#Chritian writer

[erickaclay]

Ready for you to eat.

When you’re seven, eating is happiness. It’s a great relief to fill your belly and walk quietly around with a dog-eared copy of The Bridge to Terabithia and understand the world through death’s lens. Not a lot of people would understand that about a child, except your mother knows you’re not like the other ones, and you often wonder what you’re like to her. A fine china bowl, a raging bull in the…

[fluffycloudprincess]

Adam and Eve: The first sin = overconsumption?

Growing up Catholic while I never took the bible story too literally, I did always hold the literal idea of the vilification of nudity and the moral assigning of the human body from the story of Adam and Eve.

I mean, how could i not?

Genesis 3:7 (KJV): "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."

But now i wonder whether it wasn't a parable about the cost of knowledge being shame but instead the cost of splitting from the divine being the self-destructive urge to turn towards the material.

In spirituality, it's not a controversial opinion to say new age spirituality has commercialised belief - turning thoughts and dreams under capitalism into a commodity to be bought, traded and sold (very reminiscent of the selling of indulgences within the old church). This is most commonly noted in the sale of unethically produced crystals and the use of at risk or endangered plants (such as white sage due to overharvesting by appropriating "spiritualists") *

However, currently, I'm wondering whether the use of any tools for spiritual practices as opposed to thought and energy alone is the result of this schism of Adam and Eve from G-d or alternatively if the story of Adam and Eve was in itself a metaphorical demonstration or prediction of this phenomenon.

And if so, to what extent? I come from the cradle of humanity, the birthplace of man and the motherland, and yet surely this belief would argue that whilst this is all true the objects which are used within African Traditional Spirituality and many other ancient practices across the globe hold no more power than the thoughts we give them and if so would this suggest that as a result we should stray away from them and aim to return to our state of being before the schism - the state of nakedness?

Or, do we continue to use our tools - learn and continue to live and thrive covered within the fig leaves as "Alea iacta est"/ "the die is cast"?

// I mean zero disrespect to any culture, practise, religious, and / or spiritual beliefs. I have zero full-fledged opinions on this. My brain only recently identified this thought, and so i thought, why not post it on tumblr and see if anyone has any ideas?//

* I've never understood how people can believe they will garner positive energy when through their acts they've contributed negativity into the world? How are you planning to cleanse with a crystal when you bought it, knowing the price was slave labour and thus adding demand into an exploitative and corrupt marke?

[the-drokainian]

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Sunday Morning Sermon, May 28, 2023

Romans 1:1-7: "The Call of God"

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[Image]

Introduction to Romans

- Written by the Apostle Paul

- Written around AD 70

- Written in Corinth (?)

Romans is Unique

- Paul hasn't visited church in Rome (yet).

- Only trip was under arrest (Acs 27-28)

- Lengthiest of Paul's epistles

Chapters 1-11 (more than two-thirds of the book) are dedicated to deep, detailed, sytematic theology; more than any other of Paul's letters.

Chapters 12-16, then, are given to the pracical application of that theology.

Paul is so moved by the truths of the Gospel that it leads him to worship and doxology.

Romans 11:33-36 ESV

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Outline of Romans

1-4- Salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone.

5-7- Jesus is a new Adam for a new humanity.

8- God will sovereignly bring believers to glory.

9-11- God is sovereignly making a new family.

12-16- Live out these truths in service and love.

First, we come to the foundation for Paul, for the Christian faith, for all the Scriptures: The Gospel.

We first see what it is to be called.

- For Paul (unique call)

- For you and me!

Romans 1:1-7 ESV

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, 6 including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, 7 To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul's Identity (1:1a)

Romans 1:1 ESV

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,

Paul identifies himself three ways:

1. Servant- A slave/ bondservant who serves one Master and Lord

2. Apostle- A unique office specifically given by the Lord Jesus to eyewitnesses of the resurrected Lord

3. Set-Apart- "Sanctified"- Called to a specific identity and task

Paul is writing to a congregation who had never met him. He must establish his authority to write to them in this way.

