THE SPIRIT LETTERS

Message Fifty-Three - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and Others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third.

CONTINUING HILLEL’S SEVENTH LETTER

It appears that John the Baptist had no particular individual in mind when he commenced his mission, but was informed by God, who had sent him, to preach repentance, and that he should point out the manifestation of the Messiah by way of some miraculous appearance. He had apparently in some way known the Baptist before as a man of great piety and excellence, for when Jesus came to him to be baptized, John declared, “I have need to be baptized of thee! and comes thou unto me?” But as to the Messiah, he had no knowledge about Him, for he testifies, “I knew him not” – that is, as the Messiah – “but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said to me: upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, the same is He that shall baptize with the Holy Ghost.”

John asssembled around him a company of disciples whom he instructed in the mysteries of religion, and many of them apparently remained with him after he was cast into prison, until he was beheaded by Herod. It is reasonable to conclude that his teaching foreshadowed, although imperfectly, the general system of Christianity that followed. Jesus said of John the Baptist, “Among them born of women, there has not a greater arisen than John the Baptist – which opens the door to understanding that John had before been the great Prophet Elijah. John’s teachings bear a strong resemblance to the early discourses of Jesus Christ’s, such as: “And the people said unto him, ‘What shall we do then?’ and he answered and said unto them, ‘He that has two coats, let him impart one unto him that has none; and he that has meat, let him do likewise.’” On another occasion, the tax gatherers came to be baptized, and said to Him, “Master, what shall we do? And He replied, “Exact no more then is appointed of you.” And the soldiers likewise demanded of Him, asking “and what shall we do?” And He told them, “Do violence to no man, neither accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”

That John preached the essential doctrines of Christianity would appear from what we read: “And a certain Jew named Apollos, born in Alexandria, an eloquent man and well versed in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord, and, being fervent in Spirit, he spoke and taught diligently in the things of the Lord, but knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, where Aquilla and Priscilla heard him, and called him unto them and expounded the way of the Lord more perfectly.” In the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Acts it was written: “And it came to pass that while Apollo was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper coasts, came to Ephesus, and, finding certain disciples, said to them, “Have you received the Holy Ghost since you have believed?” And they replied, “We have not so much as heard whether there actually is any Holy Ghost!” And Paul said unto them, “Unto what, then, are you baptized? And they replied, “Unto John’s baptism.” Now, here are two cases in which those who had heard nothing but the doctrines of John are said to have been Christians, to have been taught the truths of the Lord, and have been disciples. This illustrates that those who had followed John the Baptist’s teachings and doctrines, after Jesus’ Ascension, did not receive the Holy Ghost’s cleansing by spiritual rebirth. It was only after they learned of Jesus’ doctrines that such a “saving experience” – of the kind noted in Acts 8:14-17 – came about. Apostle Peter reached the understanding that water baptism was no longer necessary after Jesus’ spiritual empowerment, it having been superceded by Christ’s Spirit Baptism – as illustrated in events recorded in Acts Chapters Ten and Eleven.

It follows, then, that John the Baptist taught the essential preparatory truths of Christianity. Because the object of the Gospels was to record the teaching of Jesus, that of John is passed over in a comparatively cursory manner. But, that John taught often and much – as well as prophesied the coming of the Messiah, we have every reason to believe. His disciples, however, mingled some of the old forms with their new doctrines, for they fasted often: an observance which Jesus declared, “Agreed no better with the new religion He taught than a piece of old cloth with a new garment; or new wine with old bottles” – as noted in Mt. 9:16-17; Mk. 2:21-22; and Lk. 5:36-39.

The mind of John the Baptist furnishes a remarkable example – which we often meet with – of partial divine illumination – the clearest knowledge on some points and absolute ignorance on others. By the light of inspiration he foreshadowed in a few words the fundamental concept of the kingdom of heaven. He foretold its approach and showed it to be something entirely different from the expectations of Jews, as it had been handed down from remote ages. Yet as to its details, he seems to have been only vaguely aware: he appears to have had no certain knowledge that Jesus was in fact the Messiah; even though he baptized Him and received the heavenly sign of which Jews had been forewarned.

One truth which he announced bears evident marks of supernatural origin, because it contradicted the conceptions and prejudices of the age. This was that the Messiah and His Kingdom were not to be “national” – not to belong as a matter of right and exclusion, to the posterity of Abraham alone. There is a maxim – as common as the letters in the alphabet – in the writings of the rabbis, “There is a part for all Israel in the world to come” – that is, in the Kingdom of the Messiah, merely because of their lineal descent from Abraham. There was more. That it was to be a kingdom selected from not only Israel, but also from other nations – a new community by no means co-extensive with the seed of Abraham – they had not the slightest idea or understanding.

As above noted, Apostle Paul explained that to be one of Christ’s was to be one of Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise given to Abraham: and thereby heirs of that promise which joined Jews to the Gentiles in a spiritual way that too often goes unnoticed. Paul specifically explained that relationship to Galatians in Chapter Three, verses 6 to 29.

That it was designed to be a moral and spiritual kingdom was far from the Jewish conception in John the Baptist’s time, but he taught: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of repentance. And say not , “We have Abraham for our father, for God is able from these stones to raise up children from Abraham.”

Series to be Continued in Message 54 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Fifty-Two - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[ Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and Others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third.

CONTINUING HILLEL’S SEVENTH LETTER

Josephus speaks generally about the troubles of these times, without specifying their causes. And now Judea was full of robberies, and as the several companies of seditious would light upon anyone to head them, he was created a king immediately to lead them: he was created a king immediately to head them up to do mischief to the public. This was exactly the state of the country during the ministry of Jesus; which explains his caution in proclaiming himself the Messiah, as well as His withdrawal as soon as the multitude collected about Him and manifested any tendency to sedition or disturbance. It is recorded of Him, that after the Miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, and the declaration made concerning Him: “This is of a truth that prophet which should come into the world.” When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take Him by force and make Him a king, he departed again into the mountain alone.

In another similar situation, when He had healed a man at the pool of Bethesda, “And he that was healed wist not it was; for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place.”

Such being the expectation of the Jews, as we learn from profane history, a man of singular abits and appearance began to preach in a retired part of Judea, where there were but few towns, declaring, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This man, John the Baptist, was of the sacredotal tribe – that is, born in the tribe of Levi, as noted in Lk. 1:15 – and he had been consecrated to God from his infancy by the vow of the Nazarite. His habits and dress were those of a hermit, his food such as he could pick up in the fields and woods John was literally a voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God!”

John professed to have been moved by divine impulse to proclaim the imminent appearance of the Messiah. A man of such singular appearance, bearing such an important message, produced a great sensation, and excited the strongest curiosity. Crowds from all parts of Judea flocked to see and hear him. Some believed him to be the Messiah, and his fame soon reached Jerusalem with the result that the Jewish authorities send a deputation of priests and Levites to inquire who he actually was – as Apostle John noted in 1:19-23. John conceded that he was not the Messiah, but had been sent to introduce him, saying, “I came to point him out to Israel.” This was of great importance because Jews were watching events closely to determine who their Messiah was to be, and when He would appear.

The true reason for the Baptist’s appearance – his being raised up by Divine Providence – was doubtless to prepare the Jewish mind for the great message from God which they were about to receive; to reshape their ideas from the many traditions which had grown up through the years, to help them convert into a spiritual condition in which they would be able and willing to accept the new dispensation that the Messiah was about to establish. As Jeremiah had foretold: there was to be New Covenant – not according to the covenant God had made with Israel when He had brought His chosen people out of Egypt. It was to be a spiritual covenant in which He would put the law right in their inward parts – as God had foretold to and through His Prophet Jeremiah, in Jer. 31:31-34.

Apostle Paul, after having been spiritually quickened on the Damascus Road by the Spirit of the Risen Christ – as described in Acts Chapters 9,22, and 26 – declared to the Galatians that since Christ’s empowerment, a man is not justified by the works of the law of Moses, but by faith in Jesus Christ – Gal. 2:16. Paul explained that the blessing of Abraham came to the Gentiles through Jess Christ, that they might receive the promise of the Spirit through Faith. That the promises were made to Abraham and his seed, and that the law of Moses, four hundred and thirty years after God made the promise to Abraham, could not make that promise of no effect.

Paul explained that by the works of the law no man should be justified – but rather justification comes through faith and belief in Jesus Christ, but that those who are His must not be found to be sinners – Gal. 2:16-17 – that before faith came we were kept under the law, thereby shut up in the law unto the Faith which was afterward revealed. Paul explains that the law was, in effect, our spiritual school-master to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith…and that now those who have baptized to “put on Christ” are the children of God, as noted in Gal. 3:23-27. And, Paul explained: since then “There is neither Jew nor Greek, nor bond nor free, not male nor female, FOR ALL ARE ONE IN CHRIST JESUS – if ye be Christ’s, ye are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise God gave to and through him!

The effect of John the Baptist’s preaching was precisely what Providence intended. He produced a strong impression upon the public mind, and though he wrought no miracle, he was considered to be a prophet. He presented a strong contrast – probably by design – to the pretenders to divine mission who appeared at about the same time. It was on this account that the multitudes which gathered about him created no uneasiness in the public authorities. A man like John, who clothed himself in such course attire a country where the higher classes were studious of ornament, and all who had any pretensions to official dignity were distinguished by gorgeous apparel, would naturally escape all suspicion of political ambition.

A religious teacher evidently sincere and pious, and withal free from fanaticism and enthusiasm, especially after the cessation of prophecy for four hundred years! would necessarily produce a great impression. He must have recalled to the minds of his countrymen the days when Elijah – in like simplicity and grave austerity – as disclosed in 2 Kings 1:7-8 and Mt. 3:1-4 – stood up as a prophet of God, and the champion of religion. Some, indeed, mistook John to be Elijah risen from the dead, who, their traditions affirmed, was to come to anoint and inaugurate the Messiah. It was written that John the Baptist had lived before as Elijah, “If they would receive it” – Mt. 11:7-15, and see Mt. 17:12-13; Mk. 9:11-13; Lk. 1:15-17. Not many were prepared to receive such a startling message in that early time.

Series to be Continued in Message 53 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Fifty-One - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and Others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third.

CONTINUING HILLEL’S SEVENTH LETTER

One concept of the Kingdom of the Messiah prophesied to come, projected in Psalm 2:9-12, was the he was not only to reign over the Jews – who were faithfully waiting for His manifestation in flesh – but who was to destroy all other nations: “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers tale counsel together against the Lord God and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from Us. He that sits in the heaven shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall HE speak to them in HIS wrath, and vex them in HIS sore displeasure. Yet I have set MY king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will, says the Son, declare the decree; the Lord God has said unto me, ‘Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of ME and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”

It is noteworthy that Hannah, the extremely spiritual psychic daughter of Prophet Samuel, had in her time already prophesied this occurrence. as recorded in 1 Sam. 2:2,10; as had David, in Psalm 110: 1-4-6. They foresaw it as being accomplished by one who would “descend from heaven.” And David had added that this would be a “Second Lord, who was his, David’s Lord, who was to descend from the “higher Lord’s” right side. In order to accomplish this, it was first necessary the this elevated Prophet would walk on the earth as Moses had foretold – to fulfill predictions which would terminate the spiritual supremacy of the lineage of Judah – as clearly and specifically projected in Genesis 49:10. And this Prophet was to speak the Words of God the Father so that His people would gather around Him. The Messianic Son of God is to return – subsequent to His flesh appearance as Jesus – when He returns in the cloud in which He appeared over Israel during the Exodus; but at the time of Deliverance; as spelled out in Lk. 24:21-28; Acts 1:8-11; and in Jn 14:1-4.

These above Psalm Two verses were interpreted almost universally by the Jews to refer the Messiah; and even more readily as the title “Anointed” is translated in the Septuagint Christos, so that there it reads, “Against the Lord and against His Christ” – as seen in Rev. 12:10. The Messiah was, therefore, to reign on Mount Zion, one of the mountains on which Jerusalem was built, to reign over the Jews, and by God’s assistance, subdue the heathen by war and conquest – to break them in pieces with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces as if they were a potter’s vessel. Such was the kingdom which the great majority of Jews expected their Messiah to set up.

The phrase “kingdom of heaven” is extracted from the second chapter of the Book of Daniel. After foretelling that there were to arise four great monarchies – the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman, the last of which should be a kingdom of iron – he goes on to foretell: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

Another passage foretells, “I saw in the night a vision, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds in heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before Him. And there was given unto Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom one which shall not be destroyed – as Daniel foretold in Daniel 7:-14, 25-27.

From this last passage was probably derived the opinion, once commonly held, that the Messiah would never die. Jesus was quoted to have declared on one occasion: “And if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.” The people reportedly answered Him, “We have heard out of the law that Christ abides forever; and how, sayeth thou the Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?”

The new dispensation under the figure of a kingdom was the subject of the commencing petition of one of the chief prayers recited in the Synagogues from Sabbath to Sabbath, and had been so for ages. There was a time specified in the Book of Daniel of seventy weeks, which was to intervene between the building of the second temple – by Zerubbabel and Joshua son of Josedech after the Exile – and the times of the Messiah , which, interpreted according to the prophetic style, a day for a year, would project His appearance somewhere near the time when John the Baptist began to preach – as noted in Daniel 9:23-27.

So prevalent had this expectation become that it had spread beyond the holy land. Tacitus, a historian who wrote in Italy, records that among many there was a persuasion that in the ancient books of the priesthood it was written that at this precise time the East should become mighty, and that those issuing from Judea should rule the world. Suetonius, another Latin historian, writes: “In the East an ancient and constant opinion prevailed that it was fated that there should issue at this time from Judea, those who should obtain universal dominion.”

This constant expectation of the Jews had already caused no little political disturbance. It was this proud anticipation of universal conquest which made them so restive under the government of the Romans. That they were destined to reign over the world – and whose Messianic King was to have the heathen for His inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, and who was to break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel, not to mention that they should be in vassalage to a foreign power, was more than they could bear.

Josephus relates that about the time of the birth of Jesus, when Cyrenius was sent to take a census of Judea, that Judas, a native of Gamala in Galileee, rose up and resisted the Roman commissioner, and raised a great rebellion. He is mentioned likewise by Gamaliel in his speech before the Jewish Sanhedrim, when Jesus’ Apostles were brought before them for preaching Jesus as the Messiah, immediately after His Ascension: “After this man, rose up Judas of Galilee, in the days of taxing, and drew away much people after him; he also perished, and all, as many as obeyed him, were dispersed..”

Series to be Continued in Message 52 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.5

Message Fifty - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and Others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third.

HILLEL’S SEVENTH LETTER

The Expectation Of The Jews

Not only was the expectation of a remarkable personage on the earth universally prevalent among Jews at the time of the appearance of Jesus Christ, but the phraseology was already in use which designated what He was to be, and what He was to accomplish. At that time there was a Messianic phraseology derived from different portions of the Old Testament which embodied all their anticipations. Whatever inspiration necessarily accompanied the first composition of these prophecies, there was evidently none need in their interpretation.

