
PARTICULAR AND DAILY EXAMEN
It contains in it three times, and two to examine oneself. The first time is in the morning, immediately on rising, when one ought to propose to guard himself with diligence against that particular sin or defect which he wants to correct and amend. The second time is after dinner, when one is to ask of God our Lord what one wants, namely, grace to remember how many times he has fallen into that particular sin or defect, and to amend himself in the future. Then let him make the first Examen, asking account of his soul of that particular thing proposed, which he wants to correct and amend. Let him go over hour by hour, or period by period, commencing at the hour he rose, and continuing up to the hour and instant of the present examen, and let him make in the first line of the G------- as many dots as were the times he has fallen into that particular sin or defect. Then let him resolve anew to amend himself up to the second Examen which he will make. The third time: After supper, the second Examen will be made, in the same way, hour by hour, commencing at the first Examen and continuing up to the present (second) one, and let him make in the second line of the same G------- as many dots as were the times he has fallen into that particular sin or defect. FOUR ADDITIONS FOLLOW TO RID ONESELF SOONER OF THAT PARTICULAR SIN OR DEFECT First Addition. The first Addition is that each time one falls into that particular sin or defect, let him put his hand on his breast, grieving for having fallen: which can be done even in the presence of many, without their perceiving what he is doing. Second Addition. The second: As the first line of the G------- means the first Examen, and the second line the second Examen, let him look at night if there is amendment from the first line to the second, that is, from the first Examen to the second. Third Addition. The third: To compare the second day with the first; that is, the two Examens of the present day with the other two Examens of the previous day, and see if he has amended himself from one day to the other. Fourth Addition. The fourth Addition: To compare one week with another, and see if he has amended himself in the present week over the week past. Note. It is to be noted that the first (large) G------- which follows means the Sunday: the second (smaller), the Monday: the third, the Tuesday, and so on.
GGGGGG
"The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
TRANSLATED FROM
THE AUTOGRAPH
BY
FATHER ELDER MULLAN, S.J.
I.H.S.
NEW YORK
P.J. KENEDY & SONS
PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE
https://ia801306.us.archive.org/8/items/a588350800loyouoft/a588350800loyouoft.pdf
Pope John XXIII's coat of arms.
Of gules, a silver sash, a silver tower mazonada and clarified with sable especially, accompanied chiefly by two fleurs-de-lis of the same, a silver chief with a winged leopard lion, holding a gospel with the front right leg open with the text "PAX TIBI MARCE EVANGELISTA MEUS", all in gold and saber letters.
https://br.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restr:C_o_a_John_XXIII.svg
Borja (Borgia)
Spanish: habitational name from a place in Zaragoza province named from Arabic burj ‘tower’. See also Borgia .
https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=borja
Pope Alexander VI[Note 2] (born Rodrigo de Borja[Note 3]; 1 January 1431 – 18 August 1503) (epithet: Valentinus ("The Valencian")[6] was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 August 1492 until his death in 1503. Born into the prominent Borgia family in Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon (now Spain), Rodrigo studied law at the University of Bologna. He was ordained deacon and made a cardinal in 1456 after the election of his uncle as Pope Callixtus III, and a year later he became vice-chancellor of the Catholic Church. He proceeded to serve in the Curia under the next four popes, acquiring significant influence and wealth in the process. In 1492, Rodrigo was elected pope, taking the name Alexander VI.
Alexander's papal bulls of 1493 confirmed or reconfirmed the rights of the Spanish crown in the New World following the finds of Christopher Columbus in 1492. During the second Italian war, Alexander VI supported his son Cesare Borgia as a condottiero for the French king. The scope of his foreign policy was to gain the most advantageous terms for his family.[7][8]
Alexander is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, partly because he acknowledged fathering several children by his mistresses. As a result, his Italianized Valencian surname, Borgia, became a byword for libertinism and nepotism, which are traditionally considered as characterizing his pontificate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI
Francis Borgia SJ (Valencian: Francesc de Borja; Spanish: Francisco de Borja; 28 October 1510 – 30 September 1572) was a Spanish Jesuit priest. The great-grandson of both Pope Alexander VI and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, he was Duke of Gandía and a grandee of Spain. After the death of his wife, Borgia renounced his titles and became a priest in the Society of Jesus, later serving as its third superior general. He was canonized on 20 June 1670 by Pope Clement X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Borgia
The Carolingian dynasty (/ˌkærəˈlɪndʒiən/ KARR-ə-LIN-jee-ən;[1] known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD.[2] The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. Nearly every monarch of France from Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious till the penultimate monarch of France Louis Philippe have been his descendants. His death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Name
The Carolingian dynasty takes its name from Carolus, the Latinised name of multiple Frankish kings including Charlemagne and Charles Martel.[3] The name originates from a common Germanic word, rendered in Old High German as Karl or Kerl,[4] meaning 'man', 'husband', or 'FREEMAN'.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_dynasty
PART VI 1THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THOSE ALREADY ADMITTED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE BODY OF THE SOCIETY
SECTION 1: THE APOSTOLIC CHARACTER OF OUR VOWS IN GENERAL
143 §1. Our consecration by profession of the evangelical counsels, by which we respond to a divine vocation, is at one and the same time the following of Christ poor, virginal, and obedient and a rejection of those idols that the world is always prepared to adore, especially wealth, pleasure, prestige, and power. Hence, our poverty, chastity, and obedience ought visibly and efficaciously to bear witness to this attitude, whereby we proclaim the evangelical possibility of a certain communion among men and women that is a foretaste of the future kingdom of God.[1]
§2. Our religious vows, while binding us, also set us FREE:
FREE, by our vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor and to use whatever resources we may have, not for our own security and comfort, but for service;
FREE, by our vow of chastity, to be men for others, in friendship and communion with all, but especially with those who share our mission of service;
FREE, by our vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to us by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of all our superiors.[2] [1] See GC 32, d. 4, no. 16; see GC 31, d. 16, no. 4; d. 17, no. 2; d. 18, no. 3. [2] GC 32, d. 2, no. 20. 215
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
295 In the elaboration and expression of our theogical views and in our choice of pastoral options, we must always actively seek to understand the mind of the hierarchical Church, having as our goal the Society s objective to help souls. At the same time we must try to articulate the sensus fidelium and help the magisterium discern in it the movements of the Spirit in accord with the teaching of Vatican II.[125]
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
The King of the Jews will be the real Pope of the Universe, the patriarch of an international Church. But, in the meantime, while we are re-educating youth in new traditional religions and afterwards in ours, we shall not overtly lay a finger on existing churches, but we shall fight against them by criticism calculated to produce schism. . . . In general, then, our contemporary press will continue to convict State affairs, religions, incapacities of the goyim, always using the most unprincipled expressions in order by every means to lower their prestige in the manner which can only be practised by the genius of our gifted tribe. . . . Our kingdom will be an apologia of the divinity Vishnu, in whom is found its personification—in our hundred hands will be, one in each, the springs of the machinery of social life. We shall see everything without the aid of official police which, in that scope of its rights which we elaborated for the use of the goyim, hinders governments from seeing. In our programme one-third of our subjects will keep the rest under observation from a sense of duty, on the principle of volunteer service to the State. It will then be no disgrace to be a spy and informer, but a merit: unfounded denunciations, however, will be cruelly punished that there may be no development of abuses of this right. Our agents will be taken from the higher as well as the lower ranks of society, from among the administrative class who spend their time in amusements, editors, printers and publishers, booksellers, clerks, and salesmen, workmen, coachmen, lackeys, etcetera. This body, having no rights and not being empowered to take any action on their own account, and consequently a police without any power, will only witness and report: verification of their reports and arrests will depend upon a responsible group of controllers of police affairs, while the actual act of arrest will be performed by the gendarmerie and the municipal police. Any person not denouncing anything seen or heard concerning questions of polity will also be charged with and made responsible for concealment, if it be proved that he is guilty of this crime. Just as nowadays our brethren are obliged at their own risk to denounce to the kabal apostates of their own family or members who have been noticed doing anything in opposition to the kabal, so in our kingdom over all the world it will be obligatory for all our subjects to observe the duty of service to the State in this direction. Such an organisation will extirpate abuses of authority, of force, of bribery, everything in fact which we by our counsels, by our theories of the superhuman rights of man, have introduced into the customs of the goyim. . . . But how else were we to procure that increase of causes predisposing to disorders in the midst of their administration? . . . Among the number of those methods one of the most important is—agents for the restoration of order, so placed as to have the opportunity in their disintegrating activity of developing and displaying their evil inclinations—obstinate self-conceit, irresponsible exercise of authority, and, first and foremost, venality."
THE PROTOCOLS OF THE LEARNED ELDERS OF ZION
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Kidd/thesis/pdf/protocols.pdf
"The Star of David [in Hebrew, the Magen David or Shield of David] is renowned as the sacred symbol of the Jewish faith. Indeed, the Star of David is the distinguishing feature on the Israeli flag and as an ornament of jewelry the Star of David is proudly worn by millions of devout Jews worldwide. Yes, the Star of David is purely Jewish. Or is it?Recently, while visiting the holy city of Jerusalem, I purchased a silver pendant of the “Star of David” from a local shopkeeper and when I put it around my neck I was asked:
“Why are you wearing a Jewish symbol?”
To this I replied:
”This is Sat-kona, the symbol of Goloka, the abode of Krsna.”
This article is about the origins of Sat-kona [the Star of Goloka or Goloka-yantra], its transcendental significance, its historical use in Vedic and other ancient cultures, its use in Christianity and Islam, and its eventual adoption by the Jewish faith in the 17th century as a popular symbol of Judaism.
Symbols have long been a part of the histories of the world's great civilizations and Sat-kona is no exception. Before it appeared in the west, from the most ancient of times to the present day, Sat-kona has been at the heart of spirituality in India. The Sat-kona [the six pointed star with a hexagram within, defining sacred space], is constructed by joining two perfect triangles — one pointing upward signifying Purusa and the other pointing downward signifying Prakrti. It is the oldest spiritual symbol known to the world. Sat-kona has been around since the beginning of the universe. We do not expect to find any archaeological evidence to support this statement, however, from sastra, Vedic literature, the evidence is there.
In the oldest known Vedic literature, Sri Brahma-samhita [in that it has been attributed to Lord Brahma and composed shortly after creation], the Sat-kona is mentioned in a description of the supreme abode of Goloka, the abode of Krsna.
karnikaram mahad-yantram sat-konam vajra-kilakam
sadanga-satpadi-sthanam prakrtya purusena ca
premananda-mahananda-rasenavasthitam hi vat
“The center of the divine lotus is the core — Krsna's residence. It is presided over by the Predominated and Predominating Moiety. It is mapped as a hexagonal mystic symbol [sat-konam]. Like a diamond, the effulgent Supreme Entity of Krsna, the Fountainhead of all divine potencies, presides as the central pivot. The great mantra of eighteen syllables [Gopala-mantra], which is formed of six integral parts, is manifest as a hexagonal place with six-fold divisions.” [Sri Brahma-samhita, Ch-5, Tx-3]
tat-kinjalkam tad-amsanam tat-patrani sriyam api
“The core of that eternal holy abode which is called Gokula is the hexagonal land of Krsna's abode. The stamens or petals are the residences of the cowherds or Gopas, who are Krsna's own, His dear most friends and high loving devotees that are a part of His own self. Those abodes appear like many walls, all beautifully effulgent. The extensive foliage of that lotus constitutes the sub-forests that are the abodes of the loving damsels of Krsna, headed by Sri Radhika.” [Sri Brahma-samhita, Ch-5, Tx-4]
In the practice of devotion [krsna-bhakti] three important items are given to the devotee to help him/her realize the Supreme Reality, i.e. mantra, yantra and Sri Murti. Mantra is the sound representation of the Supreme Reality, yantra is the mechanized or symbolic representation of the mantra and the Sri Murti is the three dimensional [personal] form of the mantra made manifest to the senses of the devotee to receive his or her service.
Overall, in contemporary Gaudiya Vaisnavism, yantras are no longer in vogue as they were in olden times. Preference has been given to Sri Murti who is worshiped with the appropriate or corresponding mantras. Although yantras are for the most part no longer in use amongst Gaudiyas, this was not always the case. In bygone days all branches of Vaisnavism were frequently found to use yantras in their daily worship and meditation.
The description given in the purports of Brahma-samhita says that the Gopala-mantra [klim krsnaya govindaya gopijana-vallabhaya svaha] manifests as the six sides of the hexagonal figure [Krsnaya, Govindaya, Gopijana, Vallabhaya, Sva and Ha] and that the bija [klim] is the central pivot.
Sat-kona is set up in such a way that those who attend the yantra by meditation and who are deeply aspiring to enter into Krsna's divine pastimes must first realize six objectives of the mantra, i.e. 1) the intrinsic form of Krsna [Krsnaya], 2) the intrinsic form of Krsna' pastimes in Vraja [Govindaya], 3) the intrinsic form of Krsna's intimate attendants, the Gopis [Gopijana], 4) the intrinsic form of full self-surrender unto Krsna, in the wake of those who are Krsna's beloved [Vallabhaya], 5) the pure soul's intrinsic form of divine cognition [Sva], and 6) the intrinsic nature of the soul to render transcendental loving service unto Krsna [Ha].
One who by virtue of being well established in such realizations of the mantra attains firmness [nistha] in the soul's engagement of divine service [abhidheya] and ultimately achieves the supreme goal of life [prayojana] by being engaged in spontaneous transcendental loving service to Krsna in the ego of a maidservant of Srimati Radharani.
At the stage of practice [sadhana], by the grace of the mantra assisted by Sat-kona, the manifest pastimes of Krsna in Gokula may appear in the heart of a devotee. And at the stage of perfection [siddhi] a devotee may realize the unmanifest pastimes of Krsna in Goloka.
Gaudiya Matha LogoAt the beginning of the 20th century the great Gaudiya Vaishnava acarya, Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati was inspired by the descriptions of Krsna' supreme abode in Brahma-samhita and thus incorporated the Sat-kona into the Gaudiya Matha logo. Indeed the logo of the Gaudiya Matha is in itself a Vaisnava yantra.
At the center of the hexagonal in the Gaudiya Matha logo, Sarasvati Thakura placed the bija-mantra Om [in place of klim] along with nama. In the six points [sat] of the Sat-kona he placed the six opulences, i.e. fame [yasa], beauty [sri], knowledge [jnana], renunciation [vairagya], wealth [aisvarya] and strength [virya].
In line with the purports of Bhaktivinoda Thakura in Brahma-samhita, Bhaktisiddhanta inserted Om in place of Klim to show that Klim and Om are non-different. Sahajiyas, and others of his time were of the habit of neglecting mantras such as Om and Brahma-gayatri, whereas Bhaktisiddhanta was of the practice to show how everything in its deeper meaning is related to Krsna. Bhaktivinoda's purport states as follows:
“The Gopala-tapaniya Upanisad states, tasmad omkara-sambhuto gopalo visvasambhavah, klim omkarasya caikatvam pathyate brahma-vadibhih. Omkara means Gopala, who is both Potency and the potent, and Klim means Omkara. Therefore, Klim or the primary desire seed [kama-bija] expresses the transcendental reality of Sri Sri Radha and Krsna.” [Sri Brahma-samhita, purport, Verse 4]
Furthermore, Sarasvati Thakura used the Sat-kona yantra as the floor plan for the temple of Sri Sri Guru-Gauranga-Gandharvika-Giridhari at Sri Caitanya Matha in Mayapura.