- He is not a self-styled "apostle."

- He is not after power and money.

- He is a slave of Jesus.

- He has a message from Jesus.

What is that message?

Paul's Message (1:1b-4)

Romans 1:1 ESV

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,

"The Gospel of God"

- From God?

- About God?

- Yes!

This is the Good News belonging to God, given from God, and given to us.

The Gospel is the beginning and the sum of the Chritian life. It did not originate from any man or tradition, rather God himself is its author and designer.

It is God's Good News, his message. We cannot reshape it into whatever we wish in order soften, alter, or accomodate.

It's God's Gospel.

It is what he says it is.

Paul's Message is Not New

Romans 1:2 ESV

2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,

"Promised beforehand"

- Content was already there!

- To the prophets and writers of the OT

This is no new, novel message. It is the same story of the Old Covenant now continued and revealed in the New Covenant.

Paul's Message is About Jesus

Romans 1:3 ESV

3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh

The Gospel is first and foremost about who, then what.

- Tim Keller

Who is it about?

- The Lord Jesus Christ

- Son of Man according to David's lineage

- Son of God proved by his resurrection

As truly man, Jesus was able to represent mankind by identifying with our weakness, even to the point of death.

As truly God, Jesus defeated death, Hell, and sin forever and is triumphant over all things.

In this pluralistic society (theirs and ours), Paul is laser-focused on Jesus. Any Good News from God is found in Jesus alone.

- Jesus is the sum of our faith.

- Jesus is the substance of knowing God.

The Gospel is not preached if Christ is not preached.

- Tony Merida

Romans 1:4 ESV

4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

Salvation stands or falls on the Person and Work of Christ.

But what proof do we have that he is who he says he is?

The Resurrection!

- Decrees Jesus to be the Son of God

- Certifies what he claims as true and binding

Note the agency of the Spirit.

- The Gospel is Trinitarian.

- The will of the Father

- Revealed in Jesus Christ

- By the power of the Spirit

To know God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is to know Jesus Christ as the only Savior and to trust in him alone.

Conversely, if you do not know Jesus, you do not know God and you do not have the Holy Spirit.

This is at the core of Paul's identity. This is the message.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 ESV

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

Paul's Commission (1:5-6)

Paul finds his marching orders in that message.

Acts 9:15 ESV

15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

1 Corinthians 9:16 ESV

16 For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!

Paul is compelled to preach this message! But this is no joyless duty for him.

Romans 1:5 ESV

5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

1 Timothy 1:13-14 ESV

13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

In his persecution of the Church and rebellion against God; Paul was called by God to go for him with the message of the Gospel.

Paul was called to be a herald of the King.

- To "bring about obedience" to the King

"The obedience of faith"?

- An odd couple?

- Often pitted against one another

- Not so in Scripture!

James 2:18 ESV

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

John 6:29 ESV

29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

The Gospel is a message that is to be recieved by faith, but this kind of faith produces obedience to the one in whom the faith is placed.

True saving faith works itself out in obedience.

This is for God's glory "among all the nations."

- All the nations?

The Gospel might be "for the Jew first," but it is not for the Jew only. The Gospel is for "all the nations": the Gentiles!

Acts 9:15 ESV

15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

Matthew 28:19 ESV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inthe name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

- "Make disciples..."

- "Teach them..."

Paul is fulfilling that commission to the Roman church. It "includes" them! It includes "you"!

Romans 1:6 ESV

6 including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

Your Calling (1:6-7)

- Paul's identity

- Paul's message

- Paul's commission

- Includes you!

Romans 1:6-7 ESV

6 including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, 7 To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul was set aside uniquely in the office of Apostle. He was set aside for a specific mission at a specific time. But the same grace and mercy that "overflowed" for Paul is the same "grace and peace" that overflowed for you when you were "called to belong to Jesus Christ."

"Called"- Not merely invited or beckoned, but actually brought into relationship with God by his own sovereign act

What Paul deserve from God?