This much was absolutely certain: a Messiah was predestined to manifest in flesh on the earth, and there was to be a new dispensation, although nobody knew ahead of time precisely what it was to be. But it had been clearly and unmistakably foretold in the writings of Prophet Jeremiah at Jer. 31-31-34; and in the work of the writer to the Hebrews, in Chapter Eight. These writings caused religious and spiritually-inclined minds to set to work to try to understand what had been predetermined to transpire. There were many advance notions in this respect, and each individual formed his own notions about whatever passage of the Old Testament he thought would apply to this remarkable coming event, as well as would accurately describe him and his office.

Not only the imagination, but the passions were invoked in the formation of the personal expectations of each individual who interpreted what the Holy Scriptures foretold. Certain pious individuals thought of him as a religious reformer, so that the new state of things to come would be a condition of higher religious perfection. Rabbis interpreted the Messiah’s appearance according to Jeremiah’s startling prophecy: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it on their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his his neighbor, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”

This seemed to be the expectation entertained by the Samaritans: if the woman with whom Jesus talked at the well of Jacob – as noted in Jn. 3:4-30 – is to be considered as voicing the sentiments of the nation in general. The universal expectation seems to have been that this remarkable individual was to be a prophet like unto Moses, but even greater. In accordance with this sentiment, Apostle Peter, in one of his discourses – after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ – cites a particular prophesy of Moses, as applying to Jesus of Nazareth: “A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul which shall not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people” – an admonishment written into the Book of Deuteronomy at 18:15, 18-22. These were sentiments of those who had seen Jesus’ miracle of feeding the five thousand with but a few loaves and fishes: which bore such a compelling resemblance to the feeding of the Israelites in the desert. Then those men – when they had seen the miracle which Jesus accomplished, exclaimed: “This is in truth that prophet foretold to come into the world!”

Another and much larger class gave the Messianic prophecies a more worldly meaning: that the great personage whose coming they shortly expected was to be a king, but greater than any who sat on the Jewish throne. It was evidently this expectation that Jesus’ Disciples relied upon through his entire ministry. And even after his Resurrection, they seemed for a while to have entertained the same hope. One of the first questions they asked him after he arose was; as noted in the Book of Acts at 1:6-8; “Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And at the Last Supper they disputed which of them should be the greatest – that is, who should be ranked highest in the new kingdom that he was expected to establish.

It was with this idea that he was hailed by the multitude into Jerusalem with the shout, “Hosanna to the son of David.” This was the idea that Nathaniel intended to express when he said – upon receiving the evidence that he was a prophet, as noted in John 1:45-51: “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou are the king of Israel!” That it was his temporal character to which Nathaniel here referred, we have sufficient evidence in the information that directed his attention to Jesus: “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write; Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph!” The part of the old Testament from which this title and expectation were taken was principally the second Psalm. The person described in this poem is represented as exalted by God to be a king on Mt. Zion in Judea. The surrounding heathen are represented as being enraged. But God has nevertheless determined that He shall reign; and, as a king sets his own son upon his throne while he yet lives, so has God, as Supreme King of Israel, exalted this Son to share His authority, and pledges His own power to support His Throne: a principle established in Psalms 2:6-1).

Series to be Continued in Message 51 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Forty-Nine - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and Others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third; Including all of Hillel’s Sixth Letter.

HILLEL’S SIXTH LETTER

The aim of all religion as a positive institution is to enlighten the understanding, and cultivate the devotion of its adherents. The mind must think and the heart must worship. So it must be throughout life. The cares of the world are continually effacing religious impressions, and truths once clearly seen are vividaly felt by lapses of time, wax dim and lose the influence of present material realities. The soul, moreover, feels the want of support and guidance of religion our daily life: every day it experiences the need to communicate with God, even though the strength of that desire varies from one human being to another. Such communications are as necessary to the soul as food is to the flesh body. All sound religions thus have their sacred rites and practices by which the heart reaches toward God and He communicates with the heart according to one’s spiritual state. Thus all religions have some mode of training the mind – which is the spiritual builder – to move the affections so they take hold of the memory and perpetuate themselves. This is derived from man’s innate consciousness. If God should extinguish all the lights of the world and blind every human eyes, religions would still remain in His Light.

But these outward institutions must all be adapted to the contemporary condition of man. Religion can only use those instruments which are furnished to hand. In the absence of writing, it must use ceremonies and forms that have a conventional meaning, and thus come to be symbolic of certain specific truths. Our patriarchal religion consisted almost entirely of prayer and sacrifices. The Mosaic religion, which came after the invention of letters, added to prayer and sacrifices a written code of duty – a formal declaration of truths and principles which set the foundation of the whole institution.

The patriarchal element was still strong and predominant in all our Church, yet there was no express mode of religious instruction. This was enjoined in the heads of families: “And these words which I command you this day, thou shalt teach them to thy children, and shalt talk to them when thou sittest in thy house.” And as the written laws were scarce and hard to get, it was said: “And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and upon thy gates.” Then the Levites were to stand and declare with a loud voice: “Cursed be the man that makes any graven image!” and all the people shall hold up their hands and say, “Amen!” And thus he went through the whole law. Then at the annual meeting upon the mountains at the new moon, all the people met and held up their hands and called-out, “Amen!” Thus it is seen that devotion predominated over instruction; and cultivation of the heart was made more prominent than that of the understanding.

But in the Hebrew commonwealth, Church and State were closely amalgamated. The code of Moses prescribed a like religious and civil duty. The Levites, of course, were the judges and magistrates, as well as the religious teachers of the people. But as books were scarce, we find that in the third year of the reign of Jehoshaphat, that he sent princes and Levites to teach the people, and they took the book of the law and went through all the cities of Judea and taught the people the law of the Lord in the form in which it existed at that time.

This same process was carried out in all Jewish life. The tabernacle in the wilderness – and afterward in the holy land – was intended as a perpetual memorial of God, and a symbol of His Presence. It called the people from idolatry, and reminded them that their worship was to be directed to Jehovah alone. Its services, and those afterward of the temple, were perpetually renewed every morning and every evening, in order that no pious Israelite should ever feel that the duties of adoration and gratitude could be omitted for a single day. We have every reason to believe that the morning and evening sacrifice was to the religiously disposed an essential an aid to devotion through the many centuries of the continuance of that imposing rite.

Then if we transfer these ceremonies to the people, this godly house was the rallying point of our political power; the consecrated seat of our religion and the heart of our national affections. It was built by Solomon more than a thousand years ago. It was constructed on Mount Moriah, in the southeastern part of Jerusalem, and built solely for the purpose of worship. It consisted of four enclosures, one within another on three sides, but having a common wall on the fourth side. Only one of these was covered with a roof, in our meaning of the term, and that was the last or innermost enclosure – the holy of holies, containing the ark, the cherubim, and the mercy seat. The outer enclosure, into which people of all nations were permitted to enter, but they were not permitted to go further. Within this was the court of Israel, which again surrounded on three sides that of the priests, where was the great altar, upon which the daily sacrifice was offered morning and evening.

We Jews wonder how we could do without the sacred ordinances! They are as important to us as the light of the sun, or as food or water to drink. But they are all gone now – the city, the temple, the doctrine, the priest, the law, and the nation, are all gone. Is it so that God has tired of His own appointments? Or could it be that He sees a defect in His ways? or has He become dissatisfied with the covenant He made with our fathers and to their children? I write you these letters, dear countrymen, asking you to consider these matters and discover the cause of our abandonment. Is it the cause that sent our fathers into Egypt? or is it caused by the same thing that caused them to be sent into exile in Babylon?

We should look and find out the cause, so we may seek a remedy. Let us remember the morning and evening sacrifice, and turn our faces toward the holy temple and pray. Although it is no longer in existence in fact, it lives in each of our hearts, which we believe will always be so. Though we may be thousands of miles away and be sold into bondage and bound in chains, we will not and cannot forget our land, our religion, and our God. He is the God of Abraham, and still as merciful, and we believe He will yet keep His covenant made with our fathers. And so shall I abide.

Series to be Continued in Message 50 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS;

Hillel’s Seventh Letter.

Message Forty-Eight - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third, and Continuing with Hillel’s Fifth Letter.

The difference between religious beliefs paralleled differences between man’s advancing spiritual knowledge and divers opinions of longstanding. One is necessarily proposed with diffidence; the other with confidence, which no uninspired teacher can counterfeit. Those who knew best about these things among the heathen had no means of guiding developments. But mankind demands knowledge and understanding and the heart craves it. It is not the same with the multitude as it is with the philosophers: a matter of quiet contemplation. They must act as well as to think and to feel. The sentiments of the heart and soul demand expression expression and they will have, through the actions of the hands and through the words they speak. Occasions continually arose demanding immediate action. Some public calamity would bow down the hearts of thousands in ways that appeared to indicate the portentous wrath of superior powers needing to be supplicated and appeased; but one byproduct was the instigation of superstition and witchcraft. Who would contrive such rites? Not the wisest, of course, but people of great boldness and inventiveness – and especially those who acted out of fear of the unknown. Once established, proscriptions of various kinds took the place of reason, and habit consecrated that which was at first lacking in propriety.

Then again, religion has much to do with imagination. Most everything related to God is – as biblically noted in Heb. 11:3 – invisible. There is little of a concrete nature on which to fix our ideas, and in pure spirituality our imagination finds little of value to lay hold on. Still, it is impossible to keep our minds from conjuring up ideas of all spiritual kinds, and to altogether separate the idea of our corporeality from God.

How much more impossible, then, must it have been for the uninstructed heathen to understand spiritual truths, even when moved by the best of intentions? Therefore, there must have been vast diversities and great imperfections that developed in heathen worship – which we find to have been the fact. Certain of the existence of a God, yet uncertain of the mode of His existence, it was natural for the human mind to cogitate itself into a thousand vagaries and errors. It was natural that mankind should fancy that they had found God in those parts of the material universe where His attributes are most displayed. Hence, the most ancient species of idolatry is said to have been that which deified the remote heavenly bodies; the sun and moon and hosts of heaven.

The sun is perhaps the brightest emblem of God, except for the human soul – to many the mightiest instrument, the benignity of the Most High. He rises, and the shadows fall away. Joy, warmth and beauty meet him in the morning, and the shadows of night flee away. At his call, universal life arises, as it were, from universal darkness and death. The sun draws away the the curtains of darkness and bids man to come forth, and the face of nature is glad. When he hides his face it seems that all things mourn. When he hides his face from the western sky, darkness resumes her ancient dominion, and everything seems to be on hold, awaiting the return of the Light, The soul itself, deprived of its supporting sunlight, gradually loses its conscious energy and sinks into a profound repose.

What wonder, then, that in the native ignorance of mankind of the true nature of God, the wise should have worshiped the sun as the fittest emblem of God, and the ignorant to have worshiped it as God Himself. Such was probably the idolatry of the nations from among whom Abraham was called to worship of the Chaldeans and Egyptians. It is in the record of the Talmud that Abraham, when returning from the grotto in which he was born to the city of Babylon, gazed on a certain star, and said, “Behold, the universe!” But even as he gazed, the star sank away and disappeared; but Abraham felt that the Lord was unchangeable, and that he had been deceived. Then the full moon appeared, and he said, “This is our God! But the moon also withdrew, and he thought he had again been deceived. He devoted all the rest of the night to meditation, and at sunrise he stood before the gates of Babylon, gazed at a certain star, and said, “Behold, God the Lord of the universe.” But even as he gazed at it, the star also faded away, and Abraham was convinced that he had again been deceived. At sunrise he saw all the people prostrate before the rising sun, and exclaimed, “Thou surely are the creator and ruler of nations, but you, like the rest, have faded away, so the creator must be somewhere else.” How much more sublime and rational is the doctrine which he originated, and the sentiments that were afterward expressed by one of his followers, which revealed these orbs to be only manifestations of something far more glorious than they!

One great source of corruption was the priesthood. It seems natural that men would be chosen to conduct religious service. They become better acquainted with these rites than others, and become increasingly sacred by the power of association, which renders their ministration more satisfactory and more profitable to those on whose behalf they perform the offices.

A priesthood seemed to be so necessary, but there is nothing more dangerous to a nation than to have a priesthood governed by political parties of the nation, as was the practice of all nations except our own. Here the priest governed by the laws of Moses, and it was impossible for the priest or anyone else to change them. It is attributable to heathen priests that idolatry became os prevalent. Go down into Egypt, and you find men worshiping an ox. Cats and crocodiles occupy the place of the inferior gods, and are worshiped by the poor. Thus in all nations but our own, the dreadful state of idolatry prevails. The idolatry of Greece is no better – Athens contains many statues erected to imaginary gods. Her superstition is not only bigoted, but bloody, It was there that Socrates suffered death merely on suspicion of maintaining opinions subversive of popular faith.

Series to be Continued in Message 49 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Forty-Seven - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third, and Continuing with Hillel’s Fifth Letter.

HILLELS’S FIFTH LETTER

Man is made essentially human by the faculties of his mind, the emotions of his heart, and the incarnated spirit of the Lord, his Maker, which is an incremental permanent part of him. [Note: It is understood that when a flesh body expires after an incarnate earth experience, it undergoes a contemporary judgment (Heb. 9:27), designed to assess its spiritual state as of that time. It is then decided in higher dimensions what course that soul will follow from that point in its spiritual developmental pathway.]

One of the first and most spontaneous exercises of man’s reason is his investigation of cause and effect; and one of the first convictions developed in his mind is the truth that there cannot be any effect without a cause – even in cases so ambiguous and mysterious that they appear to be incomprehensible. The next is that the nature of the cause must correspond with the nature of the effect, and can certainly be known by it. This is true in the works of man. When viewing an exquisite painting it is impossible for us to doubt its having been the creation of intelligence. When Aristippus was cast up on a shore where there appeared to be no inhabitants, he wandered about until he came across some mathematical diagrams traced in the sand. “Courage!” he declared, “I see the finger of God pointing!” Men see in everything the traces of power and wisdom, and – if they are at all sensible – they cannot help but perceive the effects of superior power and wisdom therein. Actually, unbelief has not prevailed very much in the world; it is only a residual question as to what truth really is! Unbelief has been about as rare in the heathen as it is among those who have had a revelation. So much for abstract religious convictions.

Men are led to God by their moral nature and their seeking of knowledge and understanding.. On the first dawn of his faculties, man begins to experience certain moral perceptions. [Note: As Apostle Paul – after his spiritual enlightenment on the Damascus Road, disclosed to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 2:9-14 – man is first a "natural man," un-spiritualized and devoid of a strong quickening force of God’s Holy Spirit until he receives it from the Son of God who, incarnate, was Jesus the Christ]. A spiritually- enlightened man finds that his moral nature resides not only in himself, but in others. It is a universal attribute of man; not a fortuitous endowment, but one given to man by his Creator as the law of His action. It can come from no other source. But the moral power in man is actually only the faculty to see them because they exist. God sees them as realities which he created in us. Our very consciousness of the power to choose between good and evil creates within us a sense of realization of, and the sense of responsibility to, the much higher dimensional being that made us – as noted in Heb. 5:12-14.