In the Vaisnava canon we find mention of numerous yantras such as the Visnu-yantra, Laksmi-yantra, Gopala-yantra, Radha-yantra, Sudarsana-yantra and Gayatri-yantra, etc."
https://gosai.com/writings/satkona-star-of-david-or-star-of-goloka
"Development of the Thai Monarchy and the Concept of Thai Kingship The Buddhist ideal of kingship after the Indian Emperor Asoka inspired many Southeast Asian monarchs. This emperor, who was considered the ideal Buddhist monarch, sent missionaries to the surrounding regions during his reign in the 3rd century B.C. Briefly, the ideal Buddhist monarch is a King of Righteousness who abides by the ten kingly virtues of piety, liberality, charity, freedom from anger, mercy, patience, rectitude, mildness, devotion, and freedom from enmity.341 Since the establishment of Sukhothai, the Thai monarchs have directed the development of the Thai nation with a firm yet benign hand. Formerly a Thai monarch was known as a Lord of Life, for they wielded absolute power. The Sukhothai kings observed exclusively the formalized Buddhist science of kingship, and they were both paternal and accessible to their people. During the Ayutthaya period (1350-1767), the Thai kings adopted the practice of divine kingship. The Ayutthaya kings embraced the Brahman concept of divine kingship to increase to a highly structured and distinguished position in terms of ritual, way of living, language and other elements. Thus, the Ayutthaya kings on coronation were invested with the trappings and ceremonies of Brahmanic rituals, and retitled with the names of Hindu gods. For example, Ramathibodi, the founder of Ayutthaya derived his name from Rama, the re-incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu and the hero of the Indian epic Ramayana. Likewise, kings of the Bangkok period were all named after the God Vishnu, as Rama.342 King Ramathibodi specifically invited eight Brahmans from the Hindu holy city of Benares (present-day Varanasi) to preside over and legitimize his coronation, and their descendants still consist of Brahmans who conduct ceremonies in the Thai royal court until the present day. Gradually, the lives of the Ayutthaya kings assumed supernatural eminence. Universally they were viewed as being without equals and residing above the law, authentic strongmen who held the power of life and death over their subjects. The Ayutthaya kings appointed all officials, owned all lands and their contents, including the people. Their unique positions were sustained by the elaborate court etiquette, language (royal words), ceremonies, and protocol, with which they surrounded themselves. The individuals themselves were considered as literally sacred. Commoners were forbidden to look upon them, touch them, or even mention their names in public.343 They ruled through a rigid hierarchy of intermediary courtiers, chamberlains, ministers, and court officials. Being a law unto themselves, the great Ayutthaya kings were powerful leaders who led the country as innovators, warriors, statesmen, and scholars. During the Bangkok period, the revolution of 1932 ended absolute monarchy and curtailed the political power of kings, but the revolution, however, did not in any way reduce the respect of the people towards them, nor downgrade their role to that of mere figureheads. The monarchy is now as much a cohesive force as it ever was. It is not easy for foreigners to understand the full extent of the Thai people’s respect for the royal family, since there is no real parallel elsewhere in the world. There are of course other constitutional monarchs, but none of them function in the same way as in Thailand, where the king is still a shaper of national welfare and one who continues to exercise a strong guiding influence in real and positive terms. The present monarch, King Bhumibol or King Rama IX, works tirelessly for the on-going prosperity of his people. While the King sets the model of an enlightened constitutional monarch, he also reigns as Head of State, Upholder of Religions, and Head of the Armed Forces. In consequence a certain amount of the old royal ceremonial persists along with a remarkable degree of the same public prestige as enjoyed under the rule of absolute royal power. The King is popularly held to be sacred and nonviolent. His portrait is commonly seen in homes, offices, schools, and public buildings, and many royal state occasions still draw enormous public interest. The King of Thailand has enabled the symbol and the person to be uniquely combined within the role of monarch."
"An Inculturation of Faith in Practice: The Thai Catholic Use of Royal Words By Wajira Nampet, SJ"
The Buddha & Jesus
An Anthology of Articles by Jesuits engaged in Buddhist Studies and Inter-religious Dialogue
https://web.archive.org/web/20220929093250/https://jcapsj.org/the-buddha-jesus/
"Alumbrado, (Spanish: “Enlightened”, ) Italian Illuminato, plural Illuminati, a follower of a mystical movement in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its adherents claimed that the human soul, having attained a certain degree of perfection, was permitted a vision of the divine and entered into direct communication with the Holy Spirit. From this state the soul could neither advance nor retrogress. Consequently, participation in the liturgy, good works, and observance of the exterior forms of religious life were unnecessary for those who had received the “light.” The Alumbrados came primarily from among the reformed Franciscans and the Jesuits, but their doctrines seem to have influenced all classes of people. The extravagant claims made for their visions and revelations caused them to be relentlessly persecuted. The Inquisition issued edicts against them on three occasions (1568, 1574, and 1623)."
https://www.britannica.com/event/Alumbrado
"Gautama
surname of the Buddha, from Sanskrit Gotamah, properly a patronymic, literally "descendant of the greatest ox," from superlative of gauh "ox, bull, cow."
Entries linking to gautama
Buddha (n.)
an epithet applied to the historical founder of Buddhism, 1680s, from Pali, literally "awakened, enlightened," past participle of budh "to awake, know, perceive," which is related to Sanskrit bodhati "is awake, observes, understands," from PIE root *bheudh- "be aware, make aware." Title given by his adherents to the man who taught this path, Siddhartha Gautama, also known to them as Sakyamuni "Sage of the Sakyas" (his family clan), who lived in northern India 5c. B.C.E."
https://www.etymonline.com/word/gautama
BULL of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302
For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: ‘Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms‘ and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ‘The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man‘ [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven‘ etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/bon08/b8unam.htm
THE CONFLICT: PRIORY OF SION VERSUS KNIGHTS TEMPLAR
Secret societies by virtue of their very secrecy have often kept historians at bay, and the historians, reluctant to confess their ignorance, prefer to diminish the consequence of their subject. Freemasonry.. is of vital importance to any social, psychological, cultural or political history of eighteenth-century Europe, and even to the founding of the United States; but most history books don't even mention it. It is almost as if an implicit policy obtained: If something cannot be exhaustively documented, it must be irrelevant and thereby not worth discussing I at all. Investigators of the Holy Grail' Freemasonry, French and English, as we know it today, finds its loots in two organizations of the Middle Ages - the Priory of Sion and the Order of the Knights Templar. What follows is the fascinating, if sometimes complicated and obscure history, of how these two modern, anti-Christian secular secret societies - English and French Freemasonry - developed from two groups that themselves had roots in the occult. We will see how the Priory of Sion desired to rule the world from the throne of David in Jerusalem through its counterfeit Jewish Merovingian bloodline, and how its own creation, the Knights Templar, moved beyond its role as police and protector of Sion to financial masters of medieval Europe. We will trace the alliance of Sion and the Templars, their dispute over the discovery of Solomon's treasures, and the terrible intrigues which followed that led to the undoing of the Templars in their struggle over wealth, power, and politics. We will reveal the beliefs of these two groups: that Jesus fathered children by Mary Magdalene; that a spiritual god of good (Satan) battles a material god of evil; that Lucifer, not Jesus, deserves worship; that a "Spear of Destiny" (later sought and possessed by Hitler) allows the holder to rule the world. We will also present data about the whereabouts of King Solomon's wealth, the plan to one day return it to Jerusalem, and reveal that the ultimate goal of these two groups is world government, and that their descendants, English and French Freemasonry, desire the same. The Historical Trail: The Priory of Sion and the Holy Grail In 1982 and 1986 three secular revisionist authors, Michael Baigent~ Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln published Holy Blood, Holy Grail followed by The Messianic Legacy. These two books dramatically reveal a secret order structured in the manner of Freemasonry, and founded in Europe twelve centuries before the Grand Lodge was officially formed in 1717. This order protects both the Holy Grail and the Merovingian bloodline, which bloodline carried Mystery Babylon into the Catholic Church in 496 A.D. 56 The Holy Grail, of course, is the so-called cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. The Merovingians, owners of the Holy Grail, teach that Jesus fathered children by Mary Magdalene. The Merovingians claim to be the offspring of that "holy" union, and as such, assert they are Jews of the Davidic line.
In Revelation 17:3-5 the apostle John describes a vision, which Rev. J. R. Church in Guardians of the Grail believes is fulfilled in the Grail legend. The Whore of Babylon is holding in her hand a golden cup full of blasphemy. Church believes the cup is the blasphemous Holy Grail Another element of the Grail legend is the spear supposed to have pierced the side of Jesus, also known as the Spear of Longinus or the Spear of Destiny. Whoever possesses this spear, so the legend goes, will rule the world. The Merovingians, whose descendants are the Habsburg pretenders to the Austrian throne today, are in possession of the spear. It is on display in the Habsburg museum in Vienna, Austria~ No one, however, knows the location of the Holy Grail. At least no one is telling. Although heretical, this secret society should not be discounted, for it is alive and well today. In fact, in 1956, an Order calling itself the Prieure de Sion, or Priory of Sion, registered itself publicly for the first time with the French government. (Sion is French for Zion.) It is from this Order that the legend of the Holy Grail originated five centuries after Christ's death. Rev. Church remarks of this organization: This mysterious group is presently made up of over 9,000 men, including Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Moslems. The members of this secret sect should be considered unfaithful to their respective beliefs, for in reality they are neither Christian nor Catholic, they are neither Jew nor Moslem. Their doctrine sidesteps the basic tenets of those beliefs and replaces them with the teachings of their greatest prophet - whom they believe to be Buddha.2 From this secret order J. R. Church believes will come the Anti-Christ, for he writes, "Their ultimate goal is world government!'"
Scarlet and the Beast
by John Daniel
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zCd0nFuvnM4OYWuVW5QUBCpsTfBv5bYx/view?usp=sharing
https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/pfbid0RPb7AmY21655CttWvoFiCiJjK26p7BBFDFgvaLGf65EMZu1KEt1zr6xZ9MXycRkSl
Hussite Wars
Main article: Hussite Wars
Responding with horror to the execution of Hus, the people of Bohemia moved even more rapidly away from Papal teachings. Rome then pronounced a crusade against them (1 March 1420): Pope Martin V issued a Papal bull authorizing the execution of all supporters of Hus and Wycliffe. King Wenceslaus IV died in August 1419, and his brother, Sigismund of Hungary, was unable to establish a real government in Bohemia due to the Hussite revolt.[54]
The Hussite community included most of the Czech population of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Under the leadership of Jan Žižka (c. 1360–1424) and later of Prokop the Great (c. 1380–1434)—both excellent commanders—the Hussites defeated the crusade and the other three crusades that followed (1419–1434). Fighting ended after a compromise between the Utraquist Hussites and the Catholic Council of Basel in 1436. It resulted in the Basel Compacts, in which the Catholic Church officially allowed Bohemia to practice its own version of Christianity (Hussitism). A century later as much as ninety percent of the inhabitants of the Czech Crown lands still followed Hussite teachings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus
The Western Schism, also known as the Papal Schism, the Great Occidental Schism, or the Schism of 1378 (Latin: Magnum schisma occidentale, Ecclesiae occidentalis schisma), was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417 in which bishops residing in Rome and Avignon both claimed to be the true pope, and were joined by a third line of Pisan claimants in 1409. The schism was driven by personalities and political allegiances, with the Avignon Papacy being closely associated with the French monarchy.
The papacy had resided in Avignon since 1309, but Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377. The Catholic Church split in 1378 after Gregory XI's death and Urban VI's election. A group of French cardinals declared his election invalid and elected Clement VII as pope. After several attempts at reconciliation, the Council of Pisa (1409) declared that both rivals were illegitimate and elected a third purported pope. The schism was finally resolved when the Pisan claimant Antipope John XXIII called the Council of Constance (1414–1418). The Council arranged the renunciation of both Roman pope Gregory XII and Pisan antipope John XXIII. The Avignon antipope Benedict XIII was excommunicated, while Pope Martin V was elected and reigned from Rome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism
On October 31, 1517, legend has it that the priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.
In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment—called “indulgences”—for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-posts-95-theses
Jan Hus (/hʊs/; Czech: [ˈjan ˈɦus] ⓘ; c. 1370 – 6 July 1415), sometimes anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, and referred to in historical texts as Iohannes Hus or Johannes Huss, was a Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and the inspiration of Hussitism, a key predecessor to Protestantism, and a seminal figure in the Bohemian Reformation. Hus is considered to be the first Church reformer, even though some designate the theorist John Wycliffe.[a][2][3][4][5] His teachings had a strong influence, most immediately in the approval of a reformed Bohemian religious denomination and, over a century later, on Martin Luther.
After being ordained as a Catholic priest, Hus began to preach in Prague. He opposed many aspects of the Catholic Church in Bohemia, such as its views on ecclesiology, simony, the Eucharist, and other theological topics. Hus was a master, dean and rector at the Charles University in Prague between 1409 and 1410.
Alexander V issued a Papal bull that excommunicated Hus; however, it was not enforced, and Hus continued to preach. Hus then spoke out against Alexander V's successor, Antipope John XXIII, for his selling of indulgences. Hus' excommunication was then enforced, and he spent the next two years living in exile.
When the Council of Constance assembled, Hus was asked to be there and present his views on the dissension within the Church. When he arrived, with a promise of safe-conduct,[6] he was arrested and put in prison. He was eventually taken in front of the council and asked to recant his views. He refused. On 6 July 1415, he was burned at the stake for "heresy" against the teachings of the Catholic Church.
After Hus was executed, the followers of his religious teachings (known as Hussites) refused to elect another Catholic monarch and defeated five consecutive papal crusades between 1420 and 1431 in what became known as the Hussite Wars. Both the Bohemian and the Moravian populations remained majority Hussite until the 1620s, when a Protestant defeat in the Battle of the White Mountain resulted in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown coming under Habsburg dominion for the next 300 years and being subject to immediate and forced conversion to Catholicism in an intense campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus
Rosicrucianism and the Bohemian War
If one wants to understand how the group around Simon Studion gained in influence, the political context of the 1590s must be carefully calibrated with the hopes set out at Tubingen in 1610. The Rosicrucian ideas were published in a period when political activities were set in motion to form an evangelical union in Germany, a union that (according to Studion in 1604) sought support in France, Britain, and Denmark. The rise of Johannes Bureus in Sweden, on
the other hand, confirms Frances Yates’ hypothesis that political initiatives in the Thirty Years’ War were influenced by Rosicrucian types of eschatology both before 1610 and after 1620. This notwithstanding that the year of the defeat at Prague in most of the recent literature has been transformed into a Rosicrucian anno non post quern,
underlined by such writings as Paul Nagel’s Cursus Quinqumali Mundi oder Wundergeheime Offenbarung (Halle, Saxonia, 1620) stating that the whole course of history would repeat itself within the course of four years before the bitter end: “ 1624 nec plus ultra.” Of course, Nagel was immediately attacked by a Jesuit author claiming that his doctrine of compressed repetition was a mere stage-play, falsely transposed to the scene of reality."
