May 2022

The First Resurrection & The Second Death

May 22, 2023

The following presentation is taken from St. Andrew of Caesarea’s commentary on the Apocalypse.

Revelation 20:5-6. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

From the writings of the holy Scriptures are we taught that there are two types of lives and two types of deaths. The first life is our current, transitory, and fleshly existence that we are experiencing here on earth as a result of the transgression of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But thankfully the second life is an eternal life promised to the saints after the heeding and following of the divine and life saving commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in like manner, there are two deaths: one being the death of the flesh in this age and the other through sins leading to the full payment of transgression in the age to come, which is the Gehenna of fire.

We also know that there is a difference among the dead. For on the one hand, there are those to be avoided concerning whom Isaiah says, “They are dead, they shall not live,” (Isaiah 26:14) that is, those bringing stench and death by their conduct, and on the other hand, those praiseworthy ones who in Christ “mortify the deeds of the body,” (Romans 8:13) who are crucified with Christ and are dead to the world. Therefore, those unacceptable dead, those not buried with and raised with Christ through baptism, but those remaining in a state of death by sins, will not live with Him until the completion of the one thousand years, that is, the perfect amount of time extending from Christ’s first coming until His second and glorious coming to judge both the living and the dead.

Since the sinful dead, which have been born from the earth only and not born by the Spirit, they in like manner will return to the earth. Their death becomes the beginning of their future punishment. Those who have a share in the first resurrection, that is, in the rising out of deadening thoughts and mortifying actions, these are the blessed. For the second death will have no power over them, that is, never-ending punishment, but instead, they will exercise priesthood and reign with Christ. As we see it, these things signify to us that from the one thousand years until the loosening of Satan and the deception of the nations, the blessed will not be deprived of the kingdom, but instead more certainly and very clearly will they possess it by the fading away of temporal things and by the ushering in of eternal things.

So then, since there are two deaths, it is necessary to understand that there are also two resurrections. First, then, physical death, which is the inherited penalty for mankind’s disobedience in Eden, whereas the second death is eternal punishment and damnation. The first resurrection is that of being brought to life out of “repentance from dead works,” (Hebrews 6:1) and the second resurrection is the transformation from bodily corruption into in-corruption: on such the second death hath no power.

 

References:

St. Andrew of Caesarea: Commentary on the Apocalypse. (Washington D.C., USA: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).

Zondervan. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009).

The Resurrection of the Old Testament Saints

May 22, 2023

“Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” (Matthew 27:50-53). Here in the twenty-seventh chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, we see an amazing miracle which adds wonder to the incredible and world changing event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For according to Matthew’s Gospel, it would not be just Jesus that arose from the dead early in the morning on the fist day of the week 2,000 years ago, but many saints from the Old Testament would also rise.

In Colossians 1:18, the Apostle Paul writes that Christ is the firstborn from the dead. This verse would support Matthew’s Gospel, which states that the Old Testament saints came out of their graves after Christ’s resurrection. Now we know from scripture that after His resurrection, Jesus now has a glorified body which is eternal and not subject to decay. However, scripture does not forthright explain if the Old Testament saints who rose from the dead were also given glorified bodies, not does it say if they died again later, or if they stayed alive and walk among us today. Though the verses in Matthew don’t reveal everything, a clue as to the nature of the risen saints’ bodies is found in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of St. John, where Jesus raises His friend Lazarus from the dead.

When Jesus went to Bethany, in order to raise Lazarus from the dead, He found that Lazarus had been in the grave four days already. Jesus then told them to remove the stone from Lazarus’ tomb, but Martha protested saying that her brother’s body must have a stench since he had been dead four days. However, the decay of Lazarus’ body did not deter Christ from raising him from the dead. Also, according to the tradition of the Orthodox Church, Lazarus did die again many years after Jesus brought him back to life. So it is very likely that sometime after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Old Testament saints indeed died again and are in the tomb waiting for the Universal Resurrection. Thus we see that God has the power to raise a decayed corps without giving it a glorified body, as the redeemed will have at the close of this age.

