#"Who fought in the War in Heaven according to scripture?"

[mindfulldsliving]

Satan's Punishment: A Thoughtful Latter-day Saint Response to Michelle Grim of Life After Ministries

Understanding Satan’s Punishment: A Latter-day Saint Perspective on Michelle Grim’s Insights When we think about Satan’s punishment, it’s crucial to understand its significance in Latter-day Saint theology. Critics often misunderstand this topic, especially those like Michelle Grim from Life After Ministries, who question the relationship between Jesus and Satan. In Latter-day Saint belief, both…

[dfroza]

sadly, some will not repent and turn to God.

and there is a coming Judgment at the end of the world as we know it.

John was told to write about it, to document how the world would eventually be reborn thousands of years before it would take place.

Today’s reading continues in the book of Revelation with chapter 16:

[Pouring Out the Seven Disasters]

I heard a shout of command from the Temple to the Seven Angels: “Begin! Pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on earth!”

The first Angel stepped up and poured his bowl out on earth: Loathsome, stinking sores erupted on all who had taken the mark of the Beast and worshiped its image.

The second Angel poured his bowl on the sea: The sea coagulated into blood, and everything in it died.

The third Angel poured his bowl on rivers and springs: The waters turned to blood. I heard the Angel of Waters say,

Righteous you are, and your judgments are righteous,

The Is, The Was, The Holy.

They poured out the blood of saints and prophets

so you’ve given them blood to drink—

they’ve gotten what they deserve!

Just then I heard the Altar chime in,

Yes, O God, the Sovereign-Strong!

Your judgments are true and just!

The fourth Angel poured his bowl on the sun: Fire blazed from the sun and scorched men and women. Burned and blistered, they cursed God’s Name, the God behind these disasters. They refused to repent, refused to honor God.

The fifth Angel poured his bowl on the throne of the Beast: Its kingdom fell into sudden eclipse. Mad with pain, men and women bit and chewed their tongues, cursed the God-of-Heaven for their torment and sores, and refused to repent and change their ways.

The sixth Angel poured his bowl on the great Euphrates River: It dried up to nothing. The dry riverbed became a fine roadbed for the kings from the East. From the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet I saw three foul demons crawl out—they looked like frogs. These are demon spirits performing signs. They’re after the kings of the whole world to get them gathered for battle on the Great Day of God, the Sovereign-Strong.

“Keep watch! I come unannounced, like a thief. You’re blessed if, awake and dressed, you’re ready for me. Too bad if you’re found running through the streets, naked and ashamed.”

The frog-demons gathered the kings together at the place called in Hebrew Armageddon.

The seventh Angel poured his bowl into the air: From the Throne in the Temple came a shout, “Done!” followed by lightning flashes and shouts, thunder crashes and a colossal earthquake—a huge and devastating earthquake, never an earthquake like it since time began. The Great City split three ways, the cities of the nations toppled to ruin. Great Babylon had to drink the wine of God’s raging anger—God remembered to give her the cup! Every island fled and not a mountain was to be found. Hailstones weighing close to a hundred pounds plummeted, crushing and smashing men and women as they cursed God for the hail, the epic disaster of hail.

The Book of Revelation, Chapter 16 (The Message)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 27th chapter of 2nd Chronicles that documents the life & times of King Jotham:

[King Jotham]

Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king; he reigned sixteen years at Jerusalem. His mother was Jerusha the daughter of Zadok. In God’s eyes he lived a good life, following the path marked out by his father Uzziah. Unlike his father, though, he didn’t desecrate The Temple of God. But the people pushed right on in their lives of corruption.

Jotham constructed the Upper Gate of The Temple of God, considerably extended the Wall of the Ophel, and built cities in the high country of Judah and forts and towers down in the forests. He fought and beat the king of the Ammonites—that year the Ammonites turned over three and a quarter tons of silver and about 65,000 bushels of wheat, and another 65,000 bushels of barley. They repeated this for the next two years. Jotham’s strength was rooted in his steady and determined life of obedience to God.