Rose Cross Cross Over The Baltic The Spread of Rosicrucianism In Northern Europe
by Susanna Akerman
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vWI_uTVg5lzNCDm16itq-PLSavozNR_F/view?usp=sharing
Rosa Jesuitica, oder Jesuitische Rottgesellen, das ist, Eine Frag ob die Zween Orden, der ganandten Ritter von der Neerscharen Jesu, und der Rosen-Creuzer ein einiger Ordensen: per J. P. D. a S. Jesuitarum Protectorum. Prague, 1620.” (4to).
This is a truly curious tract upon the “relations of the Jesuits and the Rosicrucians."
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dT28PyPUPfqDfC0iVg7nGFsle8vYBXLf/view?usp=sharing
Gustavus Adolphus the Great, known as the “Lion of the North,” the “Snow- King” of Sweden and the invincible military hero of the Black Pope’s Thirty Years’ War will forever stand as one of the eight greatest generals in the history of the world (Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Prince Eugene, Frederick II the Great, and Napoleon I) according to Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Never knowing that his beloved daughter, Christiana, would be converted to Romanism by a Portuguese Jesuit, Antonio Macedo, and would therefore renounce her father’s Lutheran throne of Sweden, Adolphus, the godly, the prayerful, the simply-attired, Lutheran servant of the risen Son of God, raged:
“There are three Ls I should like to see hanged: the Jesuit Lamormaine [Lamormaini], the Jesuit Laymann and the Jesuit Laurentius Forer.” {14}
[Emphasis added]
As this “holy war” of the Order came to a close Ridpath continues:
“It was evident that the end was at hand—that the insane and bloody project, conceived in the bosom of Jesuitism, and transplanted to the brain of [Emperor] Ferdinand II, to crush into the earth the cause for which Huss had died and Luther had lived, was now doomed to a complete and everlasting disappointment.” {15} [Emphasis added]
Indeed the end was a great disappointment for the Jesuits, but hardly everlasting. The Treaty of Westphalia, concluded in 1648, secured religious liberty and furthered the Protestant Bible-preaching Reformation. At the same time the Protestant Dutch Republic achieved its liberty from Jesuit-controlled Spain. Thus, the Devil’s Society of Jesus had failed to destroy Jehovah’s Protestant Reformation in attempting to return Europe to the Pope’s Dark Ages. The Devil failed to enslave Europe’s greatest White nations to both the Spiritual Power and the Temporal Power of the Great Papal Pretender, “Vicar of Christ;” Satan then (and now) fully intended to submit the world to the universal monarchy of his overt White Pope subservient to his covert Luciferian Black Pope. For in 1648 the world entered into that glorious epic of political liberty known to all historians as “the Modern Era."
Dear reader, do you understand why the Bible-believing Protestants through the arm of government were forced to use guns to resist tyrannical, usurping, political power then under the control of the Jesuits? Could it be that the Jesuits, having used U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy, Arlen Specter and Charles Schumer to further deprive us Americans of our right to bear arms, have also penetrated the National Rifle Association with one of their tools, John M. Snyder, a former Jesuit seminarian who is a member of the Pope’s Order of St. Michael the Archangel and who lead the effort to make “St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother” the patron saint of gun owners? In light of the Jesuit Conference seeking to ban all privately owned firearms, HOW RIDICULOUS AND HYPOCRITICAL CAN SNYDER BE!!!!
Could it be that the Jesuits have further used their Georgetown University graduate, President William “Bill” J. Clinton, to deprive us Americans of our right to own and bear arms secured by the Second Amendment with his “assault weapons” ban? Could it be that Adolf Hitler, who was brought to power by Germany’s Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli through the Crown Prince of Bavaria and Knight of Malta Rupprecht Wittelsbach and by the Chairman of the Center Party, Jesuit Monsignor Ludwig Kaas; who was given the Chancellorship by Papal Chamberlain and Knight of Malta Franz von Papen; and who was advised by the Jesuit-controlled SS General Martin Bormann, was indeed the second Emperor Ferdinand II, waging the Second Thirty Years’ War against the Protestants, the Orthodox and the Jews of Europe and Russia, he also having deprived the German people of their right to own and bear arms? Remember, our own Gun Control Act of 1968 is based upon Hitler’s gun control legislation of 1935, as brought back from Germany by one of J. Edgar Hoover’s former FBI agents, Thomas J. Dodd, a Nuremberg prosecutor and later, a Democratic Senator from Connecticut. Was the Roman Catholic Senator Dodd connected to the Jesuits through the Council on Foreign Relations, during the time of its management by the anti-gun, Jesuit-trained Archbishop of New York, Francis Cardinal Spellman? Is Dodd’s Roman Catholic son, Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher J. Dodd, this obvious agent provocateur of the Jesuits, going to continue the popish, anti-gun, socialist policies of his late father (or was his real father Josef Stalin, as reported by the late researcher Sherman Skolnick)? In conclusion, Thompson summarizes the Jesuit Crusade of the Thirty Years’ War and makes it relevant for us in the Twenty-first Century:
“What people upon earth, other than the Germans themselves, had the just right, under the law of nations or any other human law, to interfere with their condition, or to plot, openly or secretly, against their independence? What was all this, however to the pope or to the Jesuits? From whence did they derive the authority to form a conspiracy at Rome to invade Germany, overthrow her existing institutions, bind the limbs of her people with fetters they had already broken, to gather up the rusty iron they had cast away, and re-forge it into manacles to hold them in obedience to an alien and foreign power? Was this conspiracy commanded by the law of God? If it was, wherein is that law changed? If not changed, and God’s laws are all immutable, may not the Jesuits of to-day enter into fresh conspiracies to subvert the present institutions of Germany, or of Great Britain, or of the United States, or of any other nation that maintains the principles of Protestantism and the freedom of conscience? . . . ‘The Jesuits,’ says Ranke, ‘conquered the Germans on their own soil, in their very home, and wrested from them a part of their native land.’ Will there not be other conquests to be achieved by them so long as the freedom of conscience is sheltered and guaranteed by Protestant Institutions?” {16} [Emphasis added]
Vatican Assassins:
“Wounded In The House Of My Friends”
Third Edition
by Eric Jon Phelps
https://ia802505.us.archive.org/28/items/EricJonPhelpsVaticanAssassins3rdEdition/Eric%20Jon%20Phelps%20-%20Vatican%20Assassins%203rd%20Edition.pdf
Pope Pius IX (Italian: Pio IX; born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti;[a] 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in history. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. Thereafter, he refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner in the Vatican".
At the time of his election, some considered him liberal, but no longer after the Revolutions of 1848. Upon the assassination of his prime minister, Pellegrino Rossi, Pius fled Rome and excommunicated all participants in the short-lived Roman Republic. After its suppression by the French army and his return in 1850, his policies and doctrinal pronouncements became increasingly conservative. He was responsible for the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old taken by force from his Jewish family who went on to become a Catholic priest in his own right and unsuccessfully attempted to convert his Jewish parents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_IX
The First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the First Vatican Council or Vatican I, was the 20th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, held three centuries after the preceding Council of Trent which was adjourned in 1563. The council was convoked by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1868, under the rising threat of the Kingdom of Italy encroaching on the Papal States. It opened on 8 December 1869 and was adjourned on 20 September 1870 after the Italian Capture of Rome. Its best-known decision is its definition of papal infallibility.[1][2]
The council's main purpose was to clarify Catholic doctrine in response to the rising influence of the modern philosophical trends of the 19th century. In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith (Dei Filius), the council condemned what it considered the errors of rationalism, anarchism, communism, socialism, liberalism, materialism, modernism, naturalism, pantheism, and secularism.[3]
Its other concern was the doctrine of the primacy (supremacy) and infallibility of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope),[4] which it defined in the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ (Pastor aeternus).[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Vatican_Council
The Crown of Ba'al and Master Trusts of the World
The Crown of Ba'al, also known as the Papal Tiara and Triregnum is a three-tiered jewelled papal crown and symbol of claimed papal supremecy since the 16th Century. Since the 16th Century, it has featured prominently as part of the coat of arms of the Vatican, usually with the crossed keys of claims of authority from St Peter. Any text or other claim that alleges the three-tiered crown is older than the 16th Century is deliberately false.
Prior to Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) the antipopes of the Roman Cult wore fabric, not metallic headdress, similar to the Persian High Priests of Mithra. However in 1302 Boniface issued his infamous Papal Bull Unam Sanctam, being the first Express Trust claiming control over the whole planet and effectively "King of the world". In celebration, he commissioned a gold plated headdress in the shape of a pinecone, with an elaborate crown at its base.
The pinecone is an ancient symbol of fertility and one traditionally associated with Ba'al as well as the Cult of Cybele.
The 1st Crown of Crown Land
While Pope Boniface VIII was the first leader in history to create the concept of a Trust, the first Testamentary Trust through a deed and will creating a Deceased Estate was not until Pope Nicholas V in 1455 through the Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex. This is only one of three (3) papal bulls to include the line with the incipit "For a perpetual remembrance." This Bull had the effect of conveying the right of use of the land as Real Property from the Express Trust Unam Sanctam to the control of the Pontiff and his successors in perpetuity. Hence, all land is claimed as "crown land".
This 1st Crown is represented by the 1st cestui Que Vie Trust created when a child is born, depriving them of all their beneficial entitlements and rights on the land at birth.
The 2nd Crown of the Commonwealth
The second Crown was created in 1481 with the papal bull Aeterni Regis meaning "Eternal Crown" by Sixtus IV being only the 2nd of three papal bulls as deeds of testamentary trusts.
This Papal Bull created what is known as the "Crown of Aragon", later known as the Crown of Spain, being the highest sovereign and highest steward of all Roman Slaves subject to the rule of the Roman Pontiff. Spain lost the crown in 1604 when it was granted to King James I of England by Pope Paul V after the successful passage of the "Union of Crowns" or Commonwealth in 1605 after the false flag operation of the Gunpowder Plot.
The Crown was finally lost by England in 1975 when it was returned to Spain and King Carlos I, where it remains to this day.
This 2nd Crown is represented by the 2nd cestui Que Vie Trust created when a child is born being the sale of the birth certificate as a Bond to the private central bank of the nation, depriving them of ownership of their flesh and condemning them to perpetual servitude as a Roman person, or slave.
The 3rd Crown of the Ecclesiastical See
The third Crown was created in 1537 by Paul III through the papal bull Convocation also meant to open the Council of Trent being the third an final testamentary deed and will of a testamentary trust, being the trust set up for the claiming of all "lost souls", lost to the See.
The Venetians assisted in the creation of the 1st cestui Que Vie Act of 1540 to use this papal bull as the basis of Ecclesiastical authority of Henry VIII. This Crown was secretly granted to England in the collection and "reaping" of lost souls.
The Crown was lost in 1815 due to the deliberate bankruptcy of England and granted to the Temple Bar, which became known as the Crown Bar, or simply the Crown.
The Bar Associations have been responsible ever since in administering the "reaping" of the souls of the lost and damned, including the registration and collection of Baptismal certificates representing the souls collected by the Vatican and stored in its vaults.
This 3rd Crown is represented by the 3rd cestui Que Vie Trust created when a child is baptized being the grant of the Baptismal certificate by the parents to the church or Registrar being the gift of title of the soul. Thus, without legal title over one's own soul, a man or woman may be "legally" denied right to stand as a person, but may be treated as a creature and thing without legally possessing a soul. Hence, why the Bar Association is able to legally enforce Maritime law against men and women- because they can be treated as things, cargo that does not possess a soul.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220707074738/http://www.friendware.net/final_writs_rome/final_writs_Master_Trusts.html
Pope Paul V (Latin: Paulus V; Italian: Paolo V) (17 September 1550 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 16 May 1605 to his death, in January 1621. In 1611, he honored Galileo Galilei as a member of the papal Accademia dei Lincei and supported his discoveries.[2] In 1616, Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Robert Bellarmine to inform Galileo that the Copernican theory could not be taught as fact, but Bellarmine's certificate allowed Galileo to continue his studies in search for evidence and use the geocentric model as a theoretical device. That same year Paul V assured Galileo that he was safe from persecution so long as he, the Pope, should live. Bellarmine's certificate was used by Galileo for his defense at the trial of 1633.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_V
Borghese
Recorded in many forms including Bourges, Bourgaize, Bourgeois, (France), Burgess, Burges and Burgis (England and Scotland), Borghese, Borgesio and Burgisi (Italy), and others, this interesting surname is of pre 8th century Old French origins. It derives from the word "burgeis", meaning inhabitant and FREEMAN of a fortified town, one which could apply municipal rates, taxes, and duties. A burgeis generally had tenure of land or buildings from a landlord by "burgage", which involved the payment of a fixed money rent. In Scotland, the position of burgess required not only the making of payments, but to be availble to take part in guarding the town. The surname is one of the earliest recorded anywhere in the world. These recordings are from England because this country was the first to adopt both hereditary surnames and to make the necessary registers in which to record them. France was several centuries later, and Italy, not until the 19th century in most areas. Early recordings showing the influence of the Norman-French in England after the Invasion of 1066 include: Ralph le Burgeis, in the Pipe Rolls of the county of Sussex in 1195, and Philip Bourges in the cartulary of Oseney Abbey, Oxford in 1197. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Geoffrey Burgeis, which was dated 1115, in the "Winton Rolls" of Hampshire. This was during the reign of King Henry 1st, known as "The Lion of Justice", 1100 - 1135. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. Over the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop", often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.
https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Borghese
Facade of St. Peter's
On February 10, 1608 the first stone was laid and on July 21, 1612 most of the work was completed. It took another two years for the ornamentattion.
The inscription (1m high) states: "Paul V Borghese, Roman, Pontiff, in the year 1612, the seventh of his pontificate, [erected] in honour of the Prince of Apostles".
From the central balcony, called the Loggia of the Blessings, the new pope is announced with "Habemus Papum", and gives the Urbi et Orbi blessing. The relief under the balcony, by Buonvicino, represents Christ giving the keys to St. Peter.
https://www.stpetersbasilica.info/Exterior/Facade/Facade.htm
Pope John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes XXIII; Italian: Giovanni XXIII [dʒoˈvanni ventitreˈɛːzimo]; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Italian: [ˈandʒelo dʒuˈzɛppe roŋˈkalli];[a] 25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death in June 1963.
Roncalli was among 13 children born to Marianna Mazzola and Giovanni Battista Roncalli in a family of sharecroppers who lived in Sotto il Monte, a village in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy.[8] He was ordained to the priesthood on 10 August 1904 and served in a number of posts, as nuncio in France and a delegate to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In a consistory on 12 January 1953 Pope Pius XII made Roncalli a cardinal as the Cardinal-priest of Santa Prisca in addition to naming him as the Patriarch of Venice. Roncalli was unexpectedly elected pope on 28 October 1958 at age 76 after Pope Pius XII's death. Pope John XXIII surprised those who expected him to be a caretaker pope by calling the historic Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the first session opening on 11 October 1962, which is now his feast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_XXIII
Pope John XXIII's coat of arms.