Now the Bible does state that the saints arose after Jesus rose, but scripture does not single them out or identify them by name. The Orthodox Church on the other hand, has identified at least three saints who came out of their graves after the death of Christ on the cross. The names of these three saints are: Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego also known as the Three Holy Children. Just as the fiery furnace of the king of Babylon could not burn them, so too death itself could not keep these three holy men from the captivity of Hades. But, just as Lazarus died again and was placed in a tomb once more, so also would these three Old Testament saints go back into the grave awaiting the Resurrection of the Dead.

Finally I would like to argue that God raised the saints of the Old Testament in order to bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament saint’s own resurrection being proof of God’s almighty power and to seal the validity of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. The Bible says that the risen saints went into Jerusalem and appeared unto many. I believe God performed this miracle in order for many to be saved. Just as Thomas did not believe Jesus rose from the dead until he touched Him in person, so God sent forth resurrected saints to confirm the resurrection of the Son of God. Unfortunately, miracles such as these are still not enough to make believers out of all people. As it is written in Luke 16:31 – “…If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”

 

References:

Saint Nikolai Velimirovic. The Prologue of Ohrid Vol. II. (Alhambra, California: Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America, 2002).

Zondervan. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009).

The Sanhedrin, The Pharisees, and the Community of Qumran

May 22, 2023

A couple centuries before the coming of Christ, a religious ruling class known as the Sadducees were responsible for the priestly maintenance of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Sadducees emerged out of the Maccabean revolt and took their name from Zadok, who was the father of the legitimate line of priests. The Sadducees were composed largely of the upper class. They adhered to a strict literal interpretation of the Torah and denied the belief in the resurrection of the dead, and also denied the existence of angels and demons. Adding to the power of this religious sect, the Sadducees were also in charge of a type of Jewish Supreme Court known as the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin is mentioned in the New Testament several times, most notably in the Gospels where the trial of Jesus is concerned. During the Second Temple period, the Sanhedrin met in a hall in the temple of Jerusalem. The court convened every day excluding feast days and the Sabbath. After the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD the Sanhedrin was reestablished in Yavneh, a city on the central coastline of Judaea. However, the Sanhedrin had less authority now, for with the destruction of the Temple the Sadducees lost power. And though the Sadducees where the dominant players in the Sanhedrin, another Jewish body was also a part of the assembly. This additional religious sect were know as the Pharisees.

The name Pharisee is derived from the ancient Greek word Pharisaios, meaning “set apart, or separated.” The Pharisees were a group of devout religious Jews who believed in complete domination of the Law of Moses. They were also early supporters of the Maccabees, but later rejected the Hasmoneans when the king became the high priest. Though both the Sadducees and the Pharisees shared a common heritage they differed on both religious and political matters. The Pharisees regarded the oral tradition to be just as valuable as the written law, but the Sadducees on the other hand did not accept the oral tradition. The Sadducees were also pro-Hellenization, whereas the Pharisees were anti-Hellenization. The Pharisees also believed in the resurrection of the dead and the existence of angels and demons. The Pharisees would go on to write down the oral law in what would become the Talmud, and the Pharisees themselves becoming the foundation of Rabbinic Judaism.

Another Jewish religious sect that emerged around the same time as the Sadducees and the Pharisees, where a monastic like community known as the Essenes. The Essenes completely removed themselves from society, and built a settlement called Qumran in a remote area near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. As part of preparing themselves for the coming of the Messiah, they took vows of poverty and practiced asceticism. They considered themselves to be the righteous remnant which God would use to build a new kingdom on earth: The Kingdom of Heaven. It is also believed that the Essenes wrote the extensive library of religious documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the only religious sects that survived were the Pharisees and the followers of Jesus: the Christians. In the early days some Pharisees became Christians themselves, take the Apostle Paul for example. In modern times the Hasidic Jews are arguably the closest thing to the ancient Jewish sect of the Pharisees. And even though the Second Temple was destroyed two-thousand years ago, the belief that a third Temple will be built sometime in the future still occupies a large tenet of Jewish faith even to the present day.