What did Paul receive from God?

What did you deserve from God?

What have you received from God?

"Grace and peace"

- Is there wonder there for you?

It is almost impossible to believe it, and yet as certainly as we are alive at this moment, we are Christians for one reason only, and that is that God has set his love upon us.

– Martin Lloyd Jones

Paul had a unique call.

- But we all share the ultimate call.

- The call to belong to Jesus

- The call to be saints of God

- A call based on the love of God

Paul had a unique mission.

- But we share in that mission.

- We have the same Gospel.

- We have the same commission.

Believers: You are called

- To belong to Jesus Christ

- To be saints

- To proclaim the Gospel

Does that define you?

Submit as a servant to the Master.

Go as a "sent one" with his command.

Be set apart for his commission.

Go with his message.

All of this flows from your identity!

- Called to belong to Jesus

- Loved of God

- Called to be saints

- Fueled by his grace and peace

[quote-bomber]

“You can’t go back & change the beginning, but you can start where you are & change the ending.” C.S. Lewis

[garygpelow]

A poem by Gary G Pelow, God is not dead because he never lived in the first place. There is a parasite, a worm, that, in certain parts of the continent of Africa infect the drinking water, usually mixed with raw sewage. This parasite will get its larva into a child who drinks water that is not fit for a dog to swim in let alone drink. The full grown worm, this parasite will actually work its way into a child’s eye, you can literally see the worms crawling around somebody’s eyes who go blind permanently at the age 1, 2 or 3. In 1979, I remember it well, the beginning. The beginning of people showing odd symptoms all at the same time. For whatever reason, or just by chance, the sick got sicker then died and no one knew why. At first the victims of this odd and deadly set of symptoms were mostly gay, white men. The symptoms, multiple infections from fungus on the tongue, the infection of the eyes with a CMV virus, separate from the already present but unkown virus of AIDS causing blindness. There were the sudden rash of appearance of rare cancers rarely ever scene by any doctor. AIDS defining malignancies. Cancer. Some nut job evangelical Christians in the United States leaped on this unknown set of maladies running to say as quickly as possible God, the Christian God, was punishing homosexuals. You had jackasses from “The Moral Majority” harping on this constantly to inflate their own arrogant egos like that of Jerry Falwell. To this fool HIV was a stepping stone for him to become more politically powerful, Reagan as president helped that along. Eventually they found it, THE Virus, HIV, The Cause of Aids. A virus that eventually started to appear outside of the white gay community. Children were getting infected with HIV before even being born, doomed to die after being born. I have seen tapeworms up close, they are nasty 20--30 feet long parasites in the intestines, children included.  I was once infected by Scabies, a microscopic mite, with 8 legs and all that dug into my skin causing rashes to appear, the mites, the females, lay their eggs under you skin.. The new mite hatch and burrow through you. Wash. Rinse.Repeat. I hear you yelling at me about your god or gods, that bring these plagues, Jesus, Allah, Yaway, Jehovah, Santa Clause. I see no evidence of god or the supernatural, never in my 52 years of life. These things, these problems exist under YOUR GOD”S Authority, supposedly. I actually only see two logical possibilities with your gods. They exist and do nothing to end human suffering when they can do that according to you on your god. A god that can prevent those eye worms but doesn’t would be a psychopath of a god. Able to help and not doing so. The second possibility is your god exists, sees human suffering and evil, wants to stop it, but he can not, so he is not a god. That is a quote from someone more well known than me, I do not remember who said it first, not me, but is the truth, three choices, god is a psychopath, god is a powerless dolt or there is no god. AT ALL. NADA. NOTHING. ZERO.

[there-is-a-cloud-blog]

Open Doors

I recently had someone tell me that, "sometimes God will open a door, but it is up to you to choose whether you should walk through it or not." This caused me to rethink a major life decision I was debating. Do I walk through, or do I stay? This decision, or that decision? This path, or that path? I think we have all felt overwhelmed at some point, conflicted, unable to make a decision. We don't know how to know which decision is the one that God wants for our lives. Doors are a complicated thing. I'm learning that an open door doesn't always mean I need to walk through.

