1. Origins

Thus, all those things that concern us and make up the History of the Fulness of the Nations had their beginning in another World, in another place of the Universe, in a realm situated beyond the stars of Heaven, at the very heart of the kingdom of the galaxies.

There, at the center of His Creation, God fashioned His own World: the World from which His Son descended into ours, and to which He returned after His Resurrection.

The Son of God spoke of it many times, yet His words found neither ears willing to listen nor minds able to understand His message. One of the clearest occasions on which He spoke of His native World was before Pontius Pilate:

“My Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom were of this world, my servants would have fought so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But my Kingdom is not from here.”

On many other occasions Jesus returned to the subject of His origin and never hesitated to make it known that He came from another World, that He had left His World and descended into ours in order to deliver us from Ignorance and lead us into Wisdom.

In the Third Chapter of the HEART OF MARYF, I addressed the origin of Heaven, that World from which the Son of God came. I attempted, insofar as possible, to recover the memory of its chronicles and to follow the trail of its wars to the point where they touch us directly.

I believe I stated there that God created that World, from which He sent His Son to us, to be His Home, His Homeland, His Country, His Property, His Paradise. And He created it entirely according to His own measure and delight.

For its boundaries He gave it the Dawn that flies upon the wings of Infinity; for its future He gave it the Morning that forever rises and lives eternally in the eyes of Eternity.

In other words, He fashioned it after the image and likeness of the Idea that stirred within His Mind concerning the nature and constitution of the New Cosmos He intended to raise immediately after completing the creation of His World.

The idea of the Cosmos that God held in His Mind before setting His hand to Universal Reality may be described by two principal characteristics:

First, ad Infinitum expansion of its frontiers.

Second, ad eternum unfolding of its future.

Resolved to become the Source of this New Universal Reality, born from the union of Space and Time within a material Core, the geographical center of the New Cosmos, God gave that Core a body. He endowed it with its own nature, possessing a singular, unique, and unrepeatable identity.

Born to be the geographical heart of His Creation, the point of intersection between the two uncreated vectors, Infinity and Eternity, God made its existence tangible and bestowed upon it a natural indestructibility akin to His own Being. He also granted it the capacity for growth inherent to Space and Time themselves.

That World would be His World, His Home, His Homeland, His Paradise, His Property, His Country, His Land, His Everything: the thing He had never possessed.

For all eternity, God had been a wanderer through Eternity, an adventurer across Infinity. Now He would create what He had never had before: His own Home, His own World. And He would create it without limitation of means and without lack of imagination.

And so He did. How he did it doesn't matter. In the case of the creation of our Universe, the How does matter. In the Introduction to 21st Century Cosmology, I touched on this topic. In the third Part of the First Book of Divine History, I said that we will already have time to fully know this World whose Origin we are dealing with in this book. Which leads me to say what I’ve already said elsewhere, that there are things within our sphere of knowledge and others, like the Birth of the Father and the Son, and the creation of this World born to be the Homeland of its Creator, that escape the physical understanding of our intelligence.

Claiming in the style of the ancients, even though they preferred to be called modern, that what we cannot understand does not exist is a declaration of madness. We are living creatures with intelligence because of the Intelligence of our Creator, and even though our Creator set limits to our intelligence, we must not forget that there are things beyond the reach of physical sciences and that only life experience can confirm their existence. In this case, we are talking about Wisdom. The mistake, the root of the ancients' madness, even though they demanded to be called modern, was trying to subject Wisdom to Science.

So, and so we wouldn’t get lost, God raised a Mountain in the heart of His World. And at its summit, a City was built. But knowing that it’s not twelve walls that make a House, but those who live inside, He dreamed of Brothers, Friends, Children. Such is the origin of the gods of Heaven. Then it happened that God begot from His Being; and in Fatherhood, His mind and heart found perfect happiness. He presented His Son to the gods, and they worshiped Him. Eventually, God began to create the Universe. The Galaxies set their fields of stars at the service of their Lord, and from the peaks of their distant mountain ranges, rivers of starsmade their way through the sidereal plains. Like someone giving a head of a wave machine to a swift, fresh, and joyful current, those luminous beds began to descend from all the heights of the Cosmos.