Mystical Iran: The Spirit of an Empire

May 22, 2023

The origins of the Persian or Iranian empires goes back some 2,500 years when the Persian king Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire, which was the first of the Persian empires. Cyrus the Great went on to conquer Babylon without a fight in 539 BC. Cyrus also allowed the Jews to return home to Judea from their exile in Babylon and encouraged them to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1-8). Cyrus died in battle in 530 BC while fighting the Massagetae, another Persian tribe who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia. Several years after Cyrus, Darius I became the third Persian king of the Achaemenid Empire. During his reign Darius began to build the city of Persep, which the Greeks would later call Persepolis meaning, “City of the Persians.” Darius it seems ruled the Achaemenid Empire quite well. Tablets discovered in Persepolis reveal how complex and sophisticated the governing system was that Darius established. Roughly speaking, Darius did well in bringing and keeping the empire together.

Though there were not many military conquests during his reign, Darius did venture into Greece starting in 512 BC. Darius conquered Thrace and Macedonia, but was defeated by the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. These events would go on to usher in what the Greeks called the Persian Wars. For the Persians, the more important conflict was a revolt in Egypt that occurred in 486 BC, but before he could attend to this matter Darius died. Darius in turn was succeeded by his son Xerxes, who like his father set his eyes on Greece. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Xerxes brought nearly two million troops with him on his quest to conquer Athens in 480 BC. Though his forces overran mainland Greece, Xerxes suffered losses a year later at Salamis and Plataea, which canceled out his previous gains. However, Xerxes did manage to crush revolts in Egypt and Babylon. Besides wars, Xerxes also oversaw many construction projects at Susa and Persepolis. Xerxes is also mentioned in the Old Testament book of Esther, where he is identified as Ahasuerus.

Xerxes was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes in 465 BC. And it was during the reign’s of kings Xerxes and Artaxerxes that many of the Jews returned to Jerusalem after their captivity in Babylon. During this time the wars between Greece and Persia continued. The fighting stopped however with the Peace of Callias in 449 BC, which marked the end of the Greco-Persian Wars. But in the reign of Artaxerxes II (404-359 BC) there were further wars with the Greeks. The war between Greece and Persia would come to its apex when the Persian king Darius III faced the most famous of Greek rulers: Alexander the Great. Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 B.C. In the following year Alexander encountered the main Persian army, commanded by king Darius III at Issus, in northeastern Syria. The Battle of Issus, in 333 BC, was a great victory for Alexander. Then in 330 BC Alexander forced his way to Persepolis, the Persian capital. After plundering the royal treasuries and taking other rich booty he burned the city and thus completed the destruction of the ancient Achaemenid Empire.

Spiritually speaking, Iran gave birth to a man who founded a religion that is still practiced to this day even after 2,500 years. The man and the religion that bears his name is none other than Zoroaster, also known as Zarathustra. It is widely believed that Zoroaster was indeed a historical figure and not just a legend. Tradition tells us that Zoroaster was born in a place called Ragha, which has been identified with Rayy, a site near modern Tehran. Zoroaster would later leave his home, due to the persecutions he suffered from his people who did not accept his religious teachings. After traveling extensively he was welcomed by King (Kavi) Vishtaspa, who also converted to his faith. The conversion of Kavi Vishtaspa is supposed to have occurred 258 years before Alexander’s conquest of Iran. This means that Zoroaster lived ca. 628-551 BC. Vishtaspa was also the name of the father of the Persian king Darius I, which lines up with this dating. Thus Zoroaster must have lived close to the rise of the first Persian Empire.

The cosmology of Zoroaster was centered between two deities. One, Ahura Mazda known as the lord of wisdom, was the good creator god of truth and light. The other was Ahriman, the personification of darkness, evil, and falsehood. In this dualism Ahura Mazda and Ahriman struggled for supremacy. At the beginning of time, the twin spirits of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman created “life and non-life,” with the one who “followed the lie” chose to create the worst of things, while the other holier spirit chose to do works of righteousness. So too was man given free will to choose between good thoughts and righteousness, or bad thoughts and deception. Zoroaster’s powerful conceptions of Ahura Mazda, the cosmic struggle of good and evil, man’s free will and ability to choose his actions, and the ultimate reward bestowed upon the virtuous who persevered in the face of adversity has made a lasting influence on Iranian religion and culture as well as other cultures that came in contact with it.