Connected with this idea of the existence of God – which seems to be necessary and universal – is that of the existence of a Providence, a super-intelligence, which not only made the world but oversees its government: knows its past, present and future, and – from a higher dimension of existence – observes not only all that is seen by mortal eyes, but likewise, all that passes through the human mind. It has been the general course of events that man has seen that vice is regarded by God with displeasure, and that He continues to punish it and limit those who commit it, and doubtless will continue to do so. The good man must always be the object of God’s approbation, and because He is infinite in His power, the good man expects to be proportionately rewarded as he moves along the Way God has made passable into higher dimensions. Such are the natural convictions of mankind, which result from the operation of his mind. Such also are the convictions of the heathen world. The great men of the old world, poets and philosophers, have in all ages entertained that opinion. They take for granted the existence of one superior being, and that all others, as inferior beings, are responsible to Him. This is not only the last and highest conclusion of human intellect, but likewise the consenting voice of even the most ancient traditions.

But, even in the best minds, the subject has been surrounded with great doubt and difficulties. God Himself is not an object of such questions. It is therefore in vain for the human mind to attempt to form an idea of the mode of His existence. Not being then, a matter of senses or of demonstration, the wisest of men – though he might arrive at some form of the truth, could not be absolutely certain that it was the truth. Wanting certainty himself, he could hardly impart certainty to others! He could not propagate his own doctrine with certainty.

The wisest of men, therefore, have wanted the authority which was requisite for the propagation of truth. So they have settled for certainty for themselves and authority for others. Now, certainty and authority are the very things necessary to make a religion powerful in the world. While religion was in the hands of philosophers – that is, the thinkers – it effected next to nothing insofar as guiding and directing mankind, because it remained a matter of opinion: merely a matter of opinion – only a dim and hopeful probability. Each man felt he had as good a right to his opinion as another; which weakened the authority and disparate opinions of each. Any religion that is able to take hold of faith and control the conduct of mankind, must have certainty and authority. And neither of these can be obtained without revelation, inspiration, and miracles.

Had Moses had not received Divine aid by way of inspiration and miracles, he would not have been able to accomplish what he did in the world. The doctrines he espoused would have rested on his own reason, and his precepts upon his own personal character, knowledge and influence. Another man of equal, but different, wisdom and the same weight of character, might have overthrown or blotted out what Moses had built up.

Besides, his manner would undoubtedly have been different. And, no man can inspire confidence in others who lacks confidence in himself. It follows that no man in high religious matters can have full confidence in himself, without conscious divine inspiration. It was reasonable, therefore, for Moses – when sent by God into Egypt to bring out his enslaved brethren, to demand miraculous credentials, without which he could neither have brought them out, nor established among them a religion he was commissioned to teach.. This distinction was perceived by the people, even though the reason upon which it was founded laid far beyond their comprehension.

Series to be Continued in Message 48 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Forty-Five - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

Continuing The Third of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third, And Commencing Hillel’s Fourth Letter.

This previously-related amazing feat by ten thousand Greeks, filled the world with their fame, and perhaps more than anything else convinced the Greeks that, as few as they were, they nevertheless held the destiny of Asia in their hands. It was not until forty years later – when all Greece had been subjected to Phillip, King of Macedonia – that the nation turned its attention toward conquest of the East. Philip had elected himself general-in-chief of all the Greeks for the prosecution of the war with their ancient enemies, the Persians. Just at the moment when the conqueror of Greece was contemplating an assault upon the Persian Empire, he fell by the hand of an assassin, leaving his kingdom to his son Alexander, who was at that time a youth of twenty. This happened three hundred and eighty years before the previously described events, and may be considered one of the great epochs of the world.

HILLEL’S FOURTH LETTER

Alexander, by his personal endowments as conqueror and statesman, did more in twelve years to affect the future condition of the world than any uninspired man who has ever lived. He was in no respect better than his modern rivals, and was animated by no better motive than personal ambition. In the hands of God, however, he became an instrument of lasting good to mankind. Endowed with an intellect of unusual power and comprehension, he received a thorough education from one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. At the age of eighteen he began to mingle affairs of state with study, and became a soldier as well as a scholar. At the age of twenty, when summoned to assume the reins of empire – the sovereign, in fact of the Greeks – he stood before the world a perfect representative of his nation.

He combined their genius and learning with their valor and conduct, and, entering Asia with the sword in one hand, and the poems of Homer in the other, he became the armed leader of Grecian learning, art, and civilization. Wherever he went, Greece went with him. His conquests were not so much those of Macedonian arms as of Grecian letters. Wherever he went, he carried with him the genius of Homer, the sublime soul of Plato, and the practical wisdom of Socrates; and not only monarchies sprung up in his wake, but schools of philosophy and academies of learning.

Entering Asia with an army of thirty-five thousand men, in the brief space of twelve years he made himself master of the whole Persian Empire, and of many nations which had never been subjected to the Persian yoke. He carried the Grecian language and manners to the Indus, and subjected to his power nearly as large a portion of the human race as existed at that time.

His first battle gave him Asia Minor. The second, all of Syria to the Euphrates, Egypt – the whole valley of the Nile – surrendered without striking a blow. The third great battle, on the banks of Euphrates, opened to him the whole of the Asiatic planes to the mountains which bordered the lands of the Scythian tribes. Wherever he advanced, the Greek language and literature took up their abode, and every city this side of the Euphrates in a few ages became the residence of the Greek philosophers, rhetoricians, grammarians, and historians, until the whole circuitous shore of the Mediterranean became almost as Grecian as Greece herself.

Our beloved Palestine, of course, came under his sway, and the influence of his career on the fortunes of us Jews was more decisive, perhaps, than upon any other nation, for it was his conquest alone which introduced the Greek language in our holy land. And so much do the most important events turn on the slightest causes, that on the chances of one life – almost daily exposed to destruction by the dangers of war – depended the issue whether the records of the holy oracles would ever be sent to the perishing world through this beautiful language.

It has been declared that when the mighty warrior and statesman, Alexander, was approaching Jerusalem, Judea – our high priest at that time – came out to meet him in solemn procession. Alexander was so struck by his appearance that he not only spared the city, but granted to us Jews many favors that he did not show to others. He gave for this the reason that he had seen this same man in a dream before he left Macedonia, and that he had assured him of his conquest of the Persian empire.

From Syria he passed on to Egypt, and his conquest of that country had a greater influence upon the future condition of our nation than the conquest of Judah itself. This was because on his return from Ethiopia he sailed down the western branch of the Nile, and with the instinct of genius, fixed upon the site of a city between the lake Mareotis and the sea, which he called after his own name. It sprung up immediately to be one of the most magnificent cities of the world, reigning as a sort of queen of the East – as the mart of commerce and the seat of wealth.

We Jews were invited by the most liberal offers to populate this city. A large colony was formed, where only the Greek language was used. Hence it became necessary to have our scriptures translated into Greek, or we would have lost our knowledge of them altogether. It is said on good authority that the occasion of translating the Scriptures into the Greek language, it was the desire of Ptolemy Philadelphus to have a copy preserved in the Alexandrian Library, which was begun not long after his death. However that might be, we know that such a version was made, which is now the standard of the world. It was made about three hundred years ago, and by this translation our theology has gone to the entire world. Thus it becomes clear that Divine Providence works the nations of earth like a machine!

Another important factor perceived in God’s Providence is the rising of the Roman Empire. While all these events were transpiring in the East, a nation was rising into notice in the south of Italy, which was destined to exert even more extensive influence upon the world by her arms than Greece did by her learning.

Series to be Continued in Message 46 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Forty-Five - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

Continuing The Third of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews and others, Written by Historian Hillel the Third, And Commencing Hillel’s Fourth Letter.

This previously-related amazing feat by ten thousand Greeks, filled the world with their fame, and perhaps more than anything else convinced the Greeks that, as few as they were, they nevertheless held the destiny of Asia in their hands. It was not until forty years later – when all Greece had been subjected to Phillip, King of Macedonia – that the nation turned its attention toward conquest of the East. Philip had elected himself general-in-chief of all the Greeks for the prosecution of the war with their ancient enemies, the Persians. Just at the moment when the conqueror of Greece was contemplating an assault upon the Persian Empire, he fell by the hand of an assassin, leaving his kingdom to his son Alexander, who was at that time a youth of twenty. This happened three hundred and eighty years before the previously described events, and may be considered one of the great epochs of the world.

HILLEL’S FOURTH LETTER

Alexander, by his personal endowments as conqueror and statesman, did more in twelve years to affect the future condition of the world than any uninspired man who has ever lived. He was in no respect better than his modern rivals, and was animated by no better motive than personal ambition. In the hands of God, however, he became an instrument of lasting good to mankind. Endowed with an intellect of unusual power and comprehension, he received a thorough education from one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. At the age of eighteen he began to mingle affairs of state with study, and became a soldier as well as a scholar. At the age of twenty, when summoned to assume the reins of empire – the sovereign, in fact of the Greeks – he stood before the world a perfect representative of his nation.

He combined their genius and learning with their valor and conduct, and, entering Asia with the sword in one hand, and the poems of Homer in the other, he became the armed leader of Grecian learning, art, and civilization. Wherever he went, Greece went with him. His conquests were not so much those of Macedonian arms as of Grecian letters. Wherever he went, he carried with him the genius of Homer, the sublime soul of Plato, and the practical wisdom of Socrates; and not only monarchies sprung up in his wake, but schools of philosophy and academies of learning.

Entering Asia with an army of thirty-five thousand men, in the brief space of twelve years he made himself master of the whole Persian Empire, and of many nations which had never been subjected to the Persian yoke. He carried the Grecian language and manners to the Indus, and subjected to his power nearly as large a portion of the human race as existed at that time.

His first battle gave him Asia Minor. The second, all of Syria to the Euphrates, Egypt – the whole valley of the Nile – surrendered without striking a blow. The third great battle, on the banks of Euphrates, opened to him the whole of the Asiatic planes to the mountains which bordered the lands of the Scythian tribes. Wherever he advanced, the Greek language and literature took up their abode, and every city this side of the Euphrates in a few ages became the residence of the Greek philosophers, rhetoricians, grammarians, and historians, until the whole circuitous shore of the Mediterranean became almost as Grecian as Greece herself.

Our beloved Palestine, of course, came under his sway, and the influence of his career on the fortunes of us Jews was more decisive, perhaps, than upon any other nation, for it was his conquest alone which introduced the Greek language in our holy land. And so much do the most important events turn on the slightest causes, that on the chances of one life – almost daily exposed to destruction by the dangers of war – depended the issue whether the records of the holy oracles would ever be sent to the perishing world through this beautiful language.

It has been declared that when the mighty warrior and statesman, Alexander, was approaching Jerusalem, Judea – our high priest at that time – came out to meet him in solemn procession. Alexander was so struck by his appearance that he not only spared the city, but granted to us Jews many favors that he did not show to others. He gave for this the reason that he had seen this same man in a dream before he left Macedonia, and that he had assured him of his conquest of the Persian empire.

From Syria he passed on to Egypt, and his conquest of that country had a greater influence upon the future condition of our nation than the conquest of Judah itself. This was because on his return from Ethiopia he sailed down the western branch of the Nile, and with the instinct of genius, fixed upon the site of a city between the lake Mareotis and the sea, which he called after his own name. It sprung up immediately to be one of the most magnificent cities of the world, reigning as a sort of queen of the East – as the mart of commerce and the seat of wealth.

We Jews were invited by the most liberal offers to populate this city. A large colony was formed, where only the Greek language was used. Hence it became necessary to have our scriptures translated into Greek, or we would have lost our knowledge of them altogether. It is said on good authority that the occasion of translating the Scriptures into the Greek language, it was the desire of Ptolemy Philadelphus to have a copy preserved in the Alexandrian Library, which was begun not long after his death. However that might be, we know that such a version was made, which is now the standard of the world. It was made about three hundred years ago, and by this translation our theology has gone to the entire world. Thus it becomes clear that Divine Providence works the nations of earth like a machine!

Another important factor perceived in God’s Providence is the rising of the Roman Empire. While all these events were transpiring in the East, a nation was rising into notice in the south of Italy, which was destined to exert even more extensive influence upon the world by her arms than Greece did by her learning.

Series to be Continued in Message 46 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Forty-Four - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

Continuing The Third of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews, Written by Historian Hillel the Third.

We naturally turn our eyes toward Greece, the devoted object of all this expense. There she lies, with her beautiful island laved by the crystal waters of the Aegean Sea. There is Athens, with her exquisite arts, her literature, and her science, with her constellations of genius just ready to burst upon the world. There was Sparta, less cultivated, but the bulwark of Grecian independence. There was Lonidas, with his three hundred. There, in a little peninsula, lay the intellectual hope of the world – the germ of free government forever and ever.

Is this brave and gallant people to be crushed at a single blow? Shall the Persian banners float on the hills of subjugated Greece? Is it to announced in Susa that order reigns in Attica? Is Asiatic despotism destined to overwhelm, in one long night of oppression, the very dawn of human greatness? In that contest, literature had her stake. The very existence of these men depended on the issue of this vast enterprise, whose works have been the study and delight of all succeeding time – that whole galaxy of genius whose clustering radiance has since encircled the earth. Standing now and gazing back upon this epoch of history, we are caused to tremble, for all these were nations given to idolatry!

Everywhere are ceremonies, temples, priests; but both priests and people, the noble and the base, the learned and the simple, all alike grope in Cimmerian darkness as to the knowledge of the true God. There is but one exception to this, in our time, in all the world – the temple in Jerusalem.

We turn our eyes eastward to Palestine, and there we see the temple of the true God just rising from the ruin of seventy years’ desolation. Its builders, a feeble company, have just returned from a long captivity. The very language in which their holy oracles were written has become obsolete. Their speech is now Chaldean, and their religious teachers are obliged from Sabbath to Sabbath to interpret from a dead language for the records of their faith. This may answer for a small territory, and for a feeble few, as existed at that time, but whole world needs light; and how shall the wisdom of God and the wisdom of man unite to carry God’s wisdom around the world so that all may know the living and true God?! If Xerxes prevails, this can never be. Forbid it, intellect! Arise, Oh God, and let thine enemies be scattered, and those that rise up against the liberties of Thy people be driven off like the chaff which the wind drives away.

So, Xerxes did not prevail; the soil of Palestine would not bear the tread of a foe to the religion of the true God. The Jewish nature, breathing the invigorating air of freedom – disciplined by science and animated by enlightened patriotism, grows up to a strength, a firmness and courage which hosts of slaves can never subdue; and by which the tenfold cord of oppression is rent asunder like the bands that bound the limbs of Samson!