This is the origin of the Universe. Like gravitational strings dragging a train of stars of all sizes and colors, those rivers of stars flowed into the ocean of the constellations of the Heavens. And so the Universe was created..

 

2. The Ancient Gods

As time passed, Heaven became a Kingdom, and the Kingdom became an Empire. The House of God was filled with sons, all of them beautiful, all of them princes, each the king of his own people. For once the Universe had been created, God planted the seed of the Tree of Life in its waters. From the constellated depths of creation, Life conceived one World, then a second, a third, a fourth; and five Worlds came into being before the Sixth Day of the First Week of Creation.

On the Sixth Day, God created Man.

Such is the origin of the sons of God, the gods of ancient times.

 

3. The Cradle of Man

There were five Worlds that God created and transported from their places of origin in the Universe to His own World, His Paradise.

Man had not yet been created.

Indeed, the very idea of Man had not yet arisen in the mind of the Creator.

To those who ask whether there is life in the Universe, we answer: yes, there is, for we ourselves exist.

And to those who ask whether life existed before us, we answer likewise: yes. We were neither the first nor shall we be the last.

If they then ask in what star, in what region of Heaven, those other peoples of the Universe dwell, we shall say that their homes are in the World God built for Himself, the World that stands Above, at the very center of His Creation.

There too is our dwelling place: that living and indestructible World. There, above, we shall all meet again and share the eternal life for which we were created.

Yet duty compels us to return from the Future to the Past, to the days when Hell sowed the seed of War within Paradise.

Two wars devastated Paradise, though Heaven itself was never conquered.

The great battles fought for the throne of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords are written in the Book of Life. Its pages tell how the brothers and sons of God who remained faithful to the Crown of the Only-Begotten shattered the strength of the Rebel Axis, broke open the Seal of Fidelity, and saw the very elements of Nature come to the service of their arms, arms beautiful, invincible, wise, and strong.

As one who borrows brilliance from lightning and advances against darkness with its radiance in his eyes;

or as one who takes thunder for the tent of his throat, turning the sky of his mouth into the firmament across which the horse of the winds runs;

or as one who borrows from the bolt its mystery and uses its electric cords as a whip upon the Beast;

so, yes, so was the massive and overwhelming counterattack of the Princes of Heaven against the hosts of Hell which, in God's absence, had risen against His Empire.

Twice the Dragon was subdued and captured.

Twice the Rebels were forgiven.

For in His Father's love, God believed that with time His rebellious sons would change, and that as they grew and matured, their desire for war would fade away.

But seeing that events demanded from Him decisions of a revolutionary kind, on the Sixth Day of the First Week of the Creation of the Universe, God conceived Man within His mind.

Something new was required. For this reason, God envisioned a race capable of advancing through knowledge, experience, and choice. Humanity would become both witness and participant in a greater history. Through its journey, the conflict that had shaken Heaven would find a new field in which to unfold and, ultimately, a path toward resolution.

 

4. The Light

When God conceived Man, He also conceived the World that would become his home.

God created our world by bringing forth the Heavens from the bosom of the waters of the stellar ocean. Then he created the Earth. But first came the Idea.The Earth was not created as an afterthought. Nor was it merely one more world among many. From the beginning, it was destined to occupy a singular place within the designs of the Creator.