Of gules, a silver sash, a silver tower mazonada and clarified with sable especially, accompanied chiefly by two fleurs-de-lis of the same, a silver chief with a winged leopard lion, holding a gospel with the front right leg open with the text "PAX TIBI MARCE EVANGELISTA MEUS", all in gold and saber letters.
https://br.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restr:C_o_a_John_XXIII.svg
Borja (Borgia)
Spanish: habitational name from a place in Zaragoza province named from Arabic burj ‘tower’. See also Borgia .
https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=borja
Pope Alexander VI[Note 2] (born Rodrigo de Borja[Note 3]; 1 January 1431 – 18 August 1503) (epithet: Valentinus ("The Valencian")[6] was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 August 1492 until his death in 1503. Born into the prominent Borgia family in Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon (now Spain), Rodrigo studied law at the University of Bologna. He was ordained deacon and made a cardinal in 1456 after the election of his uncle as Pope Callixtus III, and a year later he became vice-chancellor of the Catholic Church. He proceeded to serve in the Curia under the next four popes, acquiring significant influence and wealth in the process. In 1492, Rodrigo was elected pope, taking the name Alexander VI.
Alexander's papal bulls of 1493 confirmed or reconfirmed the rights of the Spanish crown in the New World following the finds of Christopher Columbus in 1492. During the second Italian war, Alexander VI supported his son Cesare Borgia as a condottiero for the French king. The scope of his foreign policy was to gain the most advantageous terms for his family.[7][8]
Alexander is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, partly because he acknowledged fathering several children by his mistresses. As a result, his Italianized Valencian surname, Borgia, became a byword for libertinism and nepotism, which are traditionally considered as characterizing his pontificate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI
Francis Borgia SJ (Valencian: Francesc de Borja; Spanish: Francisco de Borja; 28 October 1510 – 30 September 1572) was a Spanish Jesuit priest. The great-grandson of both Pope Alexander VI and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, he was Duke of Gandía and a grandee of Spain. After the death of his wife, Borgia renounced his titles and became a priest in the Society of Jesus, later serving as its third superior general. He was canonized on 20 June 1670 by Pope Clement X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Borgia
The Carolingian dynasty (/ˌkærəˈlɪndʒiən/ KARR-ə-LIN-jee-ən;[1] known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD.[2] The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. Nearly every monarch of France from Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious till the penultimate monarch of France Louis Philippe have been his descendants. His death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Name
The Carolingian dynasty takes its name from Carolus, the Latinised name of multiple Frankish kings including Charlemagne and Charles Martel.[3] The name originates from a common Germanic word, rendered in Old High German as Karl or Kerl,[4] meaning 'man', 'husband', or 'FREEMAN'.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_dynasty
PART VI 1THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THOSE ALREADY ADMITTED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE BODY OF THE SOCIETY
SECTION 1: THE APOSTOLIC CHARACTER OF OUR VOWS IN GENERAL
143 §1. Our consecration by profession of the evangelical counsels, by which we respond to a divine vocation, is at one and the same time the following of Christ poor, virginal, and obedient and a rejection of those idols that the world is always prepared to adore, especially wealth, pleasure, prestige, and power. Hence, our poverty, chastity, and obedience ought visibly and efficaciously to bear witness to this attitude, whereby we proclaim the evangelical possibility of a certain communion among men and women that is a foretaste of the future kingdom of God.[1]
§2. Our religious vows, while binding us, also set us FREE:
FREE, by our vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor and to use whatever resources we may have, not for our own security and comfort, but for service;
FREE, by our vow of chastity, to be men for others, in friendship and communion with all, but especially with those who share our mission of service;
FREE, by our vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to us by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of all our superiors.[2] [1] See GC 32, d. 4, no. 16; see GC 31, d. 16, no. 4; d. 17, no. 2; d. 18, no. 3. [2] GC 32, d. 2, no. 20. 215
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
295 In the elaboration and expression of our theogical views and in our choice of pastoral options, we must always actively seek to understand the mind of the hierarchical Church, having as our goal the Society s objective to help souls. At the same time we must try to articulate the sensus fidelium and help the magisterium discern in it the movements of the Spirit in accord with the teaching of Vatican II.[125]
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
The King of the Jews will be the real Pope of the Universe, the patriarch of an international Church. But, in the meantime, while we are re-educating youth in new traditional religions and afterwards in ours, we shall not overtly lay a finger on existing churches, but we shall fight against them by criticism calculated to produce schism. . . . In general, then, our contemporary press will continue to convict State affairs, religions, incapacities of the goyim, always using the most unprincipled expressions in order by every means to lower their prestige in the manner which can only be practised by the genius of our gifted tribe. . . . Our kingdom will be an apologia of the divinity Vishnu, in whom is found its personification—in our hundred hands will be, one in each, the springs of the machinery of social life. We shall see everything without the aid of official police which, in that scope of its rights which we elaborated for the use of the goyim, hinders governments from seeing. In our programme one-third of our subjects will keep the rest under observation from a sense of duty, on the principle of volunteer service to the State. It will then be no disgrace to be a spy and informer, but a merit: unfounded denunciations, however, will be cruelly punished that there may be no development of abuses of this right. Our agents will be taken from the higher as well as the lower ranks of society, from among the administrative class who spend their time in amusements, editors, printers and publishers, booksellers, clerks, and salesmen, workmen, coachmen, lackeys, etcetera. This body, having no rights and not being empowered to take any action on their own account, and consequently a police without any power, will only witness and report: verification of their reports and arrests will depend upon a responsible group of controllers of police affairs, while the actual act of arrest will be performed by the gendarmerie and the municipal police. Any person not denouncing anything seen or heard concerning questions of polity will also be charged with and made responsible for concealment, if it be proved that he is guilty of this crime. Just as nowadays our brethren are obliged at their own risk to denounce to the kabal apostates of their own family or members who have been noticed doing anything in opposition to the kabal, so in our kingdom over all the world it will be obligatory for all our subjects to observe the duty of service to the State in this direction. Such an organisation will extirpate abuses of authority, of force, of bribery, everything in fact which we by our counsels, by our theories of the superhuman rights of man, have introduced into the customs of the goyim. . . . But how else were we to procure that increase of causes predisposing to disorders in the midst of their administration? . . . Among the number of those methods one of the most important is—agents for the restoration of order, so placed as to have the opportunity in their disintegrating activity of developing and displaying their evil inclinations—obstinate self-conceit, irresponsible exercise of authority, and, first and foremost, venality."
THE PROTOCOLS OF THE LEARNED ELDERS OF ZION
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Kidd/thesis/pdf/protocols.pdf
The Star of David [in Hebrew, the Magen David or Shield of David] is renowned as the sacred symbol of the Jewish faith. Indeed, the Star of David is the distinguishing feature on the Israeli flag and as an ornament of jewelry the Star of David is proudly worn by millions of devout Jews worldwide. Yes, the Star of David is purely Jewish. Or is it?Recently, while visiting the holy city of Jerusalem, I purchased a silver pendant of the “Star of David” from a local shopkeeper and when I put it around my neck I was asked:
“Why are you wearing a Jewish symbol?”
To this I replied:
”This is Sat-kona, the symbol of Goloka, the abode of Krsna.”
This article is about the origins of Sat-kona [the Star of Goloka or Goloka-yantra], its transcendental significance, its historical use in Vedic and other ancient cultures, its use in Christianity and Islam, and its eventual adoption by the Jewish faith in the 17th century as a popular symbol of Judaism.
Symbols have long been a part of the histories of the world's great civilizations and Sat-kona is no exception. Before it appeared in the west, from the most ancient of times to the present day, Sat-kona has been at the heart of spirituality in India. The Sat-kona [the six pointed star with a hexagram within, defining sacred space], is constructed by joining two perfect triangles — one pointing upward signifying Purusa and the other pointing downward signifying Prakrti. It is the oldest spiritual symbol known to the world. Sat-kona has been around since the beginning of the universe. We do not expect to find any archaeological evidence to support this statement, however, from sastra, Vedic literature, the evidence is there.
In the oldest known Vedic literature, Sri Brahma-samhita [in that it has been attributed to Lord Brahma and composed shortly after creation], the Sat-kona is mentioned in a description of the supreme abode of Goloka, the abode of Krsna.
karnikaram mahad-yantram sat-konam vajra-kilakam
sadanga-satpadi-sthanam prakrtya purusena ca
premananda-mahananda-rasenavasthitam hi vat
“The center of the divine lotus is the core — Krsna's residence. It is presided over by the Predominated and Predominating Moiety. It is mapped as a hexagonal mystic symbol [sat-konam]. Like a diamond, the effulgent Supreme Entity of Krsna, the Fountainhead of all divine potencies, presides as the central pivot. The great mantra of eighteen syllables [Gopala-mantra], which is formed of six integral parts, is manifest as a hexagonal place with six-fold divisions.” [Sri Brahma-samhita, Ch-5, Tx-3]
tat-kinjalkam tad-amsanam tat-patrani sriyam api
“The core of that eternal holy abode which is called Gokula is the hexagonal land of Krsna's abode. The stamens or petals are the residences of the cowherds or Gopas, who are Krsna's own, His dear most friends and high loving devotees that are a part of His own self. Those abodes appear like many walls, all beautifully effulgent. The extensive foliage of that lotus constitutes the sub-forests that are the abodes of the loving damsels of Krsna, headed by Sri Radhika.” [Sri Brahma-samhita, Ch-5, Tx-4]
In the practice of devotion [krsna-bhakti] three important items are given to the devotee to help him/her realize the Supreme Reality, i.e. mantra, yantra and Sri Murti. Mantra is the sound representation of the Supreme Reality, yantra is the mechanized or symbolic representation of the mantra and the Sri Murti is the three dimensional [personal] form of the mantra made manifest to the senses of the devotee to receive his or her service.
Overall, in contemporary Gaudiya Vaisnavism, yantras are no longer in vogue as they were in olden times. Preference has been given to Sri Murti who is worshiped with the appropriate or corresponding mantras. Although yantras are for the most part no longer in use amongst Gaudiyas, this was not always the case. In bygone days all branches of Vaisnavism were frequently found to use yantras in their daily worship and meditation.
The description given in the purports of Brahma-samhita says that the Gopala-mantra [klim krsnaya govindaya gopijana-vallabhaya svaha] manifests as the six sides of the hexagonal figure [Krsnaya, Govindaya, Gopijana, Vallabhaya, Sva and Ha] and that the bija [klim] is the central pivot.
Sat-kona is set up in such a way that those who attend the yantra by meditation and who are deeply aspiring to enter into Krsna's divine pastimes must first realize six objectives of the mantra, i.e. 1) the intrinsic form of Krsna [Krsnaya], 2) the intrinsic form of Krsna' pastimes in Vraja [Govindaya], 3) the intrinsic form of Krsna's intimate attendants, the Gopis [Gopijana], 4) the intrinsic form of full self-surrender unto Krsna, in the wake of those who are Krsna's beloved [Vallabhaya], 5) the pure soul's intrinsic form of divine cognition [Sva], and 6) the intrinsic nature of the soul to render transcendental loving service unto Krsna [Ha].
One who by virtue of being well established in such realizations of the mantra attains firmness [nistha] in the soul's engagement of divine service [abhidheya] and ultimately achieves the supreme goal of life [prayojana] by being engaged in spontaneous transcendental loving service to Krsna in the ego of a maidservant of Srimati Radharani.
At the stage of practice [sadhana], by the grace of the mantra assisted by Sat-kona, the manifest pastimes of Krsna in Gokula may appear in the heart of a devotee. And at the stage of perfection [siddhi] a devotee may realize the unmanifest pastimes of Krsna in Goloka.
Gaudiya Matha LogoAt the beginning of the 20th century the great Gaudiya Vaishnava acarya, Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati was inspired by the descriptions of Krsna' supreme abode in Brahma-samhita and thus incorporated the Sat-kona into the Gaudiya Matha logo. Indeed the logo of the Gaudiya Matha is in itself a Vaisnava yantra.
At the center of the hexagonal in the Gaudiya Matha logo, Sarasvati Thakura placed the bija-mantra Om [in place of klim] along with nama. In the six points [sat] of the Sat-kona he placed the six opulences, i.e. fame [yasa], beauty [sri], knowledge [jnana], renunciation [vairagya], wealth [aisvarya] and strength [virya].
In line with the purports of Bhaktivinoda Thakura in Brahma-samhita, Bhaktisiddhanta inserted Om in place of Klim to show that Klim and Om are non-different. Sahajiyas, and others of his time were of the habit of neglecting mantras such as Om and Brahma-gayatri, whereas Bhaktisiddhanta was of the practice to show how everything in its deeper meaning is related to Krsna. Bhaktivinoda's purport states as follows:
“The Gopala-tapaniya Upanisad states, tasmad omkara-sambhuto gopalo visvasambhavah, klim omkarasya caikatvam pathyate brahma-vadibhih. Omkara means Gopala, who is both Potency and the potent, and Klim means Omkara. Therefore, Klim or the primary desire seed [kama-bija] expresses the transcendental reality of Sri Sri Radha and Krsna.” [Sri Brahma-samhita, purport, Verse 4]
Furthermore, Sarasvati Thakura used the Sat-kona yantra as the floor plan for the temple of Sri Sri Guru-Gauranga-Gandharvika-Giridhari at Sri Caitanya Matha in Mayapura.