The rest of the history of Jotham, including his wars and achievements, are all written in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah. He was twenty-five years old when he became king; he reigned for sixteen years at Jerusalem. Jotham died and was buried in the City of David. His son Ahaz became the next king.

The Book of 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 27 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Wednesday, february 24 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A reflective post by John Parsons:

The Mishnah says, shuv yom echad lifnei mi’tatakh: "Repent one day before you die" (Avot 2:10), but who knows the day of one's death in advance? Perhaps your name will be called today, ending your lease on life in this world. Are you ready? Are you prepared to appear before God your Creator and Redeemer? Therefore live each day as if it were your last, making sure you seek the things that really matter... "Watch -- for you know neither the day nor the hour..." (Mark 13:33). As C.S. Lewis wrote: “The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time -- for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays, the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. God would therefore have us continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present — either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself” (The Screwtape Letters). [Hebrew for Christians]

2.23.21 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

February 24, 2021

God's Shadow

“Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.” (Psalm 17:8)

There are 12 references in the Bible to God’s “shadow,” understood as a type of His invisible but very real guiding presence. The reference in our text above is the first, and there are three other references to this beautiful metaphor—the “shadow” of the wings of God. Psalm 36:7 assures us that men can “put their trust under the shadow of thy wings,” and Psalm 57:1 that we can take refuge there “until these calamities be overpast,” and then we can “rejoice” there (Psalm 63:7).

The Lord’s presence is like “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” according to Isaiah 32:2. The same prophet quoted God as saying that “I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand” even as He formed the heavens and the earth, while hiding us “in the shadow of his hand” (Isaiah 51:16; 49:2).

Then there is the wonderful promise of Psalm 91:1: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” He can also be “a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall,” bringing down “the heat with the shadow of a cloud” (Isaiah 25:4-5). Similarly, He is “a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain” (Isaiah 4:6).

The last reference speaks of “the anointed of the LORD” (that is, of the Messiah, Jesus Christ), assuring God’s people that “under his shadow we shall live among the heathen” (Lamentations 4:20). These are all “exceeding great and precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4). Hidden under the shadow of God is indeed a good and safe place to be in times like these. HMM

[delwray-blog]

CHRISTIANS FACE A BLOODED BATH UNHEARD OF

THE JEWS WILL BE THE KILLERS

Since the origin of the Church, Jewry has declared a war of life and death upon Christianity without any grounds, without provocation, and without the Church in the first three centuries answering violence with violence. The Jews abused in cruel form the gentleness of the first Christians, who restricted themselves to combating their deadly enemies simply with well-founded discussions, in return for which they had to suffer the degrading slanders of the Jews, their imprisonments, their murders and every kind of persecution. These begin with the unjust and cruel murder of Christ Our Lord; there follows the killing of Saint Stephen, which is related to us by the Holy Bible in the Acts of the Apostles, in all its horror, from the planning of the crime in the bosom of the Synagogue, passing to the use of bribery, so that some slandered and cast poisonous accusations against him, up to the use of false witnesses to confirm these accusations, and finally the murder of the Saint by the Jews, which was completed by stoning in a cruel manner, without Stephen having committed any misdeed other than to preach the true Gospel. He was the first martyr of Christianity, and the Israelites had the honor of being the first to have shed Christian blood after the murder of Jesus.

The Bible itself, in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 12, reveals, how the Jewish King Herod stretched forth his hands...

1. To vex certain of the church.

2. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.

3. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also.

However, the Hebrews, not satisfied with their having begun the murder of the leading Saints of Christianity, fell upon the carrying out of cruel persecutions, which degenerated into terrible bloodbaths, as the Bible relates to us in the Acts of the Apostles, and which gave Heaven its first martyrs. In these persecutions, Saul, the future Saint Paul, took part before his conversion, and in fact with a zeal which he himself describes in his letter to the Galatians in the following manner:

Chapter 1, Verse 13: “For ye have heard of my conversation in the past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it.”