This army, though it was raised up by Xerxes, is actually under the command of the God of heaven: it cannot, it must not, it shall not conquer. It is to teach the Greeks that they are masters of the world. It invites them to roll back the tide of conquest on Asia, and carry Grecian banners, arts, science, and language into the East. They shall penetrate to our holy land; into their language our holy oracles shall be translated; in their language shall be recorded the words of eternal life, and laden with the priceless treasure that language shall come back to Palestine, bearing light and truth and salvation to nations and to generations yet unborn.

This diffusion of the Greek language took place by means of conquest. Although the action was man’s, the Holy Scripture tells us – in Daniel 10:12-13 – that it was caused to enter into the Divine Plan of Providence, it being a subject of prophecy! In a vision seen by Daniel, in Section 7, in the first year of Darius Hystaspes, it is written: “Behold, there shall stand up three kings in Persia, and the fourth shall be far richer than them all; and by his strength and through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.”

Of this gigantic assault of Xerxes against Greece I have given my account in my last letter. After the retreat of Xerxes into Asia, there was no attempt of the Greeks to make reprisals for many years. Unfortunately they were divided among themselves, and exhausted their energies in mutual quarrels. But the ages immediately preceding the Persian invasion were the most wonderful in intellectual development the world has ever seen. More great minds were produced within that century than in any other within recorded history.

Providence seems to have restrained that wonderful nation until her intellectual treasure-house was full, and then to have sent her forth conquering – not to destroy, but to enrich the inhabitants in the lands she overflowed; not to extinguish civilization by brute barbarism, but to carry intellectual light to those who at that time sat in ignorance and darkness.

Little occurred of crucial interest between the Persians and the Greeks for nearly eighty years. The Greeks went on to create the most beautiful literature that human genius has ever produced, and their mutual contentions perfected them in the science and practice of war. At that time an event took place which gave them an even stronger proof of their considerable superiority over the Persians than even their victories over Xerxes. Cyrus the Younger was sent by his brother Artaxerxes to Asia Minor as the governor of the western provinces. Here he became acquainted with the martial flavor of the Greeks, and decided, with their aid, to march to Susa and dethrone his brother. To accomplish this, he assembled an army of more than one hundred thousand – thirteen thousand of whom were Greeks – and advanced into the plains of the East. He was met there by his brother and his army of nine hundred thousand, was defeated, and left dead on the field.

Thirteen thousand Greeks – now reduced to ten thousand – found themselves two thousand miles from the nearest Grecian city, where they could find safety. They were without even one day’s provisions, in the midst of the enemy’s country. Undismayed in this appalling situation, they determinedly commenced their retreat, cutting their way through enemies in front, while desperately guarding against foes threatening their rear. They crossed over snow-covered mountains, through trackless forests, and over treacherous rivers rapid and deep, and eventually reached home safely!

Series to be Continued in Message 45 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Forty-Three - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

Continuing The Third of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews, Written by Historian Hillel the Third.

In light of the foregoing, it is seen that the Persian kings and their vast armies, bearing war and subjugation to the remotest lands, were in fact realizing ideas which had been matured by Zoroaster in his cave; ideas which he in turn had derived from Moses.

Thus, through our exiled fathers the hand became the executive brain to establish worship of the true God, and in the revolution of the wheels of nature – as seen by Prophet Ezekiel – the soldier is the machine of the thinker. Our armies are assembled and battles fought to carry out a few ideas with which men of letters have filled the mind of the nation, and scholars and sages, prophets and imposters, good men and bad, kings and generals, armies and revolutions. All are used to accomplish the purposes of that eternal Mind, Who sits supremely over all – the mind which we, as the only nation known on earth recognize as Divine Providence.

The ambition of Cyrus and his successors – although in a manner they did not perceive – was the means by which our Father introduced among the enslaved and ignorant multitude of the East the civilization of the arts, and the learning which Greece, with her wonderful genius, had matured. Cyrus, whose sudden irruption into Babylon terminated Belshazzar’s feast and fulfilled so terribly the writing on the wall, had already extended the Persian Empire over the greater part of Asia Minor. Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon, attempted to strengthen himself against the growing power of the Persians, by forming an alliance with Croesus, King of Lydia, so famous for his riches. This monarch ruled in accordance with the doctrines of Zoroaster – a combination, as we have seen, of Judaism and the ancient Persian religion; which explains his extraordinary partiality toward the Jews, and his zeal in rebuilding the only temple on earth dedicated in his name to the God of heaven.

Croesus – made arrogant by his great wealth and command of an army of nearly half a million – resolved to encounter the Persian power, which had lately become formidable. To make assurance doubly sure, he sent to inquire of the Oracle at Delphi in Greece, and received for an answer: “If Croesus pass the Holys” – the boundary between Lydia and Persia – “he shall destroy a great empire.” He went, of course, and then found that the empire destroyed was his own! He was defeated by Cyrus, and his whole kingdom fell into the hands of the conqueror five hundred and forty years ago.

This conquest brought the Persians into collision with the Greeks, and was the cause of those wars which were raged with such bitterness for the generations between the two nations, finally resulting in the destruction of the Persian monarchy. The Greeks, though natives of Europe, had planted many colonies on the Asiatic coast. These colonies, though infinitely superior to the effeminate and luxurious Asiatics in every physical, intellectual, and moral attribute, were altogether unable to resist the overwhelming weight of an empire that stretched from Ethiopia to the Caspian Sea, and from the Indus to the Bosphorus.

They were obliged to submit, like the rest, and pay an annual tribute to their conquerors, no less to the humiliation and annoyance of the mother-country than themselves. The yoke at length became so oppressive that they resolved to throw it off. To effect this, they applied to Athens and Sparta for aid. Then, having received assistance from these most considerable states of Greece, they rebelled, marched to Sardis, took it, and accidentally set the city on fire, by which it was totally consumed.

The loss of this city, the richest in Asia Minor, exasperated Darius, King of Persia, to the highest degree, and kindled in his breast such a flame of resentment that he resolved upon revenge. Lest in his multifarious affairs he should forget the offenders, he appointed officers whose duty it was each day to repeat to him as he dined: “Sir, remember the Athenians!”

Resolved to punish those presumptuous republics which had dared to brave the whole power of the Persian Empire, he assembled a fleet and army sufficient – or so he supposed – to crush so small a country at a single blow. After an ineffectual attempt to reach Greece by the circuitous route of Thrace and Macedonia, a second armament was fitted out, composed of the flower of that army which had borne conquest on their banners from the Euphrates to the Nile, and transported by sea directly toward the little republic of Athens – which was at that time able to send into the field but from ten to fifteen thousand men.

The Athenians met and vanquished them on the plains of Marathon, leaving six thousand dead on the field. Thus ended the first attempt of Persian despotism upon the liberties of Greece. This may be said to have been the first demonstration ever seen on earth of the benefits of free government. A few ages of absolute political liberty had trained up a race of men such as had never before been seen. Intelligence combined with physical force, through discipline and an enthusiastic love of country, had for the first time been brought to contend hand in hand with the pampered sons of Eastern luxury and the spiritless automata of despotic government.

The result was what it will ever be. The orientals fell like mowed grass before the swords of the free. But this defeat, so far from discouraging the conqueror of the Indies, only roused him to mightier efforts. He immediately resolved to invade Greece with a larger army than before; but in the midst of his preparations he fell before a mightier conqueror, and left the inheritance of his kingdom and his revenge to his son, Xerxes, But Xerxes was destined to further add to the glory of Greece; although it would have seemed fruitless for him, in succeeding to the mightiest monarchy the world had ever known, to have sought to extend further the boundaries of his hereditary dominion.

Asia was not enough to satiate his boundless ambition – Europe must also be subjected to his power. His father’s quarrel with the Greeks furnished him with a convenient apology for such enormous injustice. He spent four years in preparation, ruling over the most fruitful portion of the globe, and his simple habits enabled the earth to sustain many more people than can be supported in the more luxurious mode of civilized nations that succeeded it. For four years he called upon all nations to furnish quotas of troops, ships and provisions – all for what? To crush one small nation!

Series to be Continued in Message 44 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Forty-Two - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Third of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews, Written by Historian Hillel the Third.

As all nations of the earth lacked the knowledge of the true God except us Jews, so it devolved upon us as a nation to extend this knowledge to all the world, which was brought about by the following plan: First, by the universal diffusion of the Greek language, and, Secondly, by the conquest of the world by the Romans. Another cause almost as essential was the scattering and bigotry had almost made us a barren tree as to any general good for the world.

So ancient were our habits and fixed our customs that spiritual life was almost extinct; therefore it was necessary for us even to learn a new language, that the knowledge of the true God might be infused into a new medium, and thus be spread from land to land. It was necessary that the true medicine of life would be dissolved in an element which flowed on every shore and in every stream that all men might taste thereof and be saved. It was also necessary that a foreign language be forced upon us; for nothing but conquest and constraint could overcome our bitter prejudices. It will be the object of this letter to show how this was brought about.

The great designs of God were advanced by our misfortunes as well as by our prosperity, and in God’s purpose of preparing the world for the advent for a higher life and greater attainment in godliness, each even had a ripening tendency. Whether we worshiped in Jerusalem in peace, or wept by the rivers of Babylon, everywhere and under all circumstances we taught a knowledge of the true God; and everywhere our nation has cherished the hope of triumph in the expectation of a coming Messiah. The first great empire to which Judea fell prey was Babylonia. Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar five hundred and fifty years ago; and the remnant of the people was carried to Babylon and the neighboring countries, whither the main body had been removed eighteen years before. The glimpses of those times and countries are very short, but enough to show us that the residence of our fathers in those countries was not without effect.

It is impossible to put out the light of a Jew’s eyes, or to extinguish the fire that burns in his heart: and the life of our fathers made lasting effects both on the people they were with, and themselves also. One person especially adorned that dark period of God’s exiled Church. The prophet Daniel gives us almost the only sight we get of mighty Babylon. His writings furnish us with a number of great truths. He passes before us from youthful beauty to extreme age. We see him rising, like Joseph, by early wisdom, piety, and integrity; from slavery is to be the chief minister of State, and it is altogether probable that it was through him that Cyrus was prompted to restore our people to our holy land again. The edict was issued in the first year of his reign, immediately after the capture of Babylon, which Daniel had foretold by interpreting the writing on the wall.

But the restoration of our nation, an event so wonderful and strange in the history of the world, though properly attributed to the providence of God, was brought about by means more circuitous than is generally supposed. Fifty or a hundred thousand Jews did not live in Babylonia, Media, and Persia for seventy years – making such a singularly religious impression – for nothing. Our people appear to have been treated with much more respect among these oriental nations than in the western world. The probable reason for this was that the Persians – like their neighbors, the Arabians – had not forsaken the patriarchal religion nor sunk into such gross and degrading idolatry as those nations which had wandered farthest from the paternal hearthstone of the human race.

It is in this period of our nation’s sojourn in the East that the famous reformer, Zoroaster, appeared. I look upon him as the second Moses, though without inspiration; but availing himself of the light of the true revelation. He attempted not to introduce a new religion, but to refine, purify, and build up the religion of his country by introducing into it the most important principles of the true faith, and thus, with a mixture of these base and noble motives, to benefit his country and reflect glory on himself. The secret of his success was that he taught the theology of Moses, and it was so simple and yet so sublime and consonant at the same time with the best conceptions of mankind that it clothed this imposter with the veneration of his countrymen, and sanctified even his crimes and follies.

It was from Moses that Zoroaster derived the idea of one living God, the maker of heaven and earth; but he corrupted this pure doctrine by making two subordinate gods, the authors respectively of good and evil. From Moses he received an utter abhorrence of all images and of the temples in which they were worshiped; but he introduced – in connection with the true faith – the doctrine of evil spirits dividing the government of the universe. So it happened that there was not only an impress of the religion of our fathers part of the religion of our fathers upon that of the Persians, but a version of the Persian religion upon that of our nation.

The Jews, as would appear from the book of “Tobit,” first learned in their captivity those ideas of the agency of evil spirits in the world, of which we find traces in their histories. Cyrus was a Persian, and in all probability had been instructed in the doctrines of Zoroaster – a combination, as we have seen, of Judaism and the ancient Persian religion; hence this extraordinary partiality for building the only temple on earth which was dedicated in his name to the God of heaven.

But the influence of Zoroaster did not end there. The successors of Cyrus were educated in his religion. The priests and teachers of his religion were called Magi, and exerted a powerful influence in the State. Darius Hyastaspes, son in law and successor of Cyrus, warmly espoused the religion of the Persian philosopher, and when Zoroaster was slain by an eruption of the Scythians, he amply avenged his death, and rebuilt the fine temples which the Scythians had destroyed – especially, and with more splendor than before, the one in which Zoroaster had ministered. It was this enmity to idolatry – thus derived through Zoroaster from Moses, which was the only redeeming principle that the Persian monarch showed in all his extensive conquests.

Cambryses, son of Cyrus – madman and tyrant that he was – derives a sort of dignity from his zeal against idolatry. His indignation at seeing the Egyptians worship a living brute does honor at least to his Persian education; though in other respects he was a cruel and detestable tyrant. When Darius and Xerxes marched their mighty armies into Europe, the only idea which these expeditions were intended to carry out was the destruction of idolatry, which they everywhere threatened to overturn and eliminate.

Series to be Continued in Message 43 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Forty-One - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

Continuing the Second of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews, Written by Hillel the Third.

There is an incident related by the sacred historians which may seem symbolic of the mission of the whole dispensation which that sacred inclosure contained. It is the fifth section of Samuel: “And the Philistines took the ark of God, and they brought it unto the house of Dagon; and they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon and set him in his place again, before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Only the stump of Dagon was left unto him.

In that same manner, all idolatry is predestined to fall before the Word of the Almighty. When Dagon fell, it was a dreadful faltering for us Israelites. Let me tell you that what was achieved in the Temple of Azotus was gradually accomplished throughout the land of Israel. Many times Dagon has been set up in his place again, but many times idolatry has revived. The ark of God has been in the hands of the enemy – it is now there at this time as I write – and the true religion about to be extinguished, when the Almighty interposed to vindicate His honor and reestablish His worship, and at last obtained a triumph by the very means which at first threatened to overthrow it forever.

As I have said, the objects of our national existence were greatly promoted by the building of the temple at Jerusalem. It was a splendid edifice, calculated to awaken the curiosity, to attract the attention, and command the respect of the world. It furnished a place of appropriate convenience, beauty, and dignity for the celebration of our daily sacrifices and our national rites. It made more interesting our three yearly festivals when all males were obliged to present themselves before God. It gave us what we all need at this time – a fixture of our religion, a local habitation to our religious applications and associations. It connected the sentiment of religion with another no less strong – that of patriotism – and enlisted both of them in the maintenance and defense of the national institutions of Moses. And it also led to the formation of a national literature which gave expression to these two most powerful sentiments of the human heart, and thus operated to call forth and strengthen them in each succeeding generation.