In the Vaisnava canon we find mention of numerous yantras such as the Visnu-yantra, Laksmi-yantra, Gopala-yantra, Radha-yantra, Sudarsana-yantra and Gayatri-yantra, etc."
https://gosai.com/writings/satkona-star-of-david-or-star-of-goloka
Development of the Thai Monarchy and the Concept of Thai Kingship The Buddhist ideal of kingship after the Indian Emperor Asoka inspired many Southeast Asian monarchs. This emperor, who was considered the ideal Buddhist monarch, sent missionaries to the surrounding regions during his reign in the 3rd century B.C. Briefly, the ideal Buddhist monarch is a King of Righteousness who abides by the ten kingly virtues of piety, liberality, charity, freedom from anger, mercy, patience, rectitude, mildness, devotion, and freedom from enmity.341 Since the establishment of Sukhothai, the Thai monarchs have directed the development of the Thai nation with a firm yet benign hand. Formerly a Thai monarch was known as a Lord of Life, for they wielded absolute power. The Sukhothai kings observed exclusively the formalized Buddhist science of kingship, and they were both paternal and accessible to their people. During the Ayutthaya period (1350-1767), the Thai kings adopted the practice of divine kingship. The Ayutthaya kings embraced the Brahman concept of divine kingship to increase to a highly structured and distinguished position in terms of ritual, way of living, language and other elements. Thus, the Ayutthaya kings on coronation were invested with the trappings and ceremonies of Brahmanic rituals, and retitled with the names of Hindu gods. For example, Ramathibodi, the founder of Ayutthaya derived his name from Rama, the re-incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu and the hero of the Indian epic Ramayana. Likewise, kings of the Bangkok period were all named after the God Vishnu, as Rama.342 King Ramathibodi specifically invited eight Brahmans from the Hindu holy city of Benares (present-day Varanasi) to preside over and legitimize his coronation, and their descendants still consist of Brahmans who conduct ceremonies in the Thai royal court until the present day. Gradually, the lives of the Ayutthaya kings assumed supernatural eminence. Universally they were viewed as being without equals and residing above the law, authentic strongmen who held the power of life and death over their subjects. The Ayutthaya kings appointed all officials, owned all lands and their contents, including the people. Their unique positions were sustained by the elaborate court etiquette, language (royal words), ceremonies, and protocol, with which they surrounded themselves. The individuals themselves were considered as literally sacred. Commoners were forbidden to look upon them, touch them, or even mention their names in public.343 They ruled through a rigid hierarchy of intermediary courtiers, chamberlains, ministers, and court officials. Being a law unto themselves, the great Ayutthaya kings were powerful leaders who led the country as innovators, warriors, statesmen, and scholars. During the Bangkok period, the revolution of 1932 ended absolute monarchy and curtailed the political power of kings, but the revolution, however, did not in any way reduce the respect of the people towards them, nor downgrade their role to that of mere figureheads. The monarchy is now as much a cohesive force as it ever was. It is not easy for foreigners to understand the full extent of the Thai people’s respect for the royal family, since there is no real parallel elsewhere in the world. There are of course other constitutional monarchs, but none of them function in the same way as in Thailand, where the king is still a shaper of national welfare and one who continues to exercise a strong guiding influence in real and positive terms. The present monarch, King Bhumibol or King Rama IX, works tirelessly for the on-going prosperity of his people. While the King sets the model of an enlightened constitutional monarch, he also reigns as Head of State, Upholder of Religions, and Head of the Armed Forces. In consequence a certain amount of the old royal ceremonial persists along with a remarkable degree of the same public prestige as enjoyed under the rule of absolute royal power. The King is popularly held to be sacred and nonviolent. His portrait is commonly seen in homes, offices, schools, and public buildings, and many royal state occasions still draw enormous public interest. The King of Thailand has enabled the symbol and the person to be uniquely combined within the role of monarch."
"An Inculturation of Faith in Practice: The Thai Catholic Use of Royal Words By Wajira Nampet, SJ"
The Buddha & Jesus
An Anthology of Articles by Jesuits engaged in Buddhist Studies and Inter-religious Dialogue
https://web.archive.org/web/20220929093250/https://jcapsj.org/the-buddha-jesus/
Alumbrado, (Spanish: “Enlightened”, ) Italian Illuminato, plural Illuminati, a follower of a mystical movement in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its adherents claimed that the human soul, having attained a certain degree of perfection, was permitted a vision of the divine and entered into direct communication with the Holy Spirit. From this state the soul could neither advance nor retrogress. Consequently, participation in the liturgy, good works, and observance of the exterior forms of religious life were unnecessary for those who had received the “light.” The Alumbrados came primarily from among the reformed Franciscans and the Jesuits, but their doctrines seem to have influenced all classes of people. The extravagant claims made for their visions and revelations caused them to be relentlessly persecuted. The Inquisition issued edicts against them on three occasions (1568, 1574, and 1623)."
https://www.britannica.com/event/Alumbrado
Gautama
surname of the Buddha, from Sanskrit Gotamah, properly a patronymic, literally "descendant of the greatest ox," from superlative of gauh "ox, bull, cow."
Entries linking to gautama
Buddha (n.)
an epithet applied to the historical founder of Buddhism, 1680s, from Pali, literally "awakened, enlightened," past participle of budh "to awake, know, perceive," which is related to Sanskrit bodhati "is awake, observes, understands," from PIE root *bheudh- "be aware, make aware." Title given by his adherents to the man who taught this path, Siddhartha Gautama, also known to them as Sakyamuni "Sage of the Sakyas" (his family clan), who lived in northern India 5c. B.C.E."
https://www.etymonline.com/word/gautama
The Jesuit always accomplishes his purpose, for this creature can metamorphose himself into any form.
Trained to develop his powers of adaptation to suit the preferences of those whom he wishes to influence or whose confidence he desires to possess, the Jesuit will with the Pagans be a pagan, with the atheists he will be an atheist, or a liberal, with the Jews he will be a Jew, and with the reformers he will be a reformer-even an Evangelical.
In whatever place or vocation he be found, the Jesuit is always a double man, with two distinct missions-one public and the other secret. This license to dissemble was granted to the members of the Society of Jesus by the bull of Pope Paul III, which gave every Jesuit a dispensation, carte blanche, to "lay aside all professions of regard to the Papal cause, and make outward profession to any religion or government they choose, if by doing so they can better do their utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestant doctrine...."
Further, there are men who, although not members of the Order, are what we might call 'Crypto-Jesuits'-not entitled to the name Jesuit proper, but yet pledged to the aims of the Society. As one former pupil of the Jesuits that their chief objective "Is to acquire the highest offices of state for the men they have poisoned with their maxims...."
Today it is virtually impossible to know how many Jesuits are really members of the Order. Mackenzie says of the Jesuits:
"The Order has secret signs and passwords, accordin g to the degrees to which the members belong, and as they wear no particular dress, it is very difficult to recognize them, unless they reveal themselves as members of the Order; for they may appear as Protestants or Catholics, democrats, or aristocrats, infidels or bigots, according to the special mission with which they are entrusted.... and it is well-known fact that members of the Order, of hig family and delicate nurture, are acting as menial servants in Protestant families, and doing other things of a similar nature in aid of the Society's purposes."
Not only do the Jesuits have their own secret passwords (codewords), but they are prepared and taught to assume any guise and act on any side of an inssue-if the end it will be for the Catholic Church's advantage. They are all spies, ever one of them. Do you doubt this dear reader? Doubt it not; be assured of it; it is part of their catechism.
Did we not read earlier what is told to Jesuit at his initiation: " ... You have been taught... To take sides witgh the combatants and to act secretly in concert with your brother Jesuit who might be engaged on the other side, but only opposed to that with which you might be connected; the Jesuits, all such duplicity, deception and dissembling is not only permissable but also justifiable, ad majorem dei gloriam ("for the greater glory of God"); for the end always justifies the means.
Masters of Disguise
The following account will, assist the reader to see how this is possible. In 1574, a man appeared in Stockholm, Sweden, having been invited there by King John III (1568-1592). He was introduced as "a visiting Lutheran scholar, Professor Laurits Neilsen." His lectures were so eloquent and powerful that the halls were filled whenever he spoke around Stockholm. Even the King himself regularly attended Nielsen's lectures. Jesuit author Manfred Barthel take up the account from here:
"The seminarians [the Protestant who attended his lectures] were struck by the judicious evenhandedness of Professor Nielsen's approach. He was careful to present arguments on both sides of every question, and as the seminars drew on, the possible objections [he offered] to Luther's teaching began to proliferate alarmingly; the King himself was finally compelled to intercede in Luther's behalf. But King John, strictly an amateur theologian, was no match for the professor and was forced to conced defeat.... The audience [only later] realized that he [Nielsen] had not only stood Luther on his head but had done so by citing the... doctrines of the Church of Rome.
What was not made clear, at least for some time, was that this was strictly a put-up job, and that the professor was actually a Catholic himself, and a Jesuit to boot.... After Father Nielsen had successfully sowed doubt and confusion among the Lutheran clergy, he was recalled [to Rome]...."
Professor Nielsen (Father) was no an exception-he was the classic prototype of a Jesuit, for whom "the end always justifies the means."
The 1700's saw another Jesuit deceiver Lacunza, born in South America in 1731. He wrote under the Jewish name Ben Ezra (even addressing the Jews as "brethren" in his preface). He entitled his book, The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. It taught Futurism, and was one of the first to falsely interpret the "woman" of Revelation 12 as a future apostate church. The book received wide circulation, and was instrumental in turning the Protestant world to a Catholic Futurist interpretation concerning the Antichrist.
The historian Newman gives the eloquent assessment, "The Jesuit missionary or worker in any sphere may adapt his dress, manner of life, and occupation to the exigencies of the occasion. He may disguise himself and figure as a Protestant or Brahmin, if by so doing he can gain an entrance otherwise difficult for Catholic teaching. The story is familiar of a Jesuit who mastered the Sanskrit language and the Vedas, assumed the dress and the mode of life of a Brahmin priest, and finally wrote and palmed off as ancient a Veda in which Roman Catholic Christianity under a thin disguise was taught."
Former Catholic priest, Desanctis, who was also a Professor of Theology in Rome and the official Theological Censor of the "Office of Inquisition," had this to say about the clandestine operations of the Jesuits. His disclosure gives us an indication of the near impossibility of knowing the number of Jesuits in service at any given time:
"Despite all the persecution they have met with, they have not abandoned England, where there are a greater number of Jesuits than in Italy; there are Jesuits in all classes of society; in Parliament; among the English clergy; among the Protestant laity, even in the higher stations. I could not comprehend how a Jesuit could be a Protestant priest, or how a Protestant priest could be a Jesuit; but my Confessor silenced my scruples by telling me, omnia munda mundis, and that St. Paul became a Jew that he might save the Jews; it was no wonder therefore, if a Jesuit should feign himself a Protestant, for the conversion of the Protestants, but pay attention, I entreat you, to discover... the religious movement in England termed Puseyism.
The English clergy were formerly too much attached to their Articles of Faith to be shaken from them.... and so the Jesuits of England tried another plan. This was to demonstrate from history and ecclesiastical antiquity [ancient documents]... whence, through the exertion of the Jesuits concealed among its clergy, might arise a studious attention to Christian antiquity. This was designed to occupy the clergy in long laborious and abstruse investigation, and to alienate them from their Bibles.... Puseyism is a living testimony to the necessity of Catholicism in the midst of our enemies; it is a worm at the root which, skillfully nourished by our exertions, will waste Protestantism till it is destroyed."
Professor Desanctis goes on to say that the jesuits are "concealed among the English clergy" and even "in Parliament"!! Consider a key figure of the English Parliament, Tony Blair. Steven Knight, the deceased author of The Brotherhood, has said that the Palace of Westminster, home of the British Parliament, is used as meeting place for the New Welcome Masonic Lodge. The adorable Tony Blair is a high-ranking Freemason and a member of the 1591 Standholm Lodge.
He is a secret Romanist, a Jesuit in "short robe," and I believe the was a secret Catholic, even before his election as Prime Minister.
An article by Steve Pierce entitled "My peace I give you," and published in the January 1998 edition of Workers of Iniquity, alleges that it is the Roman Catholic Church that is behind Tony Blair and his New Labour. The Times of April 17, 2003 reported in a front-page headline, "[Blair] admits he is strongly drawn to Catholicism...." And Alessandro Zangrando reported in his "Roman Landscape" colum of the Latin Mass magazine:
"Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain seems intent on embracing the Catholic Faith.... Blair, a guest last August in the villa of Prince Guicciardini Strozzi.... asked and obtained permission to assist at a private Catholic Mass the day of Ferragosto (the feast of the Assumption).... There was no attempt to be discreet because he attended in the parish church of Cusona. The Masses were celebrated by Father Ian Wilson... [and] Father Brian Lovery. Bishop Mauro Fusi [of Italy] was also present.... and Tony Blair read the first Scripture reading and the prayer of the faithful. Moreover, he got in line and received Holy Communion."
The Jesuits are also well represented in the University of Cambridge, as Augustine Birrell tells us. And they have infiltrated the Church of England, so much so that those in the higher degrees of Masonry have been called "Protestant Jesuits." There is an amusing story that during the eighteenth century, there was a dispute between the French Lodges and the Freemasons of England; the French Masons issued circulars in which they refferred to the English Freemasons as Jesuits.
How many Jesuit-Freemasons have clandesinely entered the Protestant communion, we may never know. But we do know that they have taken a most solemn oath to infiltrate Protestant organizations and undermine them from within: "... I do further declare that I will help, assist and advise.... and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestants... doctrines...." To this end the Order sends its missionaries-emissaries-around the globe, particularly to Protestant nations, to create schools, colleges, and seminaries; and to work in the carious vocations and professions.
To quote Wylie: "There was no disguise they could not assume, and therefore, there was no place into which they could not penetrate. they could enter unheard the closet of the Monarch, or the great Cabinet of the Statesman. They could sit unseen in convocation of General Assembly, and mingle unsuspected in the deliberations and debates. There was no tongue they could not speak, and no creed [belief] they could not profess, and thus there was... no church whose membership they might not enter and whose functions they might not discharge. They could execrate the Pope with the Lutheran, and swear the Solemn League with the Convenator [the Presbyterian and Anglican churches]."
As Wylie warned in another place, "There is no disguise which the Jesuit will not wear, no art he will not emply, no motive he will not feign, no creed he will not profess, provided only he can acquit himself a true soldier in the Jesuit army, and accomplish the work on which he has been sent forth."
Mackenzie fingered them well when he sau, "Their spies are everywhere, of all apparent ranks of society and they may appear learned and wise, or simple or foolish, as their intructions run." For as the Jesuit Richard Ryscavage reminds us, the members of the great secret society have long assumed different forms when they wish to disguise their presence or influence in an organization: "Throughout its own history, the Society of Jesus has served this social mission of the Church. From its very earliest origins, the Jesuit social apostolate has assumed various forms according to different times and places."
To offer some sense of the audacious double agency of the Jesuit priest, who might secretly occupy a Protestant pulpit, I next clip an extract from page 50 of the Jesuits, by the celebrated author J.A. Wylie:
"One day, in 1568, a man named Thomas Heath preached in the pulpit of Rochester Cathedral. He inveighed severly in his sermon, a letter wqas found in the pulpit which he had inadvertently dropped, addressed to him by a leading English Jesuit resident in Madrid. It revealed the fact that this zealous Protestant was a Jesuit in disguise, although he had spoken agains his "Order." On searching his lodgings at the Queen's Arms Rochester, "there were found," says the "Episcobal Register of Rochester," "in one of his boots, his beads and several papers, among which was a license from the fraternity of Jesuits, and a Bull, dated, the First of Pius Quintus, to preach what doctrine that Society pleased for the dividing of Protestants."
What a revelation! And nothing has changed today. As Wylie commented, "These men... put on and off a religion as they would a cloak...." Every morning a Jesuit priest playing Protestant has to decide whether he "should that day be of the Calvinistic persuasion, or of the Lutheran persuasion, or of a third [other] creed" as ample latitude allows them. What else can we say to these men, b ut, bad, wicked, evil!
As we saw them before, Jesuit brothers are engaged (often disguised) in ministries over one hundred nations on six continents-mostly habito secolare-"in civilian dress." Occasionally the abbreviation "SJ." or s.j. will appear after a person's name, indicating that he is a member of the Society of Jesus, but not all Jesuits use it-for obvious reasons. And so we must niw delve behind the many charitable facades erected by these intriguing Sons of Loyola, who like the many-headed Hydra continually morph and multiply themselves-mutatis mutandis. The sharp-witted eloquence (and we shall see that he was right): "The Jesuit is a man of every color; he repears the marvel of the chameleon."