Returning to the politics of Persia, we see that after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC, the Greek Seleucid Empire took its place, until 247 BC when the Parthian Empire ruled ancient Iran. The Parthian Empire would then be succeeded by the Sasanian Empire, also called the Neo-Persian Empire, which was the last kingdom of the Persian Empire before the rise of Islam, and it governed from 224 to 651 AD. Nearly a millennium after the death of Zoroaster, Greece and Persia were at war once again. Now at the time of this Persian invasion beginning in the seventh century AD, Greece was now Christian and had expanded into what was known as the Byzantine Empire, and had incorporated several other states under its umbrella which where not ethnically Greek. For in 602 AD, the Persian king, Khosrow Parviz invaded Byzantine territory, and in 613 he captured Damascus, in 614 Jerusalem, and in 616 his armies occupied both Egypt and Asia Minor. In this moment of crisis the Byzantine Empire was saved by Emperor Heraclius who, after five years of brilliant fighting, defeated the Persians and drove them from Greco/Roman territory.

Around the time that the Persians returned home from their battles with the Christian Greeks, a new religion was springing up from the sands in the deserts of Arabia. This new faith would be known as Islam and Muhammad was the messenger of that faith. Muhammad and his companions went on to conquer and unify much of Arabia under Muslim rule. After the Muslim conquest of Persia in 651 AD, the fall of the Sasanian Empire of Iran followed and as a result the Zoroastrian religion also fell into decline. However, Iranians have maintained certain pre-Islamic traditions, including their language and culture, and have integrated them with Islamic laws. The Islamization of Iran would bring deep transformations within the cultural, scientific, and political structure of Iran’s society. The blossoming of Persian literature, philosophy, medicine and art became major elements of this newly formed Muslim civilization. Integrating a heritage of civilization going back over a thousand years, and being at the “crossroads of the major cultural highways,” contributed to Persia emerging at the forefront of what culminated into the “Islamic Golden Age.”

 

References:

Axworthy, M. Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran. (New York, NY: Basic Books Inc., 2008).

Daniel, Elton. The History of Iran. (Westport, Connecticut: The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations, 2001).

Glubb. S.J. A Short History of the Arab Peoples. (New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995).

The Faith of Rastafari

May 22, 2023

The following presentation is an attempt to concisely document the history of the Rastafarian movement, it’s culture, and it’s way of life. Though the religious beliefs of Rastafari as outlined in this work do not necessarily reflect the religious beliefs held by this author, some aspects of Rastafari do indeed reflect an Orthodox Christian quality, of which branch of Christianity this author has been baptized into as have other Rastas. So, let us now take a deeper look into the faith of Rastafari, as we sail down the mystic Nile to reach its origin: Ethiopia.

The source of the faith of Rastafari lies within a unique geographical location known as the Nile Valley, an immense region of land on the continent of Africa, which encompasses Egypt to the north and Ethiopia to the south. It is here in this part of Africa that Rastafarians trace their ancestral and religious roots. For example, Rastas acknowledge Ra, the Egyptian god of the sun, as a life-giving force. Rastas also believe that mankind is not separate from God, who Rastas refer to as JAH (Psalms 68:4). This Rasta belief of God and man being intertwined is backed up from a verse in the New Testament book of Philippians where we read that Christ, “…being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” (Philippians 2:6). So here we see that there is indeed a Christian influence in Rasta thought as well as other Rasta practices and religious beliefs.

But the core beliefs of Rastafari are centered around the Egyptian mysteries, the kind that may be found in The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Whereas the tenets of Judaism within Rastafari are themselves an offshoot of Egyptian mysticism. Rastafarians also believe that within man there are three different spiritual levels: the animal stage, where the man is controlled by his emotions; a second stage, where he is governed by his will to control his emotions; and the third stage where he is able to commune peacefully with JAH in the inner depths of his being: a person such as this is considered a ‘Godman’, and only a man of this level of spirituality is worthy of sitting on a throne.