Still the Mosaic institutions, assisted by the magnificence of the temple service, failed to extirpate entirely the propensity of idolatry. Occasionally it sprang up and overspread the country, until at last the Almighty saw fit to suffer that temple to be overthrown; His people to be carried off into captivity, and worship to be suspended for seventy years; and His judgment accomplished what His mercies could not do. The very measure of Divine severity which at the first sight threatened to sweep worship of the true God from the face of the earth, and give up the world to the interminable dominion of idolatry, was the means of establishing it on a firmer basis then ever.

Although Jerusalem was overthrown and the temple razed to it foundation, the Jews carried the true Jerusalem in their hearts forever. Wherever we go, whether in the splendid cities of the east, or amid the fascinations of Egypt, or the tests of thd wandering shepherd, still our affections will be in the holy land, and, like Daniel, we will turn our faces toward the land where our fathers worshiped the God of heaven.

Nehemiah, when serving in the courts of the princes, lamented when he heard that the walls of Jerusalem were thrown down. There in slavery our fathers had time to reflect upon the cause of the calamities that had befallen them. There they read in the book of Moses – which was their companion of the exile – the awful curses God had threatened them if they forsook the worship of the true God, and felt them to be fulfilled in themselves. There they read the prophesy which had been written by Moses more than a thousand years before in the book, iii, section 22: “If thou will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy God will scatter thee among all people, from one end of the earth to another, and among these nations thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord will give thee then a trembling heart and failing eyes, and sorrow of thy mind, and thy life shall stand in doubt before thee – thou shalt fear night and day, and have no assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, ‘Would God that it were morning,’ and at evening thou shalt say, ‘Would God it were morning!’ for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.”

Thus were our fathers smitten to the heart by the fulfillment of such awful threatenings. All propensity to idolatry was forever cured. Never after this period could the allurements of pleasure or the threats of pain; neither dens of wild beasts nor the fiery furnace, neither instant death nor lingering torture, ever induce them to offer sacrifices to idol gods! This same Providence which had scattered them in foreign lands, now restored them to their own. Their temple was rebuilt, the daily sacrifice was resumed and was never intermitted; with the exception of about three years under Antiochus Epiphanes.

But now let us look at our present state, and see how we, their children, have fallen: the ark once more is taken from us; Jerusalem lies in ruins, trodden down by the foot of the Gentiles; ruin has driven her ploughshare through the crumbling walls, and we are scattered to mix and mingle among all nations.

Series to be Continued in Message 42 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS, Historian Hillel’s Third Letter.

Message Forty - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

Continuing the Second of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews, Written by Hillel the Third.

It appears that in Abraham’s time no such thing as alphabetic writing existed, for we read that he took no other evidence of his purchase of his family’s burying ground than living witnesses of the bargain. In that period, therefore, divine communication must have been confined to individuals. The fulness of time had not yet come even for the partial revelation that was made by Moses; there was no mode by which it could be recorded and preserved. The invention of writing was necessary to prepare the world for it. That invention took place some time within the five hundred years which elapsed between Abraham and Moses.

The posterity of Abraham were sent into Egypt – the mother of the arts – as if to school; not to divine things, for in those matters the shepherds of Canaan as far exceeded the refined Egyptians as light exceeds darkness; but, rather, in the knowledge of those things by which life is rendered more livable and comfortable. When they had become sufficiently numerous to take possession of the destined territory – as noted in Genesis 15:13,16 – a leader, Moses, was raised up for that special purpose. He was the child of a slave, his life exposed to the perils of infancy in a frail cradle tossed about on rushes floating upon waters, yet destined, or predestined, to become the mightiest agent in the affairs of men that the Almighty had ever – until then – employed on the earth. Who can but admire the wisdom of Divine Providence in the education of this great founder of nations, this prophet of divine truth and enlightener of the world? Who can apprehend the glorious position which he holds in the world’s history? What a distinction, to have framed the constitution of a nation which lasted fifteen hundred years, and stamped the people with the marks of nationality which time itself has not obliterated! To have written a book which has been read with interest and ardor through passing ages and by growing millions of the human race!. To have imparted to nations and continents the saving knowledge of the one true God! And what a glory to have laid-by in one sentence the foundation of true religion in so many millions of minds: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The more I contemplate the mission of Moses, the higher it rises in moral sublimity in my estimation. If I contemplate him during the forty years of his sojourn in the wilderness, he is the sole depository of the true religion on earth – with the exception of the tribe he led. The whole world has sunk in the debasement of idolatry of one kind or another. What a noble use did the Almighty make of the recent invention of man’s ingenuity: the invention of letters by which to engrave upon stone His awful testimony against the great fundamental and all-polluting sin of the world – the worship of idols: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me: thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images of the likeness of anying in the heaven or in the earth beneath; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them!”

To realize and carry out this one thing was the purpose of separating Jews from the rest of the world. Even with all the seals and signs, and God’s special judgments, it took fourteen hundred years to accomplish it: so prone are we to worship those things that are seen, rather then the unseen! – as starkly noted by the writer to the Hebrews in verses 11:1-6 .And this is one of the great troubles in the present day. This is one reason for our desolation. We thought too much of our holy city and temple, rather then those far greater things that are unseen! But if this was our sin now, what we might have expected from men in the state of spiritual ignorance and darkness in the days of Moses?! Is ask you, brethren: are we not still today more inclined to worship the created things than we are to worship Him who created them?!

Look at this people to whom I am referring: forty days had not elapsed from the utterance from Sinai of the fundamental precept: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me,” when the very people to whom this command was given, made for themselves a golden calf – after the manner of the idolatrous Egyptians – and danced before it with great joy! This, despite the fact that the entire great and fundamental point – the worship of man’s true God – was the fundamental point around which the whole Mosaic Law was modeled. That is what God wanted to get across to the people He had chosen from all others on the earth. For this purpose we were forbidden to marry foreigners who might not understand what we had learned a very hard way. It was for this purpose that our sacrifices were all to be offered in one place by one particular family of priests, lest we should wander away and become corrupted by associating with idolaters.

For this purpose we were forbidden from eating certain kinds of foods, such as were offered in sacrifice to heathen deities. We were not to be present at idolatrous feasts, nor to become accustomed to those moral abominations with which heathen worship was invariably accompanied. More effectually to secure this point, Divine Providence so arranged it that our national existence and prosperity depended upon our fidelity to the great purpose for which we were set apart from others. Whenever we worshiped the true God and obeyed His laws, temporal prosperity resulted: then we enjoyed union, peace and industry and prosperity. But whenever we forsook God and worshiped idols, a corresponding degeneracy of morals and manners took place. This was inevitably followed by discord, weakness, poverty, and subjection to foreign nations.

But the event which exerted the most decisive influence upon the national existence of us Jews was the erection of Solomon’s temple at Jerusalem. Before that time our sacred rites had been conducted in a very humble manner. Our sacred utensils had no better covering than a tent. Often they were in private custody; and at one time the sacred ark itself – which contained the heaven-derived charter of our national existence – was taken captive and remained for months in the country of the Phallistines. That ark was for about four hundred years almost the only bond of our national union; the only object around which gathered our national reverence. Although in our younger years we wee apt to regard the ark and it contents with a childish curiosity, in after years we came to look upon it as an object of higher significance. It is the written testimony of God against idolatry It containrd the fundamental articles of our nation’s establishment and independence. It is a declaration of principles, borne before us like a banner, proclaiming to the world for what we were to live, fight and to die. It was our confession of faith, which we upheld before the world as sacred, true, and vital to the best interest of humanity – the only hope of our final success. On the tables in the ark are written: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me,” and, “Thou shalt not make any graven image, nor the likeness of anything; thou shalt not bow down to anything to serve them.” There it remains from age to age as a memorial of the purpose of our national existence: and how mightily it has worked in the earth!

Series to be Continued in Message 41 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty-Nine - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

Continuing Peter’s Discourse, taken from the First of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews, by Hillel the Third.

In Peter’s story, the son was delighted with the changes in his life that his father had made for him, whereas the father was equally delighted, so they both rejoiced. And the father said to the son: “‘I delight to dwell with my children when they choose to live in a manner that I know is best for them, and know to be one result of my own work. Now be content and use care not to soil your white robe that is so clean, for exposing it to a very little dirt will soon contaminate it so it will not be fit to be seen [Ed Note: Lk. 9:62; Rom. 6:11-15; Gal. 2:16-18; 2 Cor. 6:11-18; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:26] As long as you keep your robe unspotted from the world it will distinguish you from the world and make you a welcome visitor into the company of all who are dressed in the same way – for this is merely the outward manifestation, or showing, of the principles that live within the flesh; which principles are illustrated by outward actions. And it will be admired by those who may reject it; yet inwardly they must respect it. Though they may covet it, and even raise the spirit of persecution against you, it is not because they dislike you, but because they are not like you; and this is always a cause of envy.’”

“This, said Peter, “is the way God our Father has treated us spiritually. He has prepared us a holy habitation where our immortal souls can live and be happy throughout all eternity; and then has given us the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, the same that Jesus promised – the same that descended upon people the other day [Note: Jn. 16:12-15]. This powerful Spirit renews and begets within us holy desires to love God and to serve Him by obeying all of His commands and doing honor to his name. And this same Spirit begets within us holy desires to see all men embrace the offering of this good and noble Father, that they may be happy now and happy forever – far more so after death of the flesh body than before; for it is the dread of meeting an interminable doom as the result of our sins that makes our lives intolerable, as noted in second Hebrews verse 25.

“Now,” declared Peter, “behold the riches offered on terms so easy by our Father. All we need to do is accept!” And, he asked, almost as an afterthought: “Who will accept?” Two our three hundred cried out, “We will!” and then followed a mighty rising-up and rejoicing, all of which made a strong impression on my mind.

I will make a most thorough examination of these things to ascertain the truth in them – to establish whether or not God has provided some easier and better way to save the souls of men than the Jewish understanding. It has often occurred to me – and to my father before me – that the ways of God’s service are exacting, and inclined to make men become indifferent – almost to view God as a haughty tyrant, whereas Peter’s discourse conversely shows Him in such a lovely light that it makes me hove God more than ever!

HILLEL’S SECOND LETTER

After having viewed our present condition, it may be well for us to look back and review our former history, and revive a knowledge of the state of the world in former times. If we look at the world from the pages of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Haggai, the last of God’s prophets on the earth, we will discern a period of nearly five hundred years to the present, during which time the world underwent more radical changes than ever before. We will see out nation returning from seventy years of captivity to recommence their national existence after having been overrun and absorbed into a great monarchy that swept over the earth. Our acquaintance with the rest of the world was severely limited, extending only to the Chaldeans, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and a few unimportant tribes. Our ideas seem to have been likewise limited, extending little beyond the principles of the Mosaic religion, which had been promulgated about fifteen hundred years before.

I am informed that the accusations against Jesus of Nazareth were written over him as he hung suspended on the cross – written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. From whence came these dialects? When the prophets closed their writings nearly five hundred years ago, the Greek language was scarcely written anywhere. It was confined to a small part of Europe; and also Rome, where the Latin language originated in a straggling village on the banks of the Tiber River.

During this whole period, in which nations and monarchies were born, flourished and decayed – foreshadowing a providential preparation for things to come – the intermingling of the various languages indicated the onset of some crucially-important predestined event. To my mind, the conjunction of these events was opportune for the introduction of a universal religion. That is – if I understand these matters correctly – God has arranged the position and the existence of several nations of the earth in such a propitious manner as to promote the recognition, establishment and propagation of the true religion on the earth of the knowledge and worship of THE TRUE GOD.

What ever knowledge may have been imparted to our ancestors, or however long it may have lasted, certain it is that at the time of Abraham the nations generally had fallen into idolatry. To him, God was pleased to make Himself known; and to promise that He would make of him a great nation, and that in him, and his seed, all the nations of earth were predestined to be blessed.

That is, that through Abraham and his posterity, He would impart the greatest possible good – including the knowledge of the one true God. To accomplish this purpose, God selected the particular place in which Abraham and his posterity were to be placed – and no spot on earth could have been better suited for the purpose. The land of Canaan, afterward called Judea, and after that called Palestine, was situated about midway between the three great divisions of the earth: Asia, Africa, and Europe. It was on the great highway of nations, situated in the very pathway of conquest, commerce and travel, and was equally accessible to all parts of the then known world.

But those circumstances which afterward made Judea so favorably located as the radiating point of the true faith did not even exist in the time of Abraham. In that time there was not conquest, commerce, nor extensive travel. In fact, the world was overrun by wandering tribes, scarcely having defined boundaries or fixed habitations. Chaldea, the cradle of the human race, and Egypt, the birthplace of human learning and the arts, were the only nations of consequence at that time.

Series to be Continued in Message 40 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty-Eight - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

Continuing the First of The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s ProvidenceTo The Jews, by Hillel the Third.

Let us, as honest Jews endeavoring to do the right thing, look into our own natures, and examine our actions, in the light of God’s own holy revelation, and see if our present condition is not deserving on our part. If we find that our present condition is not deserving on our part – if we find that it is we who have forsaken God, rather than His having forsaken us – then let us do as our fathers did long ago in Egypt – even as our fathers did in Babylon. They hung their harps; they clothed themselves in sackcloth and ashes, and mourned as do the dove and the pelican. So did they seek rest until the Lord God Jehovah was moved to compassion. They not only ceased to act wickedly, but they showed by their regrets and acknowledgment that they would continue to act differently in the future. It was then that God had compassion on them, and moved the heart of their wicked king to pity them, that they might return and rebuild their destroyed temple – as related in Ezra 1:1-6. These were the ways in which they conducted themselves; and consider the results that followed! Now these things were for their own good, and they were recorded for the future, so that we might learn what to do should we be brought into the same deplorable condition.

Now, I wish my Jewish brethren to understand that I am not a follower of this Nazarene that has created so much strife among the people – neither do I endorse his new doctrines – yet I think it would be well for us not to be too hasty as yet in forming our own conclusions on this or any other aspect of this particular subject. I heard Peter preach the other day, and as he and John came out of the temple there was a man there who had been lying around at the gates and public crossings for years. He was unable to walk, having no soundness in his feet and ankle bones. As they were passing by him he asked them for help. Peter told him that he had nothing to give, but he said, “In the name of Jesus the Son of God, I say unto thee, ‘rise up and walk!’” The man literally sprang to his feet, seemingly perfectly sound, and commenced praising God at the top of his voice. The police came and took Peter and John to prison, accusing them of being peace-breakers. I thought I had never seen such an outrage! It is right to arrest men and imprison them for doing evil, but to arrest men and imprison them for doing good is something beyond my comprehension. This has been the fault of the Jews in all time. No odds what good was done, if it was not done just as the priest thought it ought to be done, it was considered wrong.