"Sons Of Loyola: Their Subtlety, Genius And Various Disguises"
Codeword Barbelon book One
by P.D. Stuart
https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/pfbid0DCEak67kx1PdjneaJeix4GoJFGqvH8rTQSSV5rHbp3XeKsaPqoRgzPxSbN6nr4x3l
Air Force JAG: The Houthi chat breach is a big deal
This broke the most basic military rules of cyber security.
By Kate Rumsey
Mar. 29, 2025
Updated 12:00 p.m. CDT
In a few weeks, I will drive three hours from Dallas to Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, La., to fulfill my annual requirements as a reservist in the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps.
No doubt I will have to complete training requirements to make sure I have achieved “military readiness,” a phrase that means I am healthy, trained and physically fit to serve in the military should we ever go to war.
One of those requirements is the annual cybersecurity training that all service members must take, no matter their rank or service branch. This training is so well known that there are memes of it shared in chat groups — it is one of many shared experiences that unites service members. The training is so engrained in us that we complain about how often we are trained on it. “Of course I know about classified markings and the importance of keeping my workspace secure,” I want to say with an eye roll.
Which is why the latest text thread among Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and other key leaders on an unsecured communication application sharing details about military targets and haphazardly adding a reporter, by mistake, is so astounding.
As a lawyer in the JAG Corps, my mission is to help military commanders maintain good order and discipline. How can I, as a JAG, speak about disciplining airmen when senior leaders fail to abide by standards or take standards seriously? It has long been a bedrock principle that discipline is critically impacted when service members perceive that the law is being applied differently to different people.
These violations of operational security, and likely federal law, present clear risks to our nation’s security. We know that the future of warfare is in cybersecurity and that our enemies are using every means possible to hack our systems, made a lot easier by using an unapproved and unsecured messaging application to share critical information about our military. What other information that are our leaders are sharing on this platform can easily be accessed by our enemies? And if there is lapse in judgment by our leaders, how can we deter other lapses in judgment across the military where information is shared and may be accessed by our enemies?
This security failure says as much about our current leaders as it does about the credibility of our politics and parties. Already, Hegseth has shifted blame to the news reporter and denied any wrongdoing, even though the president’s National Security Council has authenticated The Atlantic reporter’s account. In the next few days and weeks, Republicans will likely hand-wave away how problematic this situation is, chalking it up to Democratic hysterics as usual, much like they do when confronted with any criticism for President Donald Trump.
This hand-waving effect even has a name: Trump Derangement Syndrome, meaning any criticism of Trump cannot be believed because any person criticizing Trump cannot see things objectively due to their so-called deranged opinion of the president. The finger-pointing and lack of owning mistakes leaves us unable to believe anyone. So that when we say something is a “big deal” or that the alarm bells must be going off — like with this unsecured message about critical military information — no one believes us.
House and Senate members can regain credibility by stating that national security is above politics, figuring out how to fix the problem and holding leaders accountable. And our political leaders can focus on what this means for everyday people, that this is not just about the administration’s failures, no matter how egregious they are. Instead we need to break down what this means for Americans.
Our military deters our enemies from attacking us. If our enemies can get information that erodes that deterrence, then we are not safe from future attack. Our enemies will use this security failure against us to their benefit, which will not only negatively affect service members’ security and safety, but the security and safety of everyday Americans, too.
Kate Rumsey is a former Department of Justice prosecutor and a lawyer in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps. The views expressed are her own and not that of the U.S. military.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2025/03/29/air-force-jag-the-houthi-chat-breach-is-a-big-deal/
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1:11
(208) 880-0361, (408) 504-1864, ...
A tranche of documents tied in some way to the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy was released ...
www.nytimes.com
(916) 396-4395
Do you know the sender?
775 508 8818
(775) 544-4124
No, Michael Beck's name keeps coming up, but I don't have a phone number for him with that number. So I just texted him to ask him if he was sending texts or if it was someone else using his name he hasn't answered yet but he may be busy so I'm going to wait
(916) 396-4395
Does everyone here know Susan Dunn?
(775) 544-4124
Yes, she's DC for NV AD39
- Unread
(916) 396-4395
I suspect her son Billy is the Sender. He got ahold of her phone. This is the crap he posts
too
1:11 PM
(+
Text message
•11/1.
3:18 M
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88
(208) 880-0361, (408) 504-1864, ...
3:06 PM
suspect her son Billy is the Sender. He got shold of her phone. This is the crap he posts 100
How many of you champion the fest amendment? it is not crap
You are gaslighting
Нуроства
TOPMAME
© Fest message
O
# ㄖ
CH A B
Nancy Inman is a drunk skank liar at 916 396 4395 that champions the first amendment what a dumb vindictive hypocrite
Doesn't want to know how to read and got a job in government because they were raised a Jesuit by their policeman of a father
I have been blackballed while this drunk skank gaslights
Look at all the roses in Sandy's backyard, Nancy?
This Nancy wants a constitutional convention
LOL
Through COS action
Right wing oppressive Nazi hypocrite you are Nancy InMAN
Thank God I didn't get herpes after drinking Nancy InMAN's beer cup at the Alameda County Fair Horse Race in 2017
Text message
•
Nancy Inman of ROY Utah is a Jesuit bar-skank that is cerebral fulfilling on Facebook and doesn't post crap like I do, of course.
https://www.facebook.com/nancy.inman.750
Page 1 of 1
Shelton James M Civ OO-ALC/CCD
From: Dunn Susan L Civ 309 EMXG/QPQC Thursday, May 11, 2006 11:15 AM
Sent:
To:
Shelton James M Clv OO-ALC/CCD Subject: Consideration for another remedy.
Mr. Shelton;
I've thought about the compensatory damages, I have done some research on the EEOC web and have read some law articles.
That doesn't make me an expert by a long shot, but considering that my heart problems and blood pressure has soared since
I was reassigned to this area, due to an overt hostile environment intentionally created on purpose by my management, and
I have had to have surgery and had quite a lot of tests run and the cost of the medications, with this in mind, I would request
that 200 hours of sick leave be restored to me, and $5,000 to $10,000 in damages for pain and suffering from the mental
anguish.
I heard your message this morning, and it took me awhile this morning to respond as I was pondering
this notion.
So an afternoon appointment like 1,2, 3 p.m. today would be ok with me to sign the paperwork again. Thank you for your messages this morning.
Susan Dunn
309 EMXG/QPQC Program Management Spee. USI/UCI/LSET/SAV/ Action Plans DSN. 777-6490 Com. 801-777-6490
5/11/2006
0019
[666] 6. 1On the side of the superior general, what will aid toward this union of hearts are the qualities of his person [G], to be treated in Part IX [723-25], with which he will perform his office, 2which is to be for all the members a head from which the influence required for the end sought by the Society ought to descend to them all. 3It is thus from the general as head that all authority of the provincials should flow, from the provincials that of the local superiors, and from the local superiors that of the individual members. 4And from this same head, or at least by his commission and approval, should likewise come the appointing of missions. And the same should apply to communicating the graces of the Society. 5For the more the subjects are dependent upon their superiors, the better will the love, obedience, and union among them be preserved."
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
The union of minds and hearts: with respect to: performing the task of the head on behalf of the entire Society [666]; governing subjects well [667-69]; exempting Ours from obedience [663]; preparing for, summoning, and directing congregations [681, 682, 686, 689, 690, 691, 712, 716, 718, 755], 332. See also Formulas of congregations " page 512
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
Head:
1. See Illness, mental
2. The superior general, head of the Society [666]"
page 416
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Revelation 13:16-18
New International Version
16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[a] That number is 666.
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Revelation 13:18 Or is humanity’s number
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2013%3A16-18&version=NIV
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Revelation 13:18 That is in this number of the beast consisteth that Popish wisdom, which unto them seemeth the greatest of all others. In these words S. John expoundeth that saying which went before of the number of the beast, what it hath above his mark or acconisance and his name. These things, saith S. John, the mark and the name of the beast, do easily happen unto any man: but to have the number of the beast, is wisdom: that is, only the wise and such as have understanding, can come by that number for they must be most illuminated doctors that attain thereunto, as the words following do declare.
Revelation 13:18 How great and of what denomination this number of the beast is, by which the beast accounted his wisdom, S. John declareth in these words. Dost thou demand how great it is? it is so great, that it occupieth the whole man: he is always learning, and never cometh to the knowledge thereof: he must be a man indeed that doth attain unto it. Askest thou of what denomination it is? verily it standeth of six throughout and perfectly ariseth of all the parts thereof in their several denominations (as they term them) it standeth of six by units, tens, hundreds, etc. so as there is no one part in the learning and order Pontifical, which is not either referred unto the head, and as it were the top thereof, or contained in the same: so fitly do all things in this hierarchy agree one with another, and with their head. Therefore that cruel beast Boniface the eighth doth commend by the number of six those Decretals which he perfected, in the proem of the sixth book. Which book (saith he) being to be added unto five other books of the same volume of Decretals, we thought good to name Sextum the sixth: that the same volume by addition thereof containing a senary, or the number of six books (which is a number perfect) may yield a perfect form of managing all things, and perfect discipline of behavior. Here therefore is the number of the beast, who poureth from himself all his parts and bringeth them all back again unto himself by his discipline in most wise and cunning manner. If any man desire more of this, let him read the gloss upon that place. I am not ignorant that other interpretations are brought upon this place: but I thought it my duty, with the good favor of all and without the offense of any, to propound mine opinion in this point. And for this cause especially, for that it seemed unto me neither profitable, nor like to be true, that the number of the beast, or of the name of the beast should be taken as the common sort of interpreters do take it. For this number of the beast teacheth, giveth out, imprinteth, as a public mark of such as be his, and esteemeth that mark above all others as the mark of those whom he loveth best. Now those other expositions seem rather to be far removed from this property and condition of that number: whether you respect the name Latinus or Titan, or another. For these the beast doth not teach, nor give forth nor imprint, but most diligently forbiddeth to be taught, and audaciously denieth: he approveth not these, but reproveth them: and hateth them that think so of this number, with an hatred, greater than that of Vatinius.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2013%3A18&version=GNV
Who or what is Abaddon/Apollyon?
Answer
The name Abaddon or Apollyon appears in Revelation 9:11: “They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.” In Hebrew, the name “Abaddon” means “place of destruction”; the Greek title “Apollyon” literally means “The Destroyer.”
In Revelation 8–9, John describes a period during the end times when angels sound seven trumpets. Each trumpet signals the coming of a new judgment on the people of earth. When the fifth angel blows his trumpet, the Abyss, a great smoking pit, will open, and a horde of demonic “locusts” will rise out of it (Revelation 9:1-3). These creatures will be given the power to torture any person who does not bear God’s seal (verse 4). The pain they inflict will be so intense that sufferers will wish to die (verse 6). Abaddon/Apollyon is the ruler of the Abyss and the king of these demonic locusts.
Abaddon/Apollyon is often used as another name for Satan. However, Scripture seems to distinguish the two. We find Satan later on in Revelation, when he is imprisoned for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-3). He is then released to wreak havoc on the earth (verses 1-8) and ultimately receives his final, eternal punishment (verse 10). Abaddon/Apollyon is likely one of Satan’s underlings, a destroying demon and one of the “rulers,” “authorities,” and “powers” mentioned in Ephesians 6:12.
John Bunyan’s classic allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress includes a memorable scene in which Christian does battle with a demonic monster named Apollyon. True to its name, Apollyon nearly destroys Christian. The pilgrim in his armor withstands the attack and wields his sword to repel the fiend. Bunyan’s “Apollyon” is a symbolic representation of our spiritual enemy, but the inspiration for the character is literal. The Abaddon/Apollyon of Revelation is a real being who will one day inflict real pain on real people during God’s real judgment.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Abaddon-Apollyon.html
Windham Lawrence Rotunda (May 23, 1987 – August 24, 2023), better known by his ring name Bray Wyatt, was an American professional wrestler best known for his tenures in WWE from 2009 until his death in 2023.
Rotunda was a third-generation wrestler, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Blackjack Mulligan, his father Mike Rotunda, and his uncles Barry and Kendall Windham. His younger brother Taylor is also a wrestler under the ring name Bo Dallas. Alongside his brother, he held the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship twice while in WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). He wrestled under various ring names between 2008 and 2012 in FCW, and wrestled on WWE's main roster from 2010 to 2011 as a member of The Nexus under the ring name Husky Harris.
After returning to WWE's developmental territory, which had been rebranded as NXT, Rotunda was repackaged as Bray Wyatt. Portrayed as the villainous leader of a bayou-dwelling cult called The Wyatt Family, he returned to the main roster alongside Wyatt Family members Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in 2013. He subsequently became a one-time WWE Champion, two-time WWE Universal Champion, one-time SmackDown Tag Team Champion (alongside Harper and brief Wyatt Family member Randy Orton under the Freebird Rule), and one-time Raw Tag Team Champion (with Matt Hardy).
After a hiatus from August 2018 to April 2019, Wyatt returned with a new split personality gimmick, which saw him switch between the two characters of a Mr. Rogers-esque children's TV host named Bray Wyatt and a grotesque monster resembling an evil clown called The Fiend. He was released from WWE in July 2021, but returned in October 2022 with a new character that claimed to be his "real-life" self, though he gradually reincorporated his previous personalities in addition to new ones. In what would become his only televised match during this return, he defeated LA Knight in January 2023; he took a medical hiatus in February due to a COVID-19 infection that exacerbated a pre-existing heart condition, and died of a heart attack in August at the age of 36.
Death
Rotunda died in his sleep at his home in Clermont, Florida, on August 24, 2023 at the age of 36. The cause of death was a heart attack.[270][271] His death was announced by WWE's chief content officer Triple H, following a phone call he had received from Rotunda's father Mike Rotunda.[272] Rotunda had been dealing with an undisclosed illness since February, which was reportedly life-threatening. Just days before his death, reports were published stating that he was making progress in his recovery. Shortly after his death, it was revealed that the illness was due to an earlier COVID-19 infection, which had exacerbated a pre-existing heart condition.[270] He had been hospitalized for a heart issue one week before his death, and was advised to wear a specialized vest containing a self-activating defibrillator; at the time of his death, he was not wearing the vest, which police found in his car.[271][273]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bray_Wyatt
Almost two millennia later, even though Pier Luigi Nervi and Annibale Vitellozzi created a closed ROTUNDA with a LANTERN for their Palazzetto dello Sport (1956-1958) the dome rebuilds the sky here as well. The central circle represents the sun and grants a floating lightness to the lantern. The constructive engineering is elegantly transformed into a sophisticated shell of sun rays enclosing all spectators." A Brief History of Rome's Luminous Rotundas | ArchDaily
A Brief History of Rome's Luminous Rotundas | ArchDaily
https://www.archdaily.com/775844/a-brief-history-of-romes-luminous-rotundas
A rotunda (from Latin rotundus) is any roofed building with a circular ground plan, and sometimes covered by a dome. It may also refer to a round room within a building (a famous example being the one below the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.). The Pantheon, Rome is the most famous and influential rotunda. A band rotunda is a circular bandstand, usually with a dome."