The Jews do not accept God, asserts Paul. The Hebrews persecuted with particular tenacity, as is natural, the Apostles and the first leaders of the Church, of which Saint Paul lays witness in his First Letter to the Thessalonians, and in which he categorically asserts that the Jews do not accept God. He says literally: verse 14 “For, ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things for your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews; 15 Whom both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men.”

It is therefore false to say that the Jews, who have denied Christ as the Messiah, are pleasing to God, as those clergies assert who work together with them for the purpose of crippling the defense of the peoples against the Jewish striving for power and its revolutionary activity. How can it be possible that these Jew-friendly priests lay claim to be right, and that Saint Paul lied when he assured us that the Jews are not pleasing to God? Nevertheless, one sees completely clear that the powers of evil, the children of the Devil – as Christ called them – and an integral part of the “Synagogue of Satan”, could not be acceptable to God. The Jews frequently imprisoned the Apostles. In the Acts of the Apostles it is, confirmed that the Jewish priests, the Sadducees and the officials of the temple laid hands-on Saint Peter and Saint John and threw them into prison.

In Chapter 5 the following is related: “ verse 17 Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him (which is the seed of the Sadducees), and were filled with indignation. 18. And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in a common prison.” Among the persecutions unleashed by the Jews against the first leaders of the Church stand out those on account of their mercilessness which was directed against Saint Paul. It is remarked in the Acts of the Apostles — Chapter 9:

Verse 22 “But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is the very Christ. 23. And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him.” Afterward when Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas had discussed religious questions with the Jews in Antioch, the latter ended the discussion with their usual fanaticism and their intolerance and used the argument of violence. The Acts of the Apostles quotes this — Chapter 13

Verse 50 “But the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barabbas, and expelled them out of their coasts.”

Afterward, in the 14th chapter of the Bible book mentioned, it is confirmed what occurred in the city of Iconium after a further theological discussion by Paul and Barnabas with the Hebrews,

Verse 4 “But the multitude of the city was divided: and part held with the Jews, and part with the Apostles.”

Verse 5 “And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them,”

Verse 6 “They were aware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth roundabout.”

19 “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.”

One thus sees that even in those days the division was very clear: on the one side the supporters of the Apostles, i.e. the Christians, and on the other, the Jews.

The New Testament of the Holy Bible already makes use in these books of the word “Jews” in order to describe the members of the ancient chosen people who murdered God’s Son and fought against His Church; for those who had converted to the faith of the Redeemer were not Jews, but Christians. The Jews, who in our days persecute the Church still further and threaten to rule and enslave mankind, are in fact the descendants of these Jews, who are described by the New Testament as the worst enemies of Christ and His Church. They have nothing in common spiritually with the old chosen people of Biblical times. The chosen people were loved by God. However, the Jews who denied their Messiah, who murdered Him and who fought against Christianity and continue to fight against it, and who stiff-neckedly grant support to their criminal organizations in our days, are, as Paul said, not acceptable to God.

In Chapter 17 of the aforementioned book of the New Testament, it is said that Paul and Silas came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

Verse 5 “But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.” 6 “And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, ‘These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” 7 “Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.” 8 “And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things.” 9 “And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go.”

The passages quoted of the Holy Scripture prove clearly that the Jews were the only enemies of Christianity and that everywhere they not only directly persecuted the Christians, but attempted with slanders to stir up the Gentile peoples against them, and, what is still more weighty, the authorities of the Roman Empire. In the preceding passage of the Acts of the Apostles it is evident how they used slanders, in order with criminal intent to thrust the whole power of the then invincible Roman Empire against the Church, by their more or less accusing the Christians of recognizing another king in place of Caesar, an outrage which infuriated the Roman emperors and their collaborators to the extreme; for this form of treachery to Caesar invited immediate punishment of death upon them. Thus it is beyond doubt what the Israelites strove for, who for many years afterward applied the whole poison of their slanders and intrigues. However, they were not successful in letting loose the Roman Empire against the Christians. Only on the basis of much pressure did they attain this with Nero. An attempt also took place to stir up the rulers of Rome against Paul, as the following passage of the New Testament proves:

Chapter18:12 “And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat,” Verse 13 “Saying, ‘This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law.’” 14 “And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, ‘if it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, 0 ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you:” 15 “But if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters.’’ 16 “And he drove them from the judgment seat.” 17 “Then all the Greeks took Sostheness, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of those things.”

This passage of the Holy Bible allows us to recognize: On the one side the religious tolerance of the Roman authorities and the absolute lack of interest in attacking Christians; on the other side it was the Hebrews who constantly sought for means in order to repeatedly unleash, even if unsuccessfully, the rulers of the Roman Empire against the Christians. In conclusion, when such an infamous attempt had failed, the Jews as madmen ended the affair with a general and furious free fight. Here Sosthenes, the superintendent of the Synagogue, became the unlucky object of Hebrew rage and madness. Naturally, we cannot doubt the truthfulness of these facts, for it is a matter of a literal passage from the New Testament.

It is therefore certainly explicable that, when this mob of wolves, in addition with all full powers, was unchained with the victory of the Communist revolutions, it carried out unbelievable bloodbaths and caused Christian and Gentile blood to flow in torrents, until in the end both in the Soviet Union, as also in the Satellite States, they cut one another to pieces, without respect for anything, not even of Rabbinical dignity, as in the case of that poor Sosthenes who is mentioned in the preceding passage of the Bible. It is completely beyond doubt that they are and remain always the same.

In the Acts of the Apostles, the disciple Luke tells us of further persecutions undertaken by the Jews against Paul. In his description of the behavior of the Hebrews in those times, one could say that he might be writing to us in the present day. Nothing seems to have altered in nearly two thousand years. He relates of the stay of the Saint in Jerusalem: Chapter 21: 27 “And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him.” 28 “Crying out, ‘Men of Israel, help: this is the man, that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place; and further, brought Greeks also into the temple and hath polluted this holy place.’” 30 “And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut.” 31 “And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.” 32 “Who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them; and when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul.”

This passage of the New Testament shows us how the Jews accused Paul of “teaching all men everywhere against the people”, i.e., they caused him in a slanderous manner to appear as an enemy of the people, in order to justify his killing.

More than nineteen centuries afterward, when the Jews in the Soviet Union and other Communist lands wished to kill someone, they accused him of being an enemy of the people and an enemy of the working classes. The methods have remained the same. They have not altered in approximately two thousand years. They also slanderously accused Paul of preaching against the temple, just as in the mock trials of Communist lands they accuse the future victims of having carried out a conspiracy against the Soviet Union or the proletarian state. Finally, they also accuse Saint Paul of having brought Gentiles into the temple and thus defiled the holy place; for in those days the Jews regarded the temple as closed to Gentiles, just as they now regard Jewry as closed to men of other races. Then they only allowed new converts as far as the door of the temple, thus only to the outside door. Now they accept, so they say, Gentiles and Christians in some lands into Jewry, but also only to the outside door, in that by deceit they only allow the latter into the peripheral organizations and never to enter the real synagogues and communities of the Jewish people. In this, their methods have also remained the same. The book of Holy Scripture mentioned further relates that, when the captain allowed Paul to address his words to the angry Jews, in order to calm them, this occurred Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 22: 22. And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.’” 23 “And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air...”

We see here the veritably possessed Jews, who, centuries later, in the midst of the Jewish-Communist terror, were to cut their unfortunate victims into pieces with all their application of cruelty.

This passage from the New Testament goes further (Acts of the Apostles, Chapter22):

“30 “On the morrow, because he (i.e. the Roman captain) would have known the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his bands, and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down, and set him before them.”

(Chapter23): 6 “But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, ‘Men and Brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.’” 7 “And when he had so said, there arose a discussion between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided.” 8 For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.” 9 “And there arose a great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees’ part arose, and strove, saying, ‘We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.’” A magnificent lesson in how, for the cause of Good, the internal differences of opinion of the Jewish parties and sects could be used. One can do this ineffective form, if one knows the secret interior of Jewry, which permits deception through false combat maneuvers, which are frequently pretended among one another, in order to attain definite political goals.

After the violent struggle that was inflamed between the Jewish leaders mentioned and which compelled the Roman captain to use his soldiers, the Apostle continues his report (Acts of the Apostles, Chapter23):

Verse 12 “And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.” Verse 13 “And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy.” 14 “And they came to the chief priests and elders, and said, ‘we have bound ourselves under a great curse that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul.” 15 “Now, therefore, ye with the council, signify to the chief captain that he bring him down unto you tomorrow, as though ye would enquire something more perfectly concerning him: and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him.’ ”

The foresight of the captain, who knew the Jews only too well, frustrated their criminal plans. Therefore he sent Paul away under the guard of two hundred soldiers and two officers. Verse 25 explains that the Roman captain did this because he feared that the Jews could snatch away Paul with force and kill him. Also, he feared that afterwards, they would slander him by saying that he had accepted their money. This enlightening passage of the New Testament clearly explains that the Jews as swindlers and inventors of the “hunger strike” already put into practice in the times of Saint Paul, when they swore neither to eat nor to drink until they had succeeded in killing him. The Acts of the Apostles does not explain whether, after the salvation of Saint Paul through the caution of the Roman captain, the fasting Jews kept their oath until death. However, the silence of the Apostle allows us to assume that with the Jews then as with the “hunger strikes” of our days, the Hebrew comedians, as soon as they could not achieve their goal, found a suitable excuse to halt the strike.

On the other side, one sees that, even in those distant times, they applied the system of murdering a prisoner on the road, when the latter was brought from one place to another. One further observes that even the Romans had anxiety before the slanders of the Jews, whom they doubtless knew as masters of this disastrous art.

In order to gain knowledge of the wicked activity of Jewry and its mode of action, one scarcely needs to read the famed “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. The teachings of the Holy Bible, as well as other reliable and undisputed documents, suffice, which often originated from the most unhoped-for Hebrew sources.

After Saint Paul was led before the deputy (governor), the Acts of the Apostles continues in Chapter 25:

Verse 2 “Then the high priest and the chief of the Jews informed him against Paul, and besought him.” Verse 3 And desired favour against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, laying wait on the way to kill him. 4 But Festus answered, that Paul should be kept at Caesarea and that he himself would depart shortly thither. 5 Let them, therefore, said he, which are able, go down with me, and accuse this man if there be any wickedness in him. 7 And when he was come, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood round about and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove. 8 While he answered for himself, ‘neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple nor yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at all.’”

In order to understand this terrible tragedy, one must bear in mind that Saint Paul was a devout man and illuminated by the grace of God, to such an extent that he is worthy of being regarded as one of the greatest saints of Christianity. Nevertheless, the Jews, with their natural falsity and their insane tenacity, fell into a fury with him in the manner described in the preceding passages of the Holy Bible. The problem was sharpened still more as a result that not only the Jews from Palestine, but also those from the most different parts of the world, exposed their murderous and godless instincts, and that not only the sect of the Pharisees but also the Sadducees, who were opponents of the former. It was not individuals, isolated and without representation, who oozed such maliciousness, but the high priests, the scribes, the leading personages and most illustrious men of Israel; all cut from the same cloth.

The passages of the New Testament teach us to recognize the danger that modern Jewry represents for mankind, whose infamy exceeds the boundaries of everything which other peoples could possibly imagine.

The most significant thing is that, in the description of the falsity of this generation of vipers, as Christ Our Lord called them, the New Testament of the Holy Bible coincides perfectly with the writings that were composed hundreds of years later by the Church Fathers, with the ideas that are contained in the Koran of Mohammed, with the prescriptions of different Church Councils, with the trials of the Holy Inquisition, and with the opinion of Martin Luther, as well as with the accusations that have been made in different countries by savants of the problem, and in fact by Catholics, Protestants, Russian Orthodox, Mohammedans, and even by unbelievers like Voltaire and Rosenberg. All these have, without previous agreement, agreed during the last thousand years to denounce the high degree of falsity and malice among the Jews. This proves that unfortunately this wickedness and falsity, very dangerous for the remaining peoples, correspond to a confirmed and undisputed reality.

The Apostle Matthew spread the Word of God far and wide, at first in Macedonia and afterward in Judaea and converted many to a belief in Jesus Christ through his sermons and his miracles. It is said, that the Jews could not suffer this, therefore they laid hands upon him, stoned him to the point of almost killing him, and finally, he was decapitated on the 24th February.

THE ROMAN PERSECUTIONS WERE CALLED FORTH BY THE JEWS

We have already studied, in the preceding chapter, the various attempts that the Jews made in order to incite the Roman authorities against Saint Paul. They accused him of being against Caesar and recognizing another King in his place, by which they meant Jesus. Concerning these intrigues and slanders, an undisputed document, i.e. the New Testament of the Holy Bible, provides us with knowledge. These attempts to incite the might of the Roman Empire against Christianity followed frequently upon one another, even if for some time without success. It is a historically proven fact that the Romans in religious matters were tolerant and also in no way hostilely disposed towards the Christians, as is proved by the conduct of Pilate in the case of Jesus and the favorable interventions of the Imperial authorities in the persecutions unleashed by the Jews against Saint Paul and the first Christians. The following fact is very revealing and is recorded by Tertullian and Orosius, who remarked that before the Hebrew attempts at persecution arose against Christians, Emperor Tiberius had a law published that threatened with death those who accused Christians.

In the ninth year of his government, Claudius commanded all Jews to leave Rome because, according to the evidence of Flavius Josephus, they had caused Agrippina, his wife, to take on Jewish customs; or also, as Suetonius writes, because frequent upheavals gave the impetus to the persecutions of Christians.

One sees that the pagan Emperor Claudius was tolerant in the extreme towards Christians. When he became tired of the mutinies that the Jews caused, he expelled them from the city of Rome. The Acts of the Apostles also report this expulsion. One sees here the Jewish tendency to cause their influence to rise up to the steps of the throne, by their controlling the Empress in order to exert influence on the Emperor. In so doing, they held to the completely distorted teachings of the Biblical book of Esther, giving this an ambitious interpretation. Esther, a Jewess, was successful in transforming herself into the Queen of Persia and in exercising a decisive influence on the King, in order to destroy the enemies of the Israelites. However, in the case of the Emperor Claudius, the attempt openly failed, which did not occur with Nero, with whom it was successful in bringing close to him a Jewess named Poppaea, who soon transformed into the lover of the Emperor, and, according to some Hebrew chronicles, into the real Empress of Rome. She was successful in exercising a decisive influence upon this ruler.

Tertullian, one of the Church Fathers, says in his work “Scorpiase”: “The synagogues are the places from whence the persecutions against Christians emanate.” And in his book “Ad Nationes”, the same Tertullian writes: “From the Jews come the slanders against the Christians.”

During the rule of Nero, tolerance at first reigned towards the Christians; however, the Emperor finally gave way to the persistent intrigues of his Jewish lover Poppaea, who is described as the originator of the idea of laying the blame for setting fire to the city of Rome upon the Christians, based on which the first cruel persecution of Christians that was carried out by the Roman Empire was justified.

The Jesuit fathers R. Llorca S. J., R. Garcia-Villoslada S.J., and F. J. Montalban S.J. have established the following in connection with the Christian persecutions by pagan Rome against the weak and defenseless Christians by Nero:

The Jews were the most active elements in the promotion of the climate of hatred against the Christians, whom they regarded as the falsifiers of the Mosaic Law... This activity of the Jews must have exercised a notable influence, for it is known to us that they already enjoyed great regard in Rome at the time of Nero and that, on the occasion of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, some had hinted at the idea that the latter were killed out of the jealousy of the Jews.

“Given this climate of violence incited by the hatred of the Jews, one can easily understand the persecution by Nero. Since they are capable of every crime, it was simple for them to denounce the Christians as the incendiaries of Rome. It needed no great effort for the people to believe it.”

In fact, they accused the Christians in a slanderous manner that they had even committed the disgusting crime of eating children at their ceremonies, which naturally called forth alarm among the authorities and the Roman people. It is only too understandable that this constant intrigue, this persistent work of slander and blasphemy, which the Hebrews always unleash against those who disturb their plans, and which was carried out by thousands of individual persons in the Roman Empire month by month, year by year, finally attained its goal and unleashed against Christianity, which they alone could not destroy, the enormous power of the Roman Empire in a destructive fury never previously known in human history.

In order to defend the truth, we will quote the reliable evidence of an authorized Jewish source: “Rabbi Wiener, who, in his work “The Jewish Food Laws”, confesses that the Jews were the instigators of the Christian persecutions in Rome, observed that under the rule of Nero, in the year 65 of our calendar, when Rome had the Jewess Poppaea as Empress and a Jew as prefect of the city, the era of martyrs began which was to extend for over 249 years.”

In these instigations of the Hebrews to call forth the Roman persecutions against Christianity, participated even those Rabbis outstanding in the history of the synagogue, such as the famed “Rabbi Jehuda, one of the authors of the Talmud (the sacred books and the source of the religion of modern Jewry), [who was] was successful in the year 155 of our calendar in obtaining a command, according to which all Christians of Rome were to be sacrificed, and on the grounds of which many thousands were killed. The executioners of the martyrs and Popes, Cayo and Marcelino were in fact Jews.”

During three centuries, the Christians showed heroic resistance, without answering violence with violence. In fact it is understandable that, after three centuries of persecutions, when Christianity had gained a complete victory in the Roman Empire through the conversion of Constantine and the acceptance of the Christian religion as the state religion, that it was finally decided to answer violence with violence, in order to defend the Christianity – as well as the peoples who had placed their faith in it and who also saw themselves continually threatened by the destructive and annihilating activity of Jewish imperialism – against the lasting conspiracies of Jewry.

On the other side, it is necessary that the cowards, who, given the present position, think of capitulating to the “Synagogue of Satan”, out of fear of its persecution, power and influence, bear in mind that the terrible threats of our days are far removed from being so grave as those which Christ our Lord, then the Apostles and after them the first Christians faced. They had to expose themselves not only to mighty Jewry but to the then apparently unconquerable power of the Roman Empire, the greatest and strongest of all times. To these two deadly dangers were added those which arose through internal dissension, which the Jews, by means of their “Fifth column”, had called forth in the bosom of Christianity, along with Gnosticism and other false destructive doctrines.

One must bear in mind that, despite the fact that that situation was far graver and more tragic than that of the present, the Church can only save itself if it achieved a complete victory over its deadly enemies. If it was successful in this, then it is because it was able to rely upon spiritual shepherds who never despaired, never lost courage, nor entered into shameful alliances with the powers of the Devil. At no moment did they think of seeking situations of cooperation, nor of peaceful coexistence, nor of diplomatic capitulations, which are always quibbles used by the cowardly clergy and accomplices of the enemy, who in our days strive to achieve that Church and its spiritual shepherds deliver the sheep, whose careful protection Christ our Lord entrusted to them, into the claws of the wolf, for the disadvantage of the Church itself and of the trust that true Christians have placed in it.