When I saw the act of Peter toward the helpless man, I said to myself, There is the power of Moses; there is the power of Jehovah manifest in human flesh; there is the power needed by us Jews to reinstate the kingdom of heaven – the power that has followed the Jews in times past, and the only distinguishing mark that makes us different from the other nations of the earth. This was the peculiar power of Jesus of Nazareth; but because he did not work according to Jewish rules they condemned him to die. It was not because his works were not good works, but because he did not do them according to Jewish custom.

I was forcibly impressed with Peter’s sermon. He declared, “There was a rich man who had one son, who had for a long time been trying to build himself a house. He was homeless and exposed to many dangers and troubles for want of a house, until he was almost exhausted and felt himself ready to perish. Then his father had compassion on his son, and built him a house, with everything needed for the necessities and comfort of his child. When it was finished, he went and brought his son to see it. And his son was delighted, and declared that it was much better than he could have built himself. His father said, “Son, I love you, I give you this house. Will you accept it?” “With all my heart, dear father, with grateful acknowledgment.”

“Now,” said Peter, “Here we have a picture of the world, which has been working, struggling, and striving for ages to build them a home for the soul of man. They have worked by the laws of man, by constructing fine temples, by offering sacrifices, by paying tithes to the Lord, by walking hundreds of miles to the temple – often bareheaded and barefooted – and by keeping holy days and festivals, all to no purpose. The soul has become wearied out of patience, and still no rest, until it has reached a point where man has become dissatisfied, not only with himself, but with his God and with his own service. And while in this despairing condition, God our Father comes in the person of Jesus – whom the Jews crucified – and in his death he has prepared an eternal house of rest; and now proposes that His children accept what He has done for them, and stop working and worrying to try to fit themselves for a higher station and happier life.” And Peter then asked his stilled listeners, “Who will accept it?”

Peter then continued, “This house was beautiful to look at, and was in every way suited to the son, yet he could not enjoy it, owing to the fact that it had no furniture. So, the son went out and toiled and labored trying to make furniture that would suit himself, but he was unable to make a piece that would last. Then his father went to work and made all manner of ware, and presented it to his son. Every piece of it fitted the house and suited the purpose for which it was made, so that the son was well pleased. His father then declared, ‘All this I will give you, my son, because I love you. Will you accept?’ The son replied, ‘With all my heart, dear father; this pleases me even more than if I had had the power to make it myself!’

“Now,” exclaimed Peter, “This what God has done for the world. Instead of purifying ourselves by washing, fasting, and by prayers, by penitence, and all the works of the law, God has given us a purity that will last forever – that will suit us and at the same time please Him!”

Peter continued with his narrative: “This son was all ragged, clothes worn and threadbare from trying to build and fit him out a decent house, and he felt ashamed of his condition. So, he set about trying to better clothe himself, but he found that the harder he tried the less success rewarded his efforts. After he had worked a it a while, his skilled father wove his son a seamless robe and presented it to him, saying, ‘My son, I love you and have prepared a white robe, will you accept it?’

‘With many thanks I will accept it,’ replied his grateful son. ‘How beautiful it is – so snowy white and pure! And it fits me perfectly. Father, I can never feel grateful enough! I thought you were angry with me and hated me because I was poor, homeless, miserable and ragged – but if you were able to love me in my misery, I know you can love me now with all you have done for me, and I will make my abode with you forever – I don’t know how I can sufficiently show my gratitude to you!

Series to be Continued in Message 39 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Thirty-Seven - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eleven

The Hillel Letters Regarding God’s Providence To The Jews, by Hillel the Third.

Rev. W. D. Mahan reported in his book, HISTORICAL RECORDS, that the following letters were translated by his assistants, and then forwarded to him after he returned home to the United States:

FIRST LETTER

To: the noble and persecuted sons of my Father, God, who is too wise to err in His judgment, and too mighty to permit His Kingdom to suffer, or His children to be persecuted beyond what it good for them:

Beholding our desolate condition, we must know there is good reason for it somewhere. From our former history, and the dealings with our forefathers, it is evident that it is not because He is neglectful of the interests of His children. It must, therefore, be somehow on our own account.

By directing your thoughts to these subjects, it is needful to call your attention to the acts of God in the history of the world. By studying this we may learn the cause of our present condition. When He was dissatisfied with the wicked world, His eyes rested on one good man, Noah , as disclosed in Gen. 6:1-9. Now it is useless for us to begin the controversy as to how Noah became good: that is nothing to us now. The great question for us, is: are WE good? – and if not, why are we wicked?! No doubt, this is the reason why we are forsaken. If we could not help ourselves from being wicked, then we are assuredly being persecuted wrongly. But it was the goodness of Noah that preserved his life, and made him a great and happy man – whereas it was wickedness that caused the rest of the world to be drowned!.

Then we follow along the line to Abraham. God found him faithful, and on that account He made him the father of all that are faithful and good. And so with hundreds of others I could name in our former history. I would ask all the Jews in their dispersed condition to read the history of our race and observe His dealings to the good, and His corresponding judgments upon the evil!

Now, God makes selections of certain individuals to relieve others. These chosen ones may not be good, but those for whom the are selected must be good, or they can receive no favor from God.

Consider Moses. He was an infant, and could neither be good nor bad in that state, because he was at that time powerless – in a powerless condition – as seen in the case of Prophet Jeremiah when he was born – Jer. 1:4. But Israel was good, and – as strange as it may seem to the “natural man” – of whom Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 2:9-14 – it was by reason of Israel’s goodness that Moses was selected to do what the Lord guided, moved, and directed him to do! Great spiritual leaders accumulate their spirituality life after life on the earth. God knows them all, and quickens the spirit in those who are obedient to Him and do His Will, as did Moses. [Ed. Note:The Lord clearly revealed this principle when he made Jeremiah a prophet even before he was formed in his mother’s womb – as disclosed in Jer. 1:4-5. He doubtless knew what Jeremiah had done in previous earth experiences, which foreshadowed what he would most likely do in his earth experience as Jeremiah. And God had foreseen what Archangel Satan would do in the wake of what he had done as "covering angel" over the earth – as noted by the Lord through His Prophet Ezekiel in Ezek. 28:14:18.]

Hence, speaking of Moses: from this babe in the basket we find the long chain of displays of God’s mighty works in saving and defending and comforting the good, simply and only because they had been good. This is the one reason why God has ever bestowed special favors upon anyone – just because He Himself is good; and I am sure that it is all that is necessary to justify Him in His dealings with the sons of men.

He creates men, and gives them all the necessary power and opportunities to be good, and if they refuse, then they are themselves to blame, and not He. It was for this reason that He condemned the world to suffer the Flood. It explains why the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea, and why the Sodomites were burned; why the Canaanites were destroyed, as described in Genesis 15:16. It explains why we were sold into Exile in Babylon. And oh! For a master Spirit to rise up, as did Samuel to Saul, to explain to us the reason why we are forsaken and cast away; why is it that our city and the holy temple are forsaken and desolate? Why is it that God no more battles for Israel?! Why is it that we have no leader who it would be safe for our people to follow? Why has Israel turned against herself – that every bird is permitted to pluck her, and that her friends have turned to become her enemies? Even more so, why is it that Josephus sold Gililee to the Romans? Why has the sanctifying of the spirit been withdrawn? And I ask, why is it that the Urim and Thummim in the temple has not changed color in thirty years?! And why is it that the light of the threshold of the temple has ceased to burn – and Jews have lost their feeling of brotherhood and now fight one another like beasts of hell? Need I ask why it is that God as given us over, and permitted the Romans to devour our heritage, to burn our city, to destroy our beloved temple, and drench it with the blood of its devotees?

I am aware that many of my brethren – more particularly the priests – will bring charges against the ministration, and, of course, indirectly impeach God; but it may be, my brethren, that we mistake God’s designs in this matter. Why may we not be equally mistaken in regard to what we deserve, or our demerit in His dealing with us? We know that the guilty party is apt to think the law is too severe; but we never think so when others are to suffer! This is especially true if we are the party against whom the criminal has offended or done wrong! When a Jew becomes mean and wicked, and violates Jewish law and injures us personally, then we propose to stone him until he is dead – if his actions have been such as to deserve such a sentence; and we are equally guilty if we in any way try to screen the criminal from suffering the just penalty of the law.

Series to be Continued in Message 38 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty-Six - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Nine

Herod Antipater’s Defense Before The Roman

Senate in Regard To The Execution of John the Baptist

Insofar as Agrippa’s having accused me of possessing arms for seventy thousand soldiers, that is correct, but keep in mind that they were left to me by my father, Herod the Great. Because they were needed to defend the province, I was not aware that it was necessary to report them; but I never thought of keeping them secret! As to my being in league with Serjonius, I appeal to the virtue of my conduct, and demand a thorough investigation.

As for Pontius Pilate’s accusation that I am a disobedient coward because of my actions in regard to Jesus of Nazareth, I say in my own defense that I was informed by the Jews that this was the same Jesus that my father had intended to destroy when he was an infant. In fact, I have it in my father’s private writings and accounts of his life, showing that when the report was circulated by three men inquiring where was he who was born to be king of the Jews, he called together the Hillel and Shammai schools, and demanded a reading of the sacred scrolls; and that it had been foretold that he was to be born in Bethlehem of Judeas – which was read and interpreted that very night by Hillel. So, when my father learned that there was the birth of a male child in Bethlehem under strange and unusual circumstances, and he was unable to learn the whereabouts of that child, he immediately ordered all the male infants in that place slain.

It was only afterward that Herod learned that Jesus’ mother had taken him and fled into the wilderness. For Herod’s attempt to uphold the Roman authority in the land of Judea, the world has unceasingly cursed him to this day; and yet the Caesars have done a thousand worse things – and not only that, but have done them a thousand times, and it was all widely accepted. Just compare how many lives have been lost through so many years to save the Roman Empire – compare that alongside those infants who were only removed in their innocence from the evil foreseen and predestined to come.

The proper way to judge an action is to let the actor judge; or the one with whom the action terminates. If this should be done, and there is a life of happiness beyond this earth in which innocense may dwell, those infants – as well as Rachel’s children; written of in Mt. 2:12-18 – should be thankful to my father, Herod, for the change that has come.

Again, my Lords, Pilate is a higher officer than I; and you know that in our law the lower court always has the right of appeal to the higher. But as to Pilate’s saying that Jesus was a Galilean, in that he is mistaken. Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, as the records show. And as for his citizenship, he had none. He wandered about from one place to another, having no home, making his abode principally with the poor. In our view, he was a wild fanatic who had taken up the doctrines of John the Baptist, but had not adopted John’s rite of water baptism, having instead brought in his own baptism, which he claimed was administered by Spirit, rather then water [Note: See Mt. 3:11-12; Jn. 20:22; Acts Chapters 2, 9, 22; Acts:11:16; 1 Cor. 1:14-17].

Jesus was what one would call an enthusiast. He had apparently learned to perfection in Egypt the art of soothsaying. I attempted to induce him to perform some of his miracles while he was in my Court, but he was too wise to be caught in a trap. I concluded that, like all necromancers, he was afraid to show off before intelligent people. From what I was able to learn, he had gone so far as to reprimand some of the wealthy Jews for their meanness, and his reproaches were not beyond reason – in fact, from what I heard of his actions, Jews would have been much better off if they had elected to practice what he preached!

So, this constitutes my defense. I submit it for your consideration, praying for clemency.

Signed,

Herod Antipas

Series to be Continued in Message 37 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty-Five - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Nine

Herod Antipater’s Defense Before The Roman

Senate in Regard To The Execution of John the Baptist

[Rev. W. D. Mahan and his two experienced and skilled assistants, found in the records of the Roman Senate, Herod Antipater’s defense respecting the various accusations preferred against him by different persons. In his defense are found some important items regarding the Christian Church. It should be apparent to the reader that the related events were recorded with no intention of establishing other facts. The piece is in three parts: (1) The history of John the Baptist; (2) the history of Jesus Christ; and (3) the killing of the children by his – Herod Antipater’s – father at Bethlehem.]

This following letter was addressed to Tiberius Caesar And the Senate at Rome.

My Noble Lords, Greeting:

It is true, as my opponent asserts, that I was defeated in the battle with Aretas, King of Arabia, but I was forced to fight when unprepared for the conflict. I either had to fight, or have the country overrun by this wicked people. It is true that I was defeated, but it was owing to the want of time and better preparation. Aretas came upon me without warning. Notwithstanding that I was defeated, his army was so crippled that he had to withdraw his forces from the field, and has not been able to rally them since. So, our country was saved from devastation by a foreign foe.

I understand that the superstitious Jews claim that my defeat was because of my wickedness in beheading John the Baptist. My understanding of the God of the Jews is, that he does not chastise the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. What did my actions have to do with the poor suffering soldier? But if their God had to punish all in order to reach me, then where is his almighty power of which they boats to much? I do not know whether their God was angry at me or not. There is one thing I do know, however; that the act was done with the holy intention of bringing the greatest amount of good to the greatest number of people – and if this is so, no court can gainsay or condemn it.

The facts in this case are about as follows: John the Baptist had set up a new mode of religion, altogether different from the Jewish religion, teaching baptism instead of circumcision; which had been the belief and custom of Jews in all ages past. According to their idea, God had appeared to Abraham hundreds of years before, and told him with his own lips how and what to do to be saved into eternity; and the Jews had lived according to these precepts until it had become a part of their nature – their forefathers had lived in this way.

David, Solomon, Isaac, Jacob, and all the holy prophets had gone to heaven by this way of God’s own appointment. [But note Acts 2:34-36, which verses assert that, as of the time before Jesus Christ became man’s Savior, David had not ascended into the heavens.]

Now, the question came to them, as they suggested to me: Has God found that He was wrong? Has His wisdom failed Him? or, had the unchangeable changed? and is He wavering in His purpose? Of course not! but such would be the natural conclusion of a sensible man under the circumstances. Now, John the Baptist had no authority whatever from God for what he was doing, as Abraham had. All he could say was, “He that sent me to baptize is true, but he cannot even tell who it was who sent him! Then, as to his going back into the wilderness: God had ordered Solomon to build the finest temple that was ever built in the world, and made promises that whosoever came to that house with his offerings, his prayers should be heard and answered. This temple had been the place of their meeting for hundreds of years, for the Jews believe this temple to be the next place to heaven itself. Now, let me point out the difference:

(1^st) John has no authorized authority.

(2^nd) He arbitrarily changes God’s place of worship.

(3^rd) He changes the doctrines.

(4^th) He changes the mode of application. [But note Jer. 31-31-33, in which the Lord, speaking through His Prophet Jeremiah, foretold that a time was predestined to come when He would make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with Judah, which would not be according to the covenant He had made with their fathers when radical changes had been made when He brought them out of Egypt, which promises they had broken: that He would put His New Covenant in their hearts, and would remember their sins no more. He had brought about radical changes – the removal of spiritual power from Egypt and bestowed it upon Abraham’s children, through Jacob, thereby commencing the Hebraic Age.]