Rotunda (architecture) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotunda_(architecture)#:~:text=A%20rotunda%20(from%20Latin%20rotundus,Capitol%20in%20Washington%2C%20D.C.).
Rotunda died of a HEART attack on August 24, 2023, at the age of 36.[281] His death was announced by WWE chief content creator and former wrestler Triple H on X.[282]"
Bray Wyatt - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bray_Wyatt
On September 10, 2012 during Raw at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, not long after defeating Punk and Dolph Ziggler in a tag-team match with Randy Orton, Lawler legitimately collapsed at the announcers table while Kane and Daniel Bryan competed against Titus O'Neil and Darren Young.[52][53] Cole continued to call that match alone, as well as the next match, before WWE (through Cole) announced the medical situation with Lawler. The remaining matches on the show went ahead as scheduled but without commentary and updates on Lawler's condition were provided by Cole. At the end of the broadcast, it was announced that he had received CPR, but was breathing independently and reacting to stimulation. Doctors said that Lawler was clinically dead for almost 30 minutes.[54] It was later confirmed on WWE.com that Lawler had suffered a heart attack.[55] On September 11, 2012, he underwent an angioplasty to improve blood flow to his heart.[56] On September 12, 2012, Lawler was reported to be slowly being eased off sedation, his ventilator removed. He was able to blink, nod, and squeeze with his hands,[57] and that same day, the results of several CT scans showed no signs of brain damage.[58] By September 17, Lawler had returned to his home in Memphis."
Jerry "The King" Lawler - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Lawler
On September 25, 2020, Paul was hospitalized after slurring his words while speaking during a livestream event. Paul later posted a photo of himself in a hospital bed to his Twitter page, along with the statement "I am doing fine. Thank you for your concern".[261]"
Ron Paul - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul
During the Cold War, science was the focus of intense super-power rivalry. Even areas like mind control were explored, amid fears of the other side getting an edge - and this included microwaves.
Prof Lin was shown the Soviet approach at a centre of scientific research in the town of Pushchino, near Moscow. "They had a very elaborate, very well-equipped laboratory," Prof Lin recalls. But their experiment was cruder than his. The subject would sit in a drum of salty seawater with their head sticking out. Then microwaves would be fired at their brain. The scientists thought the microwaves interacted with the nervous system and wanted to question Prof Lin on his alternative view.
Curiosity cut both ways, and US spies kept close track on Soviet research. A 1976 report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, unearthed by the BBC, says it could find no proof of Communist-bloc microwave weapons, but says it had learnt of experiments where microwaves were pulsed at the throat of frogs until their hearts stopped.
The report also reveals that the US was concerned Soviet microwaves could be used to impair brain function or induce sounds for psychological effect. "Their internal sound perception research has great potential for development into a system for disorienting or disrupting the behaviour patterns of military or diplomatic personnel."
‘Havana syndrome ’ and the mystery of the microwaves - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58396698
Razor Ramon: Taking His Piece of America”
by Keith Elliot Greenberg - WWF Magazine [October 1992]
“The crowd on the Havana dock surged toward the rickety fishing boat. The vessel rocked back and forth perilously as people rushed onto the deck, clutching bundles of their belongings and squealing children. In the distance, a siren was heard. The army was coming to try to force the refugees to remain on Cuban shores, so it was imperative to leave immediately."
https://droptoehold-blog.tumblr.com/post/49522530268/razor-ramon-taking-his-piece-of-america-by
Scott Oliver Hall (October 20, 1958 – March 14, 2022)
Fourteenth Rule. Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things.
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing
14We ought to act on the principle that everyone who lives under obedience should let himself be carried and directed by Divine Providence through the agency of the superior 15as if he were a lifeless body, which allows itself to be carried to any place and treated in any way; or an old man s staff, which serves at any place and for any purpose in which the one holding it in his hand wishes to employ it. 16For in this way the obedient man ought joyfully to employ himself in any task in which the superior desires to employ him in aid of the whole body of the religious order; 17and he ought to hold it certain that by so doing he conforms himself with the divine will more than by anything else he could do while following his own will and different judgment.[3]"
page 221
The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his tenures with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) under his real name and with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) under the ring name Razor Ramon.
Born in St. Mary's County, Maryland, Hall began his career in 1984. He rose to prominence after signing with the WWF in May 1992, assuming the name Razor Ramon. While within the company, he won the WWF Intercontinental Championship four times. He departed the company in May 1996, and subsequently signed with rival promotion WCW, where he became a founding member of the New World Order (nWo) faction, along with Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash. In the company, he became a two-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion, a one-time WCW World Television Champion, and a seven-time WCW World Tag Team Champion. He left WCW in February 2000, returning to the WWF (later renamed WWE) for a brief stint in 2002.
He spent the rest of his career wrestling for various promotions, such as Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he held the TNA World Tag Team Championship once, with Kevin Nash and Eric Young. He wrestled his final match in June 2016. Although he never won a world championship in a major promotion, Hall held the WWC Universal Heavyweight Championship once for the Puerto Rico-based promotion World Wrestling Council. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a singles competitor in 2014, and as a member of the nWo in 2020. Hall struggled with alcoholism and substance abuse for much of his career and later life, and died in March 2022, at the age of 63.
Death
In March 2022, Hall was hospitalized after falling and breaking his hip.[166] He was immobile on the floor for days before being discovered during a wellness check by his friend Diamond Dallas Page, who took him to the hospital.[167] After Hall underwent hip replacement surgery, a blood clot was dislodged, and resulted in Hall having three heart attacks on March 12, 2022, after which he was put on life support at WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Georgia.[168] He was taken off life support on March 14, 2022, after his family had traveled to the hospital to see him and be with him at his bedside. He died about 4 or 6 hours later at the age of 63.[169][170][171] WWE announced his death later during that day's Raw episode with a tribute video.[172]
Four days after Hall's death, Sean Waltman revealed to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Hall had relapsed back into alcohol abuse when the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns rendered him unable to have social interactions, and at one point he had dropped weight down to 210 pounds (95 kg) from his usual 287 pounds (130 kg). Waltman also revealed that Hall was in particularly bad shape the night before the 2021 Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and even passed out at a bar.[167] Waltman also stated Hall's condition worsened throughout the two years prior to his death and that he had offered to move in with Hall in February 2022 to help with his health issues.[167] Page also returned to help with Hall's alcoholism.[167]
Hall was buried on April 8, 2022, at Trinity Church Cemetery at St. Mary's, Maryland, his hometown, and the service was attended by fellow wrestlers Kevin Nash, Sean Waltman, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Page.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Hall
Windham Lawrence Rotunda (May 23, 1987 – August 24, 2023), better known by his ring name Bray Wyatt, was an American professional wrestler best known for his tenures in WWE from 2009 until his death in 2023.
Rotunda was a third-generation wrestler, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Blackjack Mulligan, his father Mike Rotunda, and his uncles Barry and Kendall Windham. His younger brother Taylor is also a wrestler under the ring name Bo Dallas. Alongside his brother, he held the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship twice while in WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). He wrestled under various ring names between 2008 and 2012 in FCW, and wrestled on WWE's main roster from 2010 to 2011 as a member of The Nexus under the ring name Husky Harris.
After returning to WWE's developmental territory, which had been rebranded as NXT, Rotunda was repackaged as Bray Wyatt. Portrayed as the villainous leader of a bayou-dwelling cult called The Wyatt Family, he returned to the main roster alongside Wyatt Family members Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in 2013. He subsequently became a one-time WWE Champion, two-time WWE Universal Champion, one-time SmackDown Tag Team Champion (alongside Harper and brief Wyatt Family member Randy Orton under the Freebird Rule), and one-time Raw Tag Team Champion (with Matt Hardy).
After a hiatus from August 2018 to April 2019, Wyatt returned with a new split personality gimmick, which saw him switch between the two characters of a Mr. Rogers-esque children's TV host named Bray Wyatt and a grotesque monster resembling an evil clown called The Fiend. He was released from WWE in July 2021, but returned in October 2022 with a new character that claimed to be his "real-life" self, though he gradually reincorporated his previous personalities in addition to new ones. In what would become his only televised match during this return, he defeated LA Knight in January 2023; he took a medical hiatus in February due to a COVID-19 infection that exacerbated a pre-existing heart condition, and died of a heart attack in August at the age of 36.
Death
Rotunda died in his sleep at his home in Clermont, Florida, on August 24, 2023 at the age of 36. The cause of death was a heart attack.[270][271] His death was announced by WWE's chief content officer Triple H, following a phone call he had received from Rotunda's father Mike Rotunda.[272] Rotunda had been dealing with an undisclosed illness since February, which was reportedly life-threatening. Just days before his death, reports were published stating that he was making progress in his recovery. Shortly after his death, it was revealed that the illness was due to an earlier COVID-19 infection, which had exacerbated a pre-existing heart condition.[270] He had been hospitalized for a heart issue one week before his death, and was advised to wear a specialized vest containing a self-activating defibrillator; at the time of his death, he was not wearing the vest, which police found in his car.[271][273]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bray_Wyatt
Lyon County Sheriff's Office - Nevada
February 26, 2020 ·
Sixteen years ago today, the Serenko family lost a loved one and the Lyon County Sheriff's Office lost one of our brothers.
Deputy Mick Serenko was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey but lived most of his life in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The day after he graduated high school Mick joined the Navy and he always said it was the best move he ever made. The Navy gave him stability and focus in his life, it enabled him to see much of the world, and it helped him gain an education (majoring in Criminal Justice).
When Mick talked about retiring from the Navy it was always with the idea of becoming a law enforcement officer. He and his lovely wife, Sharon, checked out several areas around the country (including Texas and Washington State) but ultimately decided on Nevada as the place to plant their roots.
Mick went to work for the Lyon County Sheriff's Office and served there until the night he suffered a major heart attack on the job. He was hospitalized and passed away a couple days later on February 26, 2004.
Deputy Mick Serenko loved being a cop and he is sorely missed.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=1234461393427621&id=100064937010102
Alameda County Sheriff's Office
February 14, 2022 ·
DEATH OF ALAMEDA COUNTY DEPUTY SHERIFF AUBREY PHILLIPS
For Immediate Release:
It is with tremendous sadness we report the sudden and unexpected death of Deputy Sheriff Aubrey Phillips.
On Saturday, February 12, 2022, Deputy Phillips was assigned as a patrol officer to the City of Dublin, California a contract police service of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. About 1:46 am, Deputy Phillips conducted a traffic enforcement stop in which she arrested the driver of the vehicle. During the process of that arrest, while seated in her patrol vehicle, Deputy Phillips suffered a severe and acute medical emergency. Another officer noticed Deputy Phillips in distress and immediately began life saving efforts and called for emergency medical services. Deputy Phillips was rushed to Stanford Valley Care Hospital in Pleasanton, California and was listed in critical condition. She was transported to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek for life saving intervention. Tragically, medical professionals were unable to save her life and she passed away.
Deputy Phillips was a registered organ donor and she will donate her organs to others as a result of her death. Sheriff Gregory Ahern stated, “This tragic event has touched each member of this agency. Aubrey’s short life will live on even after her passing. Aubrey will continue to serve her community by giving the gift of life to others in need. She was truly a remarkable person and served this agency and Alameda County with dignity and honor.”
Deputy Phillips was 36 years old. She was a five year veteran of the Agency and assigned as a midnight shift patrol officer in the City of Dublin. Deputy Phillips is the daughter of an honorably retired Alameda County Deputy Sheriff and her husband is a current Deputy Sheriff for Alameda County. Deputy Phillips and her husband have three young children.
Our Agency is heartbroken over the sudden death of Deputy Phillips. We are providing counseling and peer support to our members impacted by her loss.
Further information regarding funeral services will be provided at a later date.
*Photographs of Aubrey Phillips are attached for media use.
Lt. Ray Kelly
Chief of Staff
Public Information officer
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office
1401 Lakeside Dr. 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
https://www.facebook.com/ACSOSheriffs/posts/pfbid03FbGAv9eFcNaheypozH59kCLJkzHLwrL7qgUHbStiV9MtbcBU9pUt7KpTPk8Hbngl
Salvador Miranda (October 18, 1939 – June 1, 2024) was an American bibliographer, librarian and church historian.[1][2]
Biography
Miranda was born on October 18, 1939, in Havana, Cuba.[2] In 1958, he graduated from the Jesuit-run Colegio de Belén in Havana after which he attended the law school at the University of Havana.[2] After the Cuban Revolution in 1963, he moved to Puerto Rico to study humanities at the University of Puerto Rico.[2] As a young Cuban exile, he was a member of the Cuban-American expeditionary force in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.[1] He then returned to school graduating with a B.A. in History and Philosophy from Biscayne College; an M.A. in Modern European History in 1974 from Villanova University; and an M.S. in Library and Information Science in 1976 from Florida State University.[2] After graduating from Florida State, he accepted a position as the Latin American and Caribbean Bibliographer at the University of Florida Libraries in Gainesville.[2] In 1986, he served as assistant director for Collection Management at Florida International University Libraries in Miami.[2] On June 30, 2001, he retired.[2]
The title of his 319-page master's thesis in history was The Sacred College of Cardinals in the Twentieth Century (1903-1973): Developments, Documents and Biographies[2] which he expanded to include earlier cardinals and then digitized, making it available as an online resource.[1] In appreciation of his research, Bishop Cipriano Calderón Polo, the founding director of the Spanish edition of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano and the vice president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, whom he corresponded with for years over the history of the episcopacy, invited him to present at the first continental meeting of bishops from Latin America in 1999.[1][3]
His research and expertise has been used as a resource by various publications including The New York Times,[4] The Cleveland Plain Dealer,[5] Religion News Service,[6] La Stampa,[7] and The Wall Street Journal.[8]
On 28 June 2023, Miranda posted on The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church's main page that he had been hospitalized with cardiac issues.[9] He died on June 1, 2024, at the age of 84.[10][11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Miranda_(historian)
Jeremy Dane Laymon[2] (March 10, 1976 – December 25, 2024) was an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Jax Dane. He was known for his tenure with various National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) member promotions. He was a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, NWA National Heavyweight, NWA North American Heavyweight and NWA World Tag Team Champion. He was also known for his work for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), Impact Wrestling, and Ring of Honor (ROH).
Return to NWA (2020–2024)
On the February 25, 2020, episode of NWA Powerrr, Dane appeared with Danny Deals to challenge Tim Storm.[citation needed]
Jax lost the NWA National Championship to Cyon at NWA 74 at The Chase Ballroom in St. Louis, MO on August 27, 2022.[citation needed]
He remained active in the NWA until his death. His final match, where he and Baron Von Storm defeated Jake Dumas and Zyon, took place at the NWA Samhain 2 taping and aired on December 17, 2024.[citation needed]
Death
Following complications from a heart attack suffered in November, Dane died on December 25, 2024 at the age of 48. The National Wrestling Alliance issued a statement on his death on their website.[31]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jax_Dane
REMOTE CONTROL HEART ATTACK WEAPONS
"The brain is on the verge of becoming the next battlefield with weapons currently being designed to hack directly into your nervous system.