[factsboundle]

Truth about american slavery

There are a lot of bad people in the American educational system who are being forced by a lot of bad people in the financial world to tell you a lot of bad facts about history that are designed to make you feel bad about yourself. This is especially true if you're a WHITE schoolchild.

If you're white like Uncle Jim, your teachers will try to convince you that you're responsible—even though you're only, what?, eight years old?—for a bunch of bad, bad things that happened a long, long time ago.

If you're a black schoolchild, I'm sure your parents will have plenty of excuses for why your ancestors were enslaved.

But chances are that you're white—at least for the next generation or two, those are the chances—so I've collected a bunch of DUMB MYTHS and SMART FACTS about slavery that you can use to clown your teachers and everyone else at school!

Myth: slaverly is a bad dirty thing that only happend to blacks before the civil war

Truth:

Black slavery in America was pretty bad, kids, but it wasn't anything special. Throughout history, every color of the rainbow has owned slaves and been enslaved. The dictionary tells us that the root word of "slave" is "Slav," because Slavic peoples—who are REALLY pale and white—were the primary slave population throughout the Middle Ages. And though your teachers will never tell you this, there have been long stretches of history where Africans have owned white people as slaves! How do you like THEM apples? The empire of Carthage transported white slaves to Africa. The African Moors ruled Spain for 500 years and sent white Christian slaves to Egypt. And poor, defenseless white kids—just like you!—were kidnapped by Muslims during the Children's Crusade and sold into Egyptian slavery.

Myth: White europeans chritians were solely responible for african slave trading.

Truth:

No, kids—the blacks, Arabs, and Jews were involved, too.

• BLACKS: The president of an African country called Benin recently apologized to American blacks for his country's role in the slave trade. Slavery was common throughout Africa, with entire tribes becoming enslaved after losing battles. Tribal chieftains often sold their defeated foes to white slave-traders. In the late 1700s, a freed black American slave named Ottobah Cugoano wrote, "I was first kidnapped and betrayed by my own complexion, who were the first cause of my exile and slavery."

• ARABS: The word "Abed" means "slave" in Arabic. It also means "black." The "Holy Land" of the Middle East has hosted far more African slaves than North America ever did.

• JEWS: The oldest synagogue in America was built by Aaron Lopez, a Jewish slave trader. Jewish writers such as Cecil Roth, Wilfred Samuels, Seymour B. Liebman, and Moshe Kahan acknowledge that Jews were involved in all levels of the African slave trade.

In fact, children, white Christians were the first group to make a concerted effort to ABOLISH slavery.

Myth: America's a uniquely evil place becuse it imported all those slaves from africa

Truth:

Out of the 10 to 15 million Africans who were transplanted to the New World, no more than 6 percent—around 400,000—went to the Northern Hemisphere. Almost all of them went to South America, but you don't see your teachers giving Brazil a hard time, do you?

Myth: most whites owned slaves, so every white shares guilt for americas slaverly.

 truth:

Blacks were never close to a majority in America, so it's mathematically impossible for most whites to have owned black slaves. At the peak of black slavery in the South, only 6 percent of Southern whites owned slaves. If you include the white people in the North, it means that only 1.4 percent of white Americans owned black slaves at the HEIGHT of slavery.

Myth: blacks never owned slaves

 truth:

An estimated 3,000 blacks owned a total of 20,000 black slaves in the year 1860. One study concluded that 28 percent of free blacks owned slaves, which is a far higher percentage than that of free whites who owned slaves.

Myth: there were no whites slaves

Truth:

Although your textbooks are silent about it, most historians agree that two-thirds of ALL whites came to the colonies in some form of bondage. Legal papers on both sides of the ocean referred to them as "slaves." White slaves outnumbered black slaves in America throughout the 1600s.