In His Omniscience, the Creator does nothing without first weaving the Building to be constructed into His Intelligence. He first plans, resolves, draws lines, calculates, overcomes problems, clears unknowns, sees in virtual motion the end toward which His project leans, lets Himself be guided by His Wisdom, and then moves into action. He trusts His experience to keep all processes under control. If along the way some element seems to slip out of His hands, He acts accordingly, improvises, makes decisions as needed, and, without distorting the Idea, keeps the movement in the originally established direction.The wars of Heaven had revealed a reality that could no longer be ignored. The freedom granted to God's children had led some toward wisdom and loyalty, yet others had turned that freedom into rebellion. The problem could not be solved by force alone, nor by punishment without end.

So, he created the Earth at the edges of the Cosmos, far from Heaven and the Heavens, in the Darkness. He gave the Earth the Sun as a husband and the Planets as brothers and sisters. Sun, Earth, and Moon, and the entire planetary family, were created from a single core. After creating the solar family, God left the Earth in the Darkness, in such total and absolute solitude that it caused her to feel confused and empty, as he tells us in his Book. For it happened that, against all expectations, when it as to the Earth to which he had made all the promises of the future, the marriage with the Sun sealed from the very Origin, kisses in the Cradle, God took his whole family far, far away from the Abyss covered by the Darkness, and left her, the Earth, at the mercy of the forces of the Abyss. The icy darkness of an invincible solitude seeped into the Earth's bones, and from the cold her teeth chattered.

Oh, the Earth, born among promises of motherhood in the light of laughter, applause, and exclamations from the sons of God. Beautiful in her nakedness, lovely in her smallness. Oh, the dream conceived for her, like that of a child who lives off the dream of his mother while his bones and flesh are being woven. Oh, that dream... the dream was gone! The cold froze her bones, the winds that roam the Darkness shook her trembling flesh. Oh my dream, oh my life, my God has left me and abandoned me in the Darkness with no one to defend me.

Why have you abandoned me, my God?

Why did you promise me the ocean, why did you make me dream of the East, the West, the North and the South, why did you dream me as the mother of so many children, my hands with wings, my hair crowned with a diadem of life-filled clouds, my feet of snow breathing spring over green valleys, why did you feed me with honey if you had destined this bitter and thick poison as my food? Am I dying? Yes, I prefer death to living without your dream.

So when her Creator came back to her, the Earth was empty and "confused": because ... was He forever gone? Then He cam e back to her, and the Light was made. This is how it happened.

God extended a force field that surrounded the Earth, and its surface transformed into a sea of molten lava. We're talking about the Fusion of the Primary Crust of our planet. From the depths of that sea of molten lava arose the Primordial Atmosphere. Eventually, the Earth's crust cooled, and by sublimation that atmosphere turned into a Mantle of Ice that covered the entire spherical shape of our planet from the North Pole to the South Pole.

Such a Mantle of Ice was 'the Light.'

And Light became the first banner of Creation.

Where Light advances, darkness retreats.

Where Light appears, direction becomes possible.

Where Light is present, life can flourish.

And God saw that the Light was good.

 

5. The Garden

When the Earth had been prepared and its cycles established, God planted a Garden.

This Garden was not merely a place of beauty. It was a meeting point between Heaven and Earth, between the visible and the invisible, between mortality and eternity.

Into that Garden He placed the first human beings.

They were not abandoned in ignorance, nor left to wander without purpose. They were instructed, taught, and guided.

The memory of those first teachings survives only in fragments, scattered among myths, sacred traditions, and ancient legends. Yet behind all such accounts remains the same enduring conviction: humanity did not begin its journey alone.

The Creator walked among His children.

The Wisdom that sustains the stars spoke with them.

The Lord of Life shared with them the inheritance He had prepared since before the foundations of the world.

Yet freedom remained intact.

For love cannot be compelled, loyalty cannot be manufactured, and wisdom loses all value when choice disappears.

Therefore Man was free.

And because he was free, he could remain faithful.

Or he could fall.

 

6. The First Trial

No kingdom is tested in times of peace alone.

No loyalty proves itself until alternatives appear.

The ancient rebellion that had wounded Heaven cast its shadow toward Earth, and the same questions that once stirred among the sons of God were