"Controlled Personnel Effects"
(see image, right) is one of the Air Force’s ambitious long-term challenges. It starts with better and more accurate bombs, but moves on to discuss devices that "make selected adversaries think or act according to our needs… By studying and modeling the human brain and nervous system, the ability to mentally influence or confuse personnel is also possible."
The first stage is technology to “remotely create physical sensations.”
They give the example of the Active Denial System "people zapper" which uses a high-frequency radiation similar to microwaves as a non-lethal means of crowd control.
Other weapons can affect the nervous system directly. The Pulsed Energy Projectile fires a short intense pulse of laser energy. This vaporizes the outer layer of the target, creating a rapidly-expanding expanding ball of plasma. At different power levels, those expanding plasmas could deliver a harmless warning, stun the target, or disable them – all with pinpoint laser precision from a mile away.
Early reports on the effects of PEPs mentioned temporary paralysis, then thought to be related to ultrasonic shockwaves. It later became apparent that the electromagnetic pulse caused by the expanding plasma was triggering nerve cells
Details of this emerged in a heavily-censored document released to Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project under the Freedom if Information Act. Called “Sensory consequence of electromagnetic pulsed emitted by laser induced plasmas,” it described research on activating the nerve cells responsible for sensing unpleasant stimuli: heat, damage, pressure, cold. By selectively stimulating a particular nociceptor, a finely tuned PEP might sensations of say, being burned, frozen or dipped in acid — all without doing the slightest actual harm.
The skin is the easiest target for such stimulation. But, in principle, any sensory nerves could be triggered. The Controlled Effects document suggests “it may be possible to create synthetic images…to confuse an individual’ s visual sense or, in a similar manner, confuse his senses of sound, taste, touch, or smell.”
In other words, it may be possible to use electromagnetic means to create overwhelming ‘sound’ or ‘light’, or indeed ‘intolerable smell’ which would exist only in the brain of the person perceiving them.
There is another side as well. The “sensory consequences” document also notes that the nervous system which controls muscles could be influenced to cause what they call “Taser-like motor effects.” The stun gun’s ability to shock the muscles into malfunction is relatively crude; we might now be looking at are much more targeted effects.
The American military may want to attack the nervous system, with pain rays and laser plasma pulses. But they’re not the only ones.
The Russians have long studied such systems, too — including one weapon that could, in theory, remotely trigger heart attacks.
In 2003, at the 2nd European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons, Anatoly Korolev and his colleagues from Moscow State University presented a paper with the snappy title "Bioelectrodynamic Criterion of the NLW Effectiveness Estimation and the Interaction mechanisms of the multilayer Skin Tissues with electromagnetic Radiation." This is a study of how radio-frequency weapons — like the American Active Denial System — affect the skin. After wading through a mass of technical data showing how complex the interactions are we reach the punch line:
The sensations modality (pricking, touch, pressure, gooseflesh, touch, burning pain etc) depends on the field parameters and individual concrete human being factors. As a matter of fact, we can really choose the non-lethal bioeffect.
The effects include sensations similar to those discussed previously, and more besides. The paper discusses effects on cell membranes and affecting the body’s normal function, including "information transfer to the organs of control."
At the same conference, V Makukhin of the Trymas Engineering Center in Moscow described "Electronic equipment for complex influence on biological objects." And when he says "biological objects," he means you and me.
His laboratory apparatus uses a modulated beam of radio waves to produce what he terms "disorder of autonomic nervous system," put forward as a possible non-lethal weapon. Makhunin notes that there is no general agreement on how EM waves disrupt nerves – he mentions ion channels similar to those in the plasma paper – but he certainly seems to be seeing the same effects as American researchers.
But it need not be a non-lethal weapon. Makhunin also mentions the effects of "change of electrocardiogram" and what he calls "function break of heart muscle."
The vulnerability of the heart to electrical stimulation (including that produced by EM waves) is well documented.
A lethal device would interfere with the electrical potentials that keep the chambers of the heart synchronized, producing fibrillation and rapid death. A death ray doesn’t need to be a truck-sized laser that
reduces the target to smoking heap; a small device that stops the heart will do the job.
Little has been openly published in this area in the public domain, but this may be the tip of the iceberg. We are likely to be hearing more in future – especially if the Russians manage to find funding.
I don’t think we need tinfoil hats just yet. But a layer of conducting mesh built into body armor might save a lot of heartache in years to come."
REMOTE CONTROL HEART ATTACK WEAPONS
https://www.impactlab.com/2006/02/15/remote-control-heart-attack-weapons/
Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart?
Answer
Exodus 7:3-4 says, “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out...my people the Israelites.” It seems unjust for God to harden Pharaoh’s heart and then to punish Pharaoh and Egypt for what Pharaoh decided when his heart was hardened. Why would God harden Pharaoh’s heart just so He could judge Egypt more severely with additional plagues?
First, Pharaoh was not an innocent or godly man. He was a brutal dictator overseeing the terrible abuse and oppression of the Israelites, who likely numbered over 1.5 million people at that time. The Egyptian pharaohs had enslaved the Israelites for 400 years. A previous pharaoh—possibly even the pharaoh in question—ordered that male Israelite babies be killed at birth (Exodus 1:16). The pharaoh God hardened was an evil man, and the nation he ruled agreed with, or at least did not oppose, his evil actions.
Second, on least a couple occasions, Pharaoh hardened his own heart against letting the Israelites go: “But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart” (Exodus 8:15). “But this time also Pharaoh hardened his heart” (Exodus 8:32). It seems that God and Pharaoh were both active in one way or another in the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. As the plagues continued, God gave Pharaoh increasingly severe warnings of the final judgment to come. Pharaoh chose to bring further judgment on himself and his nation by hardening his own heart against God’s commands.
It could be that, as a result of Pharaoh’s hard-heartedness, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart even further, allowing for the last few plagues and bringing God’s full glory into view (Exodus 9:12; 10:20, 27). Pharaoh and Egypt had brought these judgments on themselves with 400 years of slavery and mass murder. Since the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and Pharaoh and Egypt had horribly sinned against God, it would have been just if God had completely annihilated Egypt. Therefore, God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart was not unjust, and His bringing additional plagues against Egypt was not unjust. The plagues, as terrible as they were, actually demonstrate God’s mercy in not completely destroying Egypt, which would have been a perfectly just penalty.
Romans 9:17-18 declares, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.” From a human perspective, it seems wrong for God to harden a person and then punish the person He has hardened. Biblically speaking, however, we have all sinned against God (Romans 3:23), and the just penalty for that sin is death (Romans 6:23). Therefore, God’s hardening and punishing a person is not unjust; it is actually merciful in comparison to what the person deserves.
https://www.gotquestions.org/God-harden-Pharaoh-heart.html
Exodus 7-8
1599 Geneva Bible
7 3 God hardeneth Pharaoh’s heart. 10 Moses and Aaron do the miracles of the serpent, and the blood: and Pharaoh’s sorcerers do the like.
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I have made thee [a]Pharaoh’s [b]God, and Aaron thy brother shall [c]be thy Prophet.
2 Thou shalt speak all that I commanded thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he suffer the children of Israel to go out of his land.
3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my miracles, and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
4 And Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out mine armies, even my people, the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, by great [d]judgments.
5 Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.
6 So Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them, even so did they.
7 (Now Moses was [e]fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three, when they spake unto Pharaoh.)
8 ¶ And the Lord had spoken unto Moses and Aaron, saying,
9 If Pharaoh speak unto you, saying, Show a miracle for you, then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall be turned into a [f]serpent.
10 ¶ Then went Moses and Aaron unto Pharaoh, and did even as the Lord had commanded, and Aaron cast forth his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it was turned into a serpent.
11 Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and [g]sorcerers: and those charmers also of Egypt did in like manner with their enchantments.
12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they were turned into serpents: but Aaron’s rod devoured their rods.
13 So Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not to them, as the Lord had said.
14 ¶ The Lord then said unto Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is [h]obstinate, he refuseth to let the people go.
15 Go unto Pharaoh in the morning, (lo, he will come forth unto the water) and thou shalt stand and meet him by [i]the river’s brink, and the rod, which was turned into a serpent, shalt thou take in thine hand.
16 And thou shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness: and behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear.
17 Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the water that is in the river, and it shall be turned into blood.
18 And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink, and it shall [j]grieve the Egyptians to drink of the water of the river.
19 ¶ The Lord then spake to Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the waters of Egypt, over their streams, over their rivers, and over their ponds, and over all pools of their waters, and they shall be [k]blood, and there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and of stone.
20 So Moses and Aaron did even as the Lord commanded: and he lift up the rod, and smote the water that was in the river in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants: and all the water that was in the river, was turned into blood.
21 And the [l]fish that was in the river died, and the river stank: so that the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river: and there was blood throughout the land of Egypt.
22 And the enchanters of Egypt did [m]likewise with their sorceries: and the heart of Pharaoh was [n]hardened: so that he did not hearken unto them, as the Lord hath said.
23 Then Pharaoh returned, and went again into his house, [o]neither did this yet enter into his heart.
24 All the Egyptians then dug round about the river for waters to drink: for they could not drink of the water of the river.
25 And this [p]continued fully seven days after the Lord had smitten the river.
8 6 Frogs are sent. 13 Moses prayeth, and they die. 17 Lice are sent, whereby the sorcerers acknowledge God’s power. 24 Egypt is plagued with noisome flies. 30 Moses prayeth again.
1 Afterward the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
2 And if thou wilt not let them go, behold, I will smite all thy country with [q]frogs:
3 And the river shall crawl full of frogs, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy chamber, where thou sleepest, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy ovens, and [r]into thy kneading troughs.
4 Yea, the frogs shall climb up upon thee, and on thy people, and upon all thy servants.
5 ¶ Also the Lord said to Moses, Say thou unto Aaron, Stretch out thine hand with thy rod upon the streams, upon the rivers, and upon the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.
6 Then Aaron stretched out his hand upon the waters of Egypt, and the [s]frogs came up and covered the land of [t]Egypt.
7 And the sorcerers did likewise with their sorceries, and brought frogs up upon the land of Egypt.
8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, [u]Pray ye unto the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people, and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.
9 And Moses said unto Pharaoh, [v]Concerning me, even [w]command when I shall pray for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and from thine houses, that they may remain in the river only.
10 Then he said, Tomorrow. And he answered, Be it [x]as thou hast said, that thou mayest know, that there is none like unto the Lord our God.
11 So the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thine houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people: only they shall remain in the river.
12 Then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh: and Moses cried unto the Lord concerning the frogs, which he had [y]sent unto Pharaoh.
13 And the Lord did according to the saying of Moses: So the frogs [z]died in the houses, in the towns, and the fields.
14 And they gathered them together by heaps, and the land stank of them.
15 But when Pharaoh saw that he had rest given him, he [aa]hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had said.
16 ¶ Again the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the earth, that it may be turned to [ab]lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
17 And they did so: for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth: and lice came upon man and upon beast: all the dust of the earth was lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
18 Now the enchanters assayed likewise with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they [ac]could not. So the lice were upon man and upon beast.
19 Then said the enchanters unto Pharaoh, This is [ad]the finger of God. But Pharaoh’s heart remained obstinate, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had said.
20 ¶ Moreover the Lord said to Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh (lo, he will come forth unto the water) and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
21 Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send [ae]swarms of flies both upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and the ground also whereon they are.
22 But the land of Goshen, where my people are, will I cause to be [af]wonderful in that day, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the [ag]earth.
23 And I will make a deliverance of my people from thy people: tomorrow shall this miracle be.
24 And the Lord did so: for there came [ah]great swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, so that through all the land of Egypt, the earth was corrupt by the swarms of flies.
25 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Go, do sacrifice unto your God in this land.
26 And Moses answered, It is not meet to do so: for then we should offer unto the Lord our God that, which is an [ai]abomination unto the Egyptians. Lo, can we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and they not stone us?
27 Let us go three days’ journey in the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.
28 And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice unto the Lord your God in the wilderness: but [aj]go not far away, pray for me.
29 And Moses said, Behold, I will go out from thee, and pray unto the Lord, that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people tomorrow: but let Pharaoh from henceforth [ak]deceive no more, in not suffering the people to sacrifice unto the Lord.
30 So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed unto the Lord.
31 And the Lord did according to the saying of Moses, and the swarms of flies departed from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, and there remained not one.
32 Yet Pharaoh [al]hardened his heart at this time also, and did not let the people go.
Footnotes
Exodus 7:1 Or, a God to Pharaoh.
Exodus 7:1 I have given thee power and authority to speak in my name and to execute my judgments upon him.
Exodus 7:1 Or, shall speak for thee (before Pharaoh.)
Exodus 7:4 To strengthen Moses’ faith, God promiseth again to punish most sharply the oppression of his Church.
Exodus 7:7 Moses lived in affliction and banishment forty years before he enjoined his office to deliver God’s people.
Exodus 7:9 Or, dragon.
Exodus 7:11 It seemeth that these were Jannes and Jambres: read 2 Tim. 3:8, so ever the wicked maliciously resist the truth of God.
Exodus 7:14 Or, heavy and dull.
Exodus 7:15 To wit, the river Nile.
Exodus 7:18 Or, they shall be weary, and abhor to drink.
Exodus 7:19 The first plague.
Exodus 7:21 To signify that it was a true miracle, and that God plagued them in that which was most necessary for the preservation of life.
Exodus 7:22 In outward appearance, and after that the seven days were ended.
Exodus 7:22 Hebrew, was made strong.
Exodus 7:23 Hebrew, he set not his heart at all thereunto.
Exodus 7:25 Or seven days accomplished.
Exodus 8:2 There is nothing so weak, that God cannot cause to overcome the greatest power of man.
Exodus 8:3 Or, upon thy dough, or into thine ambries.
Exodus 8:6 The second plague.
Exodus 8:6 But Goshen, where God’s people dwelt, was excepted.
Exodus 8:8 Not love, but fear causeth the very Infidels to seek unto God.
Exodus 8:9 Hebrew, have this honor over me.
Exodus 8:9 Or, speak plain unto me.
Exodus 8:10 Hebrew, according to thy word.
Exodus 8:12 Or, laid upon.
Exodus 8:13 In things of this life God oft times heareth the prayers of the just for the ungodly.
Exodus 8:15 Or, made his heart heavy.
Exodus 8:16 The third plague.
Exodus 8:18 God confounded their wisdom and authority in a thing most vile.
Exodus 8:19 They acknowledged that this was done by God’s power and not by sorcery, Luke 11:20.
Exodus 8:21 Or, a multitude of venomous beasts as serpents, etc.
Exodus 8:22 Or, I will separate.
Exodus 8:22 Or, land of Egypt.
Exodus 8:24 The fourth plague.
Exodus 8:26 For the Egyptians worshipped divers beasts, as the ox, the sheep and such like which the Israelites offered in sacrifice, which thing the Egyptians abhorred to see.
Exodus 8:28 So the wicked prescribe unto God’s messengers how far they shall go.
Exodus 8:29 He could not judge his heart, but yet he charged him to do this unfeignedly.
Exodus 8:32 Where God giveth not faith, no miracles can prevail.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%207-8&version=GNV
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