Myth: white "indenture servants" choose to come to america and weren't as badly treated as black slaves

Truth:

Hundreds of thousands of white slaves were kidnapped and brought to America; their middle-passage death rates were comparable to those of black slaves; they were sold at auction and traded for livestock, they were routinely beaten—sometimes to death—and an estimated one half of them died before gaining freedom. It's possible that more whites came to America against their will than blacks. Historians from both ends of the political spectrum say that white slaves were treated worse than black slaves.

Myth: England only sent convicted laborers to Australia

Truth:

England only started sending convicts to Australia in 1776—when the American Revolution made it impossible for them to continue sending their convicts here. By 1776, more than 50,000 convict slave laborers had already been sent to America. That's a lotta criminals, kids!

Myth: picking cotton is worst job possible

Truth:

According to statistics, farm work is relatively safe. It is far more dangerous to be a lumberjack, Alaskan crab fisherman, coal miner, or cabdriver. Either way, white slaves were forced to pick cotton under the hot sun, too, which is where they got those red necks.

Myth: White people need to pay financial reparations to black people

Truth:

American blacks enjoyed the highest standard of living than any of the black population on earth. Their average per capita income is TWENTY to FIFTY times higher than in any of the African countries from where they were displaced. It's true that part of America's wealth was built on black slavery; it is also true that American blacks are enjoying the fruits of that wealth. You, fair child, whether you were born black or white, weren't born in debt to anyone. You were born free. Don't let the bad people take it away from you.

Myth: the civil war was fought to end slaverly

Truth:

When General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, it had been nearly 20 years since Lee owned slaves—he freed his slaves in the late 1840s. In 1856, five years before the Civil War started, he wrote that slavery was "a moral and political evil." On the other hand, General Grant STILL owned slaves at the end of the Civil War, because Abe Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation cleverly outlawed slavery only in the South. Grant had stated that he would refuse to fight if he thought the war had anything to do with slavery. And hey, kids, even if it WAS fought to end slavery, how often do you see the descendants of slaves thanking the 600,000 or so white soldiers who died in the fight to free them?

Myth: slaverly ended with the civil war

Truth:

The US government estimates that 50,000 humans are brought into this country every year for the purpose of forced labor. Various agencies estimate that there are anywhere from 27 to 200 million humans currently enslaved worldwide. (Compare this to only four and a half million slaves at American slavery's peak.) Most of these slaves live in South Asia, Africa, and South America. Their labor comes far cheaper and is much more profitable than black American slavery was. In many horrifying cases, poverty-stricken women sell their vaginas on the black market and become lifelong sex slaves to fat, stinky men for as little as $1,500. In today's dollars, a black slave in the American South cost approximately $40,000.

Remember, kids—the enemy's all around you, and he comes in all colors. Slavery exists in so many ways, children. Open your eyes before they shackle your asses.

[ramrodd]

Jesus Before the Gospels by Bart Ehrman | A Critique by John Warwick Mon...

COMMENTARY:

Bart Ehrman is the Ayn Rand of liberal Christian theology. There is a psychosis in operation here that President Trump just revealed relative to his on-going response to Charlottesville,  The difference between Bart Ehrman and Ayn Rand is that she authentically believed that the shit she constructed was revealed wisdom, while Bart Ehrman is just a lying piece of shit who has discovered he can sell a whole lot more books saying "Hell to YOU, Jesus, and the butt-hole buddy the Holy Spirit you rode in on" than "Hallelujah" Christ is RISEN!"

At 45:16 in the video, Ehrman is recorded as saying publically that 1st Century Jews had no concept of either history or "Transcendent Truth".  He is half right about history: what he means is that all history was ad hoc and particular to that writer. That's the important thing to understand: these people had no reliable way to record events and pass that understanding of those events across the ages, which means they had no history, conceptual or recorded.

Well, that's pure bullshit wrapped around the reality that our concept of history, is very Hegelian and Hegel couldn't happen until Isaac Newton happened and Kant demonstrated the epistemological significance of that as a mechenism of inquiry.  Chronology, as a structure of history is identical for Tacitus and Hegel.  What Hegel has that Tacitus didn't was Newton's transliteration of karma into the measurable relationship of action to reaction which has been assumed in engineering as well as history since well before the time of Tacitus, but Newton brought it forward in a useful gestalt and that gestalt transfers neatly to the forces of history Hegel pioneered and Bart Ehrman now assumes represents a unique product of the Enlightenment.  

When considering the sophistry of Bart Ehrman (or Richard Carrier or Richard Dawkins or any of the purely mercenary anti-theist of that ilk), add into your calculus that the Egyptians had the social organization necessary to put men on the moon, but they didn't have Isaac Newton and Isaac Newton wouldn't have happened if the resurrection is a fraud.  He, Bart Ehrman, wouldn't have this gig employing the Socratic method to trash Chritianity,

The second part of his statement at 45:16, if it was to be developed as a Freshman Thesis in a Chapel Hill history class, he'd fail the course.  John 1:1 - 18 is a hymn to Jesus as the essence of Platonic Transcendent Truth.  I belive the author of the Gospel of John is John Mark, son of Mary of Jerusalem, whose home tends to assume to be the venue of the Last Supper, and that John Mark was in Alexander running the manusript copyists producing the Gospels of Mark, beginning no later than 50, but probably 47 and that the Gospel of Mark was written in 40 by Cornelius, the centurion featured in Acts 10, and, beginning about the same time Paul issued his Epistle to the Romans, the Gospel of Matthew,

That's a long, confusing sentence, but work it out. The important thing is that John Mark was in Alexandria when Philo of Alexandria was a leading mid-Platonic scholar, 1700 years or so before the ne-Platonism of the Enlightenment,  John Mark imported Platonic Transcendent Truth into Christianity whole cloth.  Bart Ehrman is either too stupid to make the connection between Plato of the Enlightenment with the Gospel of John or his specializaation in textual criticism has produced a cultural myopia which defeats normal cross-discipline intellectual pollination the liberal arts cirriculum  is specifcally designed to create (which, as a graduate of a rigid Evangelical undergraduate and masters study, is entirely probable) to the extent he was never introduced to Plato except in the "Plato: BAD!" context of Protestant apologists, generally.

Or, he's just a lying piece of shit determined to create the moral confusion most congenial to his position on the New York Times Best Seller List, which he covets above all things, especially Transcendent Truth.

I have additonal observations on this video, but that's for another day, Stay tuned.

[quote-bomber]

Lepanto

BY G. K. CHESTERTON

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,

Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,

Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,

The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,

The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,

That once went singing southward when all the world was young,

In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,

Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,

Don John of Austria is going to the war,

Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold

In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,

Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,

Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.

Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,

Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,

Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.

Love-light of Spain—hurrah!

Death-light of Africa!

Don John of Austria

Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,

His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.

He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,

And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,

And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring

Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.

Giants and the Genii,

Multiplex of wing and eye,

Whose strong obedience broke the sky

When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,

From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;

They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea

Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;

On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,

Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;

They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—

They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.

And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,

And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,

And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,

For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.

We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,

Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,

But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know

The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:

It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;

It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!

It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,

Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”

For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

Sudden and still—hurrah!

Bolt from Iberia!

Don John of Austria

Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north

(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)

Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift

And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.

He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;

The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;

The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes

And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,

And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,

And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,

And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,

But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.

Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse

Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,

Trumpet that sayeth ha!

Domino gloria!

Don John of Austria

Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck

(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)

The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,

And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.

He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,

He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,

And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey

Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,

And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,

But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.

Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—

Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid

Gun upon gun, ha! ha!

Gun upon gun, hurrah!

Don John of Austria

Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,

(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)

The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,

The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.

He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea

The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;

They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,

They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;

And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,

And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,

Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines

Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.

They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung

The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.

They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on

Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.

And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell

Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,

And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—

(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)

Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,

Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,

Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,

Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,

Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea

White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.

Vivat Hispania!

Domino Gloria!

Don John of Austria

Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath

(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)

And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,

Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....

(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)