In addition to the religious roots of Rastafari found within the Egyptian mysteries, the teachings of Orthodox Christianity are also tied to a significant amount of beliefs found within the faith of Rastarari. For example, the doctrine of theosis (a belief where God and man become one) is a dogma of the Orthodox Church which we also find in the tenets of Rastafari. Rastas believe that through union with JAH, the God-fearing dread becomes who he truly is but never was; a process of self-discovery made possible only through the repentance of one’s sins. This mystical union between JAH and the believer is expressed by the term “I&I” which can mean I, we, and even you, with JAH being present within and without.

When studying the history of the Rastafarian movement, we must first travel back in time to Antiquity, to the days of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. As the story goes the Queen of Sheba, who ruled Ethiopia, traveled to Jerusalem after hearing of the wisdom of Solomon. For as the Bible says, “she came to prove him with hard questions.” (I Kings 10:1). Upon arrival the queen was indeed impressed with Solomon’s wisdom, and Solomon in turn desired the queen for Solomon was a lover of women. As things transpired Solomon did have his way with her and on the queen’s return to Ethiopia she would bear a son whom she named Menelik, meaning “Son of the Wise Man.” The Queen of Sheba also brought back with her the worship of the One True God of Israel and a form of Judaism was established in ancient Ethiopia. According to the Kebra Nagast, Menelik did eventually visit Solomon once he was grown and Solomon sent Levites back with his son to firmly establish the worship of the God of Israel in Ethiopia. In this story the ark of the covenant was also brought to Ethiopia and tradition tells us that the ark still resides to this day in Ethiopia at the Church of St. Mary of Zion, in the holy city of Axum.

But what makes this ancient story so significant as it pertains to modern times, is found primarily in the person of the Ethiopian monarch who was the 225th descendant of king Solomon and the Queen of Sheba: none other than His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I, who was crowned King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah, Elect of God, of Ethiopia on November 2nd 1930 in Addis Abbaba, the capital of Ethiopia. Before his coronation Selassie held the title of Ras Tafari, and through the writings of the Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey, many blacks in Jamaica saw the crowing of a black king in the east to be none other than the second coming of Jesus Christ.

In Jamaica, as elsewhere in the world, the 1930’s were years of social unrest and political upheaval. It was the perfect context for the rise of a band of Jamaicans who had divorced themselves mentally from the oppression of the system. The faith of Rastafari in turn became the religion for the dispossessed. For the Rastas of Jamaica believed that we are living in the last days of this present world order. Only the righteous will move forward through the apocalypse into the new era, and only those who have battled to save the world from the greed and oppression of the Babylonian system shall prosper.

This era of consciousnesses among the Rastas of Jamaica coincided with the rise of reggae music. For many reggae artists would incorporate their Rasta reasonings in the lyrics of their songs, and the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica gained in popularity as a result. But it wouldn’t be until the 1970s that the message of Rastafari would be spread right round the world, and the ambassador of the roots, rock, and reggae that made it all happen was none other than the late great Bob Marley. Along with his band the Wailers, Bob’s message of peace and universal brotherhood would reach the four corners of the earth, and the faith of Rastafari would be shared globally. It is interesting to note that shortly before his death in 1981, Bob Marley was baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church by Archbishop Yesehaq, who gave Bob the name Berhane Selassie meaning “Light of the Holy Trinity.”

Now that we have peered into the ages past, delved through religious faiths, and spanned the globe in search for the origins of Rastafari, we cannot help but to return to where we began with a spiritual richness that rivals all the gold in Solomon’s temple! For though Solomon was the richest man who ever lived, the king himself spoke of how wisdom is more precious than gold, and that understanding is better to be chosen than silver (Proverbs 16:16). And this could be the meaning of life itself, to focus on the spiritual life and not find ourselves caught up in materialism. And that might be the single most important teaching and belief held by Rastas, to be rich in spirit and in faith. For as Christ said, “ it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing…” (John 6:63).

 

References:

Archbishop Yesehaq. The Ethiopian Tewahedo Church. (Nashville, Tennessee: James C. Winston Publishing Company, Inc., 1997).

Boot, A. Bob Marley: Songs of Freedom. (New York, NY: Viking Studio Books, 1995).