It was the idea of Gamaliel that John the Baptist wanted to be some great man, for which reason he adopted his eccentric mode of life to establish a new way. There was no better way than the course he chose to follow to make an impression upon the ignorant and unlearned – to go away out into the wilderness by himself, gather a few friends from Jerusalem to go out there to hear him, and to return and tell of the great wonders which they seen and experienced there.

Add to this John’s unsightly appearance – his long uncombed hair and beard, his fantastic clothing, and his food nothing but bugs and beans – such a course and such a character are well qualified to lead the illiterate astray. These troubles on the Jewish mind were very heavy, and gave such men as Hilderium, Shammai, Hillel, and others great concern. And it was no wonder, for in their judgment it was vacating the temple of religious worship; it was blocking the road to heaven, and driving the poor unsuspecting people to ruin, as well as working destruction on the whole nation. [John the Baptist’s baptismal doctrine of repentance stemmed directly from Prophet Ezekiel’s remarkable prophecy pointedly stated in Ezek. 18:1-32, which had foretold changes to come. It was a stepping stone that led from John’s initial baptism through the medium of water, to Jesus Christ’s Baptism by the Holy Ghost; as subsequently disclosed in the Book of Acts, starting at Chapter Two. It became the ONE BAPTISM confirmed by Apostle Paul to the Ephesians (Eph. 4:5]

So it was by the Jews request that I ordered the execution of John the Baptist: in my view, it was better to execute one man to save many others from a worse fate. And that is the true reason why I ordered John the Baptist’s beheading. It was not to please the whim of a dancing girl, as has been rumored, Caius can write to any of the more leaned Jews to confirm the accuracy of my statement.

Series to be Continued in Message 36 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty-Four - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Nine

Herod Antipater’s Defense Before The Roman

Senate in Regard To His Condiuct At Bethlehem

When this man in strange garb, who claimed he was from Egypt, spoke of the infant Jesus, I asked him how he knew of the child. He replied that all three of them had experienced a dream about it on t he same night. I advised him that the devil plays with our brains when while we sleep. At that, he drew a parchment roll from beneath his bosom and read it aloud in the Hebrew language: “Thou, Bethlehem, least among the kingdoms of the world, out of thee shall come a man that should rule all the people.” [Ed Note: cf. Micah 5:2-3].

I asked him who had written that, and he replied that the God of heaven had done so. I asked him where he had obtained that parchment, which he replied was the law of the covenant of the Jews. He explained that a star had seemed to travel before the three of them, all the way to Jerusalem. I, of course, advised him that his God was mistaken; that Bethlehem was not a kingdom, neither was it the least of the kingdom of Judah. I told him that all three of them were superstitious fanatics, and unceremoniously ordered them out of my presence.

But the excitement continued to grow until it became so intense I was unable to control it. I called the Hillel court, which was the most learned body of talent in Jerusalem. They read out of their laws that Jesus was to be born of a virgin in Bethlehem; that he was to rule all nations, and that ultimately all the kingdoms of the world were to be subject to him; and that his kingdom should never end, but that his appointees should continue to rule forever.

I found this court is just as sanguine as those three strangers, and, in fact, it was in everybody’s mouth: in fact, I thought I could discern already a sort of deririding and mocking spirit among the lower classes in regard to the Roman authority. Now, I have to say that the scene that occurred in Bethlehem was nothing more than a meteor traveling through the air, or the rising vapor from the foot of the mountains out of the low, earthy ground, as is often observed. And, as to the noise heard by Melker and those shepherd boys who reported it, it was only the echo of the shepherds on the other side of the mountain calling the night watch, or scaring preying wolves from their flocks.

But, although this was nothing more than a phenomenon of nature and the whole episode a delusion, it did not better the condition I found myself in. A man will contend for a false faith stronger than he will for a true one, from the fact that the truth defends itself, whereas a falsehood must be defended by its adherents; first to prove it to themselves, and, secondly, that they appear right in the estimation of their friends.. But, the fact is that this case is about as follows: the Roman taxation was cutting off the support of the priests, and they were smarting under it! Again, the double taxation – that is, the tithes to the priests and the tax to the Romans – was earing heavily on the common people, so that they could not stand it, and the priests saw that one of them would have to go unpaid, which was unthinkable. As they saw the Romans were the stronger, they wrote these things in the “Tosephta,” and read it daily in all their synagogues and temples, in order that the Jewish mind might be prepared for the event, knowing that they could magnify a mote into a mountain, when it came to anything outside of the common laws of their nature, and knowing that if they could get the common people to believe in these things, there would be no end to their fighting. And from the appearances the excitement was fast driving the people that way. It had already become a by-word with the children of Bethlehem and Jerusalem that the Jews had a new king, so that neither Caesar nor Herod would reign any more: which meant that they, the people, would no longer have to pay taxes to maintain the Roman government. Such talk and sayings were already common among the poorer classes of society.

In the face of all this, I saw an insurrection swiftly brewing, and that nothing but a bloody war as a direct consequence. Now, I ask sincerely: under these unstable circumstances, what was I go do? In my honest judgment it was best to pluck the as yet undeveloped flower in its bud, lest it should grow, strengthen, and finally burst, shedding its deadly poison over both nations, and impoverish and ruin them forever. My enemies can see that I could have no malice toward the infants of Bethlehem. I took no delight in listening to the cries of the innocent mothers. May all the gods forbid! No. I saw nothing ahead but an insurrection and a bloody war were our doom, and in this the overthrow and downfall, to some extent, of our nation.

These are the grounds for my action in this matter. I am satisfied that I did the best that could be done under the circumstances. As my motive was purely to do the best I could for my whole country, I hope you will consider it, and I submit this statement for your consideration, promising faithfulness and submission to your judgment.

Signed,

Herod Antipater

Series to be Continued in Rev. W. D. Mahan’s Message 35 of HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty-Three - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Nine

Herod Antipater’s Defense Before The Roman

Senate in Regard To His Condiuct At Bethlehem

Rev. Mahan Notes: In the scrolls in the Library of the Vatican, I found the following record, marked: “Herod Antipater’s Defense:”

NOBLE ROMANS:

In the case whereof I am accused, these Jews are of all people the most superstitious, no more to be trusted and relied-upon than the Hindoos. They have taught themselves to believe in but one God, who, they say, dwells in another world, so they can neither see nor hear him, nor in any way approach him by their natural senses. They believe that he is unchangeable and unapproachable; that he can only manifest himself through some angel of spirit, or some light, or the thunder, or any strange and uncommon phenomenon. Hence, they are so superstitious that they can be made to believe just about anything.

In order that you may know the kind of people I have to deal with, I will give you some of their maxims: (1) When the sun shines, they say that their God smiles; (2) and that when it is cloudy, they say that he frowns; and when it thunders they say that he is angry, and they hide themselves; (4) when it rains, they say that he weeps, and there are a great many other similar sayings. Now, my lords, you can see at once how this people might be led astray, if they could be made to believe that this strange God was at their head, and took up their cause.

Now, as a foundation for all this foolishness, they have a book, and a set of men called priests, who read and expound this book to them, and they will believe anything these priests tell them. To show how far they may be led, these priests tell them that some thousands of years ago a man named Moses died, and went to where this strange God dwelt. He was gone forty years, and when he came back he brought this book, which was written by their God for their government. To prove that the whole thing is a forgery: the book is wholly for the benefit of the priest. The poor have to work and toil continually, and pay half of what they make, and sometimes almost starve to support the lazy priests and furnish them and their women with plenty of fine garments, wine, and the best of food [Ed. Note: cf. Ezek. Chapter 24; Mal. 2:1-9)]

The priests tell these poor Jews that this God requires them to bring their best calf, their best lamb, and the best flour and oil to the temple, to offer in sacrifice; and the priests and their party get all this for themselves. I often tell them – when they object to Roman taxation – that they could keep up to a thousand Caesars for much less than it costs to keep up their God and his priests!

Add to that, that their leaders are always quarreling and fighting among themselves, and dividing off into different sects. Miracles are as common as poor physicians. The Essenes are noted for both! They prophesy, work miracles, see visions, and have remarkable dreams, and stand in reputation as quack doctors. They pretend to know all about angels, ghosts, and spirits; they profess the art of managing ethereal citizens of trans-atmospheric regions. They live together in colonies, some of them are cenobitic and some are celibate communities. They maintain that they are all priests and high priests; therefore explaining their daily baptisms, as priests on duty.

They wear Levitical garments. Their tables are their altars, and their meals only sacrifices. With this sanctimonious misanthropy – which is their highest virtue – they use the allegorical method of expounding the Scriptures [Ed. Note: cf. 1 Cor. 2:9-14; 13:9; 14:30-23; 2 Cor. 3:3-6].

While we Romans think, reason and reflect, using our faculties to obtain our ideas of duty, they shut their eyes and fold their hands, waiting to be endued with power from their God; and when they get it, it proves to be all to their own advantage and interests, to the ruin of their fellow citizens.

The Sadducees are another party, equally absurd. They get their peculiar doctrine from Antigonus Sochaeus, who was President of the Sanhedrum. They reject all the traditions of the scribes and the Pharisees. Then we find the “sophers,” or scribes. They are the writers and expounders of the law. These Pharisees [Ed. Note: derived from "Pharash," meaning to separate] from all other men on account of their sanctity. But it is useless to name all these sects, with their peculiar views and ideas, each differing from the others. They are all strict monotheists, yet they differ from each other more than the polytheists do.

I have given this detailed description of the people and their various sects so that the Senate may have an idea of the situation I am in. But if you could be here and see and associate with them as I do – to see them with all their presumed sanctity of life – and then behold their treachery to each other; to see how the lie and steal the one from the other, and then see how low and base are their priests – you would be much better qualified to judge my actions. [Ed. Note: This chronic inability of human priests to maintain a high degree of spirituality from man’s earliest incarnations on the earth, in time brought about GOD’s installation of one eternal heavenly priesthood – that of Melchizedek, who was the Son of GOD, as the Bible divulges in Heb. 5:5-14; Heb. 7:8-28]

As to this great excitement at Bethlehem, there strange fantastic-looking men called on my guards at the gate, and asked them where was the babe that had been born that was to be the King of the Jews? My guards told em of it, and I ordered the men to be brought into court. I asked them who they were. One of them said he was from Egypt. I asked what was their business. He said they were in search of the babe that was born to rule the Jews. I told them that I ruled the Jews under Augustus Caesar. But he said that this babe is to rule after I was gone! I told him that it would not happen unless the child was born under the purple [Note: purple was the national color of Rome].

At that I began to question him further.

Series to be Continued in Message 34 of Rev. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty-Two - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[ Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eight:

Continuation of Valleus’ Notes – “Acta Pilati”, or, Pilate’s

Report To Caesar of the Arrest, Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth

Joseph of Arimathea buried the body of Jesus of Nazareth in his own tomb. Whether he conte4mplated Jesus’ resurrection, or had in mind to cut another burying place for himself, I cannot tell. The day after Jesus was buried, one of the priests came to the Praetorium advising that some of Jesus’ Disciples were planning to steal his body and hide it somewhere, and then make it appear that the had risen from the dead, of which, of course, they were perfectly convinced. I sent him to the captain of the royal guard [Ed. Note: Malkus], ordering him to take the Jewish soldiers and place as many of them around the sepulcher as needed, so that if anything happened to change the normal course of events, Jews would have themselves to blame, and not the Romans.

When the great excitement arose at the time the sepulcher, in which the body of Jesus had been buried, was found empty, I felt a deeper solicitude than ever. I sent for Malcus, who assured me that he had placed his Lieutenant, Ben Isham, with one hundred soldiers, around the sepulcher. He told me that Isham and the soldiers were very much alarmed at what had occurred that morning. I sent for this man, Isham, who related to me, as near as I can now recall, the following events.

He said that at about the beginning of the fourth watch, they saw a soft beautiful light appear over the sepulcher. He at first thought that probably the women had come to embalm the body of Jesus in accordance with their custom, but he could not understand how they had managed to slip through the protective ring of guards. While these thoughts were passing through his mind, behold, the whole place was lighted up, and there seemed to be crowds of the dead in their graveclothes. All seemed to be shouting and filled with ecstacy, while all around and above sounded the most beautiful music he had ever heard, and the whole air seemed to be filled with voices praising God. At this time there seemed to be a reeling and swimming of the earth, so that he turned so sick and faint that he could not stand on his feet. He said that the earth seemed to swim from underneath him, and that his senses left him shaken so he did not know for certain what had occurred.

I asked him in what condition he was when he regained his senses. He said that he was lying on the ground with his face down. I asked him if he might not have been mistaken as to the light – was it not daylight coming in the east? He replied that at first he had thought of that, but at a stone’s throw away it was exceedingly dark; and then he recalled that it was too early for the day to begin. I asked if he had not arisen too quickly and was dizzy, but he replied that he had been awake all night; that he had let some of the soldiers sleep, but that he had to stay awake – that the penalty for sleeping while on watch was death. He thought that the light had lasted for an hour, but could not be sure; that they had all gone to their quarters; and he said that the priests had questioned him, and wanted him to say that an earthquake had caused it all. He declared that some of the priests believed that Jesus was not a man – not human – that he and his mother Mary were the same as had been on earth before with Abraham and Lot, and in many other times and places. It seems to me that if the Jewish theory be true, these conclusions are correct, for they are in accord with this man’s life. The elements were in his hands like clay in the hands of a potter; he could change wine into water and death into life, and even still the wild raging storms. In fact, it was performing miracles like these and others that had created enmity against him. Considering these matter, it was clear to me that he had not been charged with any criminal offenses, breaking any laws, nor of any harmful wrongdoing to any individual’s person, I am almost ready to say – as did Manlius at the Cross – “Truly this was the Son of God!”

Now, noble soverign, this is as near to the facts in this case as I can arrive at, and I have taken pains to make this a full statement so that that you may effectively judge my conduct upon the whole of these important matters – because I hear that Antipater has made many hard accusations of me in this matter.. With the promise of faithfulness and good wishes to my noble Sovereign, I am your obedient servant,

Pontius Pilate.

Series to be Continued in Message 33 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty-One - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF [Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eight:

Continuation of Valleus’ Notes – “Acta Pilati”, or, Pilate’s

Report To Caesar of the Arrest, Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth

According to Jewish Law, a man was stationed at the door of the court with a flag, and another a short way off on horseback, to cry out the name of the criminal and his crime, and the name of his witnesses, and to know if anyone could testify in his favor; and also, the prisoner on his way to execution had the right to turn back three times, and to plead any new thing in his favor. I urged all these pleas, hoping they might be awed into subjection, but they still continued to cry, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

I then ordered Jesus to be scourged, hoping that it might satisfy them, but it only increased their fury. Then I called for a basin, and washed my hands in the presence of the clamorous multitude, thus testifying that in my judgment, Jesus of Nazareth had done nothing deserving death; but it was in vain. I was his life for which these wretches thirsted.

Often in our civil commotions have I witnessed the furious anger of the multitude, but nothing could be compared to what I witnessed on this occasion. It might have been truly said that all the phantoms of the infernal regions had assembled at Jerusalem. The crowd appeared not to walk, but to be borne off and whirled as a vortex, rolling along in living waves from the Praetorium, even unto Mt. Zion, with howling screams, shrieks, and vociferations such as were never heard in the seditions of the Pannonioa, or in the tumultuous evens of the forum.

By degrees the day darkened into winter’s twilight, such as had been seen at the death of the great Julius Caesar – and it was likewise on the Ides of March! I, the continued governor of a rebellious province, was leaning against a column of my basilic, contemplating athwart the dreary gloom of these fiends of Tartarus pressing for the execution of the innocent Nazarene. All around me was deserted. Jerusalem had vomited out her in-dwellers through the funeral gate that leads to Germonica. An air of desolation and sadness enveloped me. My guards had joined the cavalry, and the Centurion, with a display of power, was endeavoring to keep order. I was left alone, and my breaking heart admonished me that what was passing at this moment appertained rather to the history of the gods than to that of man. A loud clamor was heard proceeding from Golgotha, which, borne on the winds, seemed to announce an agony such as was never heard by mortal ears. Dark clouds hung over the pinnacle of the temple, and settling over the city, covered it with a veil. So dreadful were the signs – both in the heavens and on the earth – that Dionysius the Areopagite is reported to have exclaimed, “Either the author of nature is suffering, or the universe is falling apart!”

While these appalling scenes of nature were transpiring, there was a dreadful earthquake in lower

Egypt, which filled everybody with fear, and scared superstitious Jews almost to death. It is said that Balthasar, an aged and learned Jew of Antioch, was found dead after the excitement was over. Whether he had died from alarm of grief is not known. He was a close friend of the Nazarene.

Near the first hour of the night I threw my mantle around me, and walked down into the city, toward the gates of Golgotha. The sacrifice had been consummated. The crowd was returning home, still agitated, it is true, but gloomy, taciturn, and desperate. What they had witnessed had stricken them with terror and remorse. I also saw my little Roman cohort pass by mournfully, the standard-bearer having veiled his eagle in token of grief; and I overheard some of the Jewish soldiers muttering strange words which I did not understand. Others were recounting miracles very like those which have so often smitten the Romans by the will of the gods. Sometimes groups of men would halt, and then, looking back toward Mount Calvary, remain motionless in expectation of perhaps seeing some new prodigy.

I returned to the Praetorium, sad and pensive. On ascending the stairs – the steps of which were still stained with the blood of the Nazarene, I perceived an old man in a suppliant posture, and behind him several Romans in tears. He threw himself at my feet and wept most bitterly. It is painful to see an old man weep, and – my heart being already overcharged with grief – we, even though strangers – wept there together. And in truth it seemed that the tears lay very shallow that day with many whom I perceived in the vast contours of people. I had never witnessed such an extreme revulsion of feeling. Those who betrayed and sold out Jesus, those who had testified against him and had cried, “Crucify him, we have his blood!” slunk off like cowardly curs, and washed their teeth in vinegar! I am told that Jesus taught a resurrection and a separation after death; and if that means what I understand it to mean, I am sure it must have commenced this day, in this crowd!

“Father,” said I to him, after gaining control of my feelings,”who are you, and what is your request?”

“I am Joseph of Arimathea,” replied he, ‘and I am come to beg of you upon my knees permission to bury Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Your prayer is granted,” I replied, and I forthwith ordered Manlius to take some solders with him to superintend the interment, lest it should be profaned.

A few days after the sepulcher was found empty, Jesus’ disciples proclaimed all over the country that Jesus had risen from the dead, as he had foretold. This of course created more excitement, even, than had the crucifixion. As to the truth of it I cannot say for certain, but I have made an investigation of the matter, the results of which you can examine for yourself, and decide if I am at fault, as Herod claims.

Series to be Continued in Message 32 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

Message Thirty - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF

[Continuation of Valleus’ Notes – “Acta Pilatie”, or, Pilate’s Report to Caesar Concerning the Arrest, Trial, and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

In the days when Herod reigned in Galilee, those who opposed Jesus set themselves to wreak vengeance upon him. Had Herod followed his own inclinations, he would have immediately ordered Jesus to be put to death; but though proud of his royal dignity, he hesitated to commit such an act that might lessen his influence with the Senate; either that, or, like me, he was afraid of Jesus. But it would never do for a Roman officer to be publicly showing fear of a Jew. Some time previously, Herod had called on me at the praetorium, and, upon rising to take leave after some trifling conversation, he asked me for my opinion concerning the Nazarene. I replied that Jesus appeared to me to be one of those great philosophers that great nations sometimes produced – that his doctrines were by no means sacrilegious, and that the intentions of Rome were to leave him to that freedom of speech that was justified by his actions. Herod smiled, I thought, maliciously, and, saluting me with ironical respect, departed.

The great feast of the Jews was approaching, and with it the intention to avail themselves of the popular exultation which always manifests itself at the solemnities of a Passover. The city was overflowing with a tumultuous populace, clamoring for the death of the Nazarene. My emissaries informed me that the treasure of the temple has been employed in bribing the people, and that danger was pressing. A Roman centurion had been insulted. I wrote to the Prefect of Syria for a hundred foot-soldiers and as many cavalry, but he declined my request. I saw myself standing alone with a handful of veterans in the midst of the rebellious city; too weak to suppress an uprising, and having no choice left but to tolerate it. They had seized upon Jesus, and the seditious rabble – although they had nothing to fear from the Praetorium, but believing as their leaders had told them – that I had winked at their sedition – continued shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Three powerful parties had combined at that time against Jesus: First, the Herodians and the Sadducees, whose seditious conduct seemed to have proceeded from double motives. They hated the Nazarene and were impatient of the Roman yoke. They never forgave me for having entered the holy city with banners that bore the image of a Roman emperor; although in this instance I had committed a fatal error, yet the sacrilege did not appear less heinous in their eyes. Another grievance also rankled their bosoms. I had proposed to employ a part of the treasure of the temple in erecting edifices for public use. My proposal was scorned. The Pharisees were the avowed enemies of Jesus, and cared not for the government. They bore with bitterness the severe reprimands for which the Nazarene for three years had been continually giving them wherever he went. Timid, and too weak to act by themselves, they had embraced the quarrels of the Herodians and the Sadducees. In addition to these three parties, I had to contend against the reckless and profligate populace, always ready to join a sedition, and to profit from the disorder and confusion that inevitably resulted.

Jesus was dragged before the high priest and condemned to death. It was then that the high priest, Caiaphas, performed a divisive act of submission. He sent his prisoner to me, to confirm his condemnation, and secure his execution. I answered him that – because Jesus was a Galilean – the affair came under Herod’s jurisdiction, and ordered him to be sent thither. The wily tetrarch instead professed humility, and – protesting his deference to the Lieutenant of Caesar – he committed the fate of the man to my hands! Soon my palace assumed the aspect of a besieged citadel. Every moment increased the number of malcontents. Jerusalem was inundated with the crowds from the mountains of Nazareth. All Judea appeared to be pouring into the city.!

I had taken a wife from among the Gauls, who pretended to see into futurity – a seer. Weeping and throwing herself at my feet, she implored me: “Beware! Beware! And touch not that man Jesus, for he is holy. Last night I saw him in a vision, and he was walking on the waters! He was flying on the wings of the wind! He spoke to the tempest and even to the fishes in the lake, and all were obedient to him! Behold, the torrent in Mount Kedron flows with blood – the statues of Caesar are filled with gemonide, the columns of the interium have given away, and the sun is veiled in mourning, like a vestal in the tomb. Ah, Pilate! evil awaits you! If you will not listen to the vows of your wife, then dread the curse of the Roman Senate! Dread the frown of Caesar!”

By this time the marble stair groaned under the weight of the multitude. The Nazarene was brought back before me. I proceeded to the halls of justice, followed by my guard, and asked the people in a grave voice what it was they demanded.

“The death of the Nazarene” was the sharp reply.

“For what crime?”

“He has blasphemed – he has prophesied the ruin of the temple! He calls himself the son of God, as if he were King of the Jews!”

I replied to the crowd in a severe tone, “Roman justice does not punish for such offenses with death!”

But the relentless rabble screamed, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The shouts of the infuriated mob shook the palace to its very foundations!

The only one present who remained calm in the whole multitude was Jesus. After many fruitless attempts to protect him from the fury of his relentless persecutors, I adopted a measure that for the moment seemed to me to be the only way to possibly save his life. I proposed – as was their custom to deliver a prisoner on such occasions – to simply release Jesus and let him go free, in order that he might be considered a “scapegoat,” as they called it. But they demanded, “Jesus must be crucified!” I then spoke of the great inconsistency in the course of action they were taking, pointing out that it was incompatible with their own laws, because no criminal court judge could pass sentence on a criminal unless he had fasted for one whole day; and further that the sentence must have the consent of the Sahhedrim, as well as the signature of of the president of the court. Further, that no criminal could be executed on the same day that his sentence was handed -down, and that the next day, on the day of his execution, the Sanhedrim was required to review the whole proceeding. I also warned about other illegal aspects of the procedure being followed, as noted in the next message.

Series to be Continued in Message 31 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS.

Message Twenty-Nine - Book Four - SOMEWHERE BEYOND BELIEF[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Eight:

Continuation of Valleus’ Notes – “Acta Pilati”, or, Pilate’s

Report To Caesar of the Arrest, Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth

It was on account of the wisdom or Jesus’ sayings that I granted so much liberty to the Nazarene; for it was within my power to have had him arrested and exiled to Pontius; but that would have been contrary to the justice which has always characterized the Roman government in all its dealings with men. This man Jesus was neither seditious nor rebellious, so I extended to him my protection – unknown, perhaps, to him. He was at liberty to act, speak, to assemble and address the people, and to choose disciples, unrestrained by any praetorian mandate. Should it ever happen – may the gods avert the omen, I say – that the religion of our forefathers will be supplanted by the religion of Jesus, it will be this noble declaration that to me shall owe her premature death, while I – miserable wretch – will have been the unwitting instrument of what the Jews call Providence, and we Romans call destiny.

This unlimited freedom granted to Jesus, provoked the Jews – not the poor, but rather the rich and powerful. It is true that Jesus was severe on the latter, and this, in my opinion, was a political reason for not restraining the liberty of the Nazarene. “Scribes and Pharisees,” he would declare to them, “You are a race of vipers! You resemble painted sepulchers! You appear well unto men, but you have death within you!” [Ed. Note: Cf. Jn. 8:41-47]. At other times he would appear to sneer at the alms of the rich and proud, admonishing them that the mite of the poor was much more precious in the sight of God. At the praetorium, complaints were daily heard against the so-called insolence of Jesus.

I was even informed that some misfortune would befall him – that it would not be the first time that Jerusalem had stoned those who called themselves prophets, and appeal would be made to Caesar. However, my conduct was approved by Caesar, and I was promised a reinforcement after the termination of the Parthian war.

Having too little force to suppress an insurrection, I resolved upon adopting a measure that promised to restore the tranquility of the city without subjecting the praetorium to humiliating concession. I sent a note to Jesus requesting an interview with him at the praetorium, and he appeared as requested. You know that in my veins flows the Spanish mixed with Roman blood – as incapable of fear as it is of weak emotion. When the Nazarene made his appearance, I was at the time walking in my basilica, and my feet seemed fastened with an iron hand to the marble pavement: I trembled in every limb as does a guilty culprit, while the Nazarene was as calm as innocence itself. When he came into my presence he stopped, and by some kind of signal-sign he seemed to communicate to me, “I am here,” though he did not speak a word. For some time I contemplated with admiration and awe this extraordinary man – a type of man unknown to our numerous painters, who have given form and figure to all the gods and the heroes. There was nothing about Jesus that was repelling in its character, yet for some reason I felt too awed and tremulous to approach him.

“Jesus,” I said to him at last – and my tongue faltered – “Jesus of Nazareth, for the past three years I have granted you ample freedom of speech; nor do I regret it. Your words are those of a sage, I know not whether you have read Socrates or Plato, but this I know: there is in your discourses a majestic simplicity that elevates you far above those philosophers. The Emperor is informed of it, and I, his humble representative in this country, am glad at having allowed you that libery of which you are so worthy.

However, I must not conceal from you that your discourses have raised up against you powerful and inveterate enemies. Nor is this surprising. Socrates had his enemies, and he fell victim to their hatred. Your enemies are doubly incensed against you, on account of your discourses being so severe against their conduct; and against me on account of the libery I have afforded you. They even accuse me of being indirectly in league with you for the purpose of deceiving the Hebrews of the little power which Rome has left them. My request – I do not say my order – is that you be more circumspect and moderate in your discourses in the future, and more considerate of them, lest you raise the pride of your enemies, and they against you the stupid populace, and compel me to employ instruments of the law.”

“The Nazarene calmly replied, “Prince of the earth, your words proceed not from true wisdom. If you say to the torrent to stop in the midst of the mountain gorge because it will uproot the trees in the valley, the torrent will answer you that it is obliged to obey the law of nature and the creator! God alone knows whither flow the waters of a torrent! Verily, I say unto you, that before the rose of Sharon blossoms, the blood of the just shall be spilt!”

“Your blood shall not be spilt,” I replied, with deep emotion; “you are more precious in my estimation, on account of your wisdom, than all the turbulent proud Pharisees who abuse the freedom granted to them by the Romans. They conspire against Caesar, and convert his bounty into fear, impressing the unlearned that Caesar is a tyrant who seeks their ruin. Insolent wretches! They are unaware that the wolf of the Tiber sometimes clothes himself with the skin of the sheep to accomplish his wicked designs. I will protect you against them. My praetorium shall be an asylum, sacred both day and night.”

Jesuis shook his head and replied with a grave divine smile: “When the day shall come there will be no asylum for the son of man, neither in the earth nor under it. The asylum of the just is there [pointing up] That which is written in the books of the prophets must be accomplished”

“Young man,” I answered mildly, “you will oblige me to convert my request into an order. The safety of the province which has been confided to my care requires it. You must observe more moderation in your discourses. Farewell, and may happiness attend you.”

“Prince of the earth,” replied Jesus, “I come not to bring war to the world, but peace, love and charity. Note that I was born on the same day which Augustus Caesar gave peace to the Roman world! Persecutions will proceed not from me; I expect it from others, who will meet it in obedience to the will of my Father, who has shown me The Way. Restrain, therefore, your worldly prudence. It is not in your power to arrest the victim at the foot of the tabernacle of expiation.”

So saying, Jesus disappeared like a bright shadow behind the curtains of the basilic – to my great relief. But then I felt a heavy burden on me, of which I could not relieve myself while in his presence.

Series to be Continued in Message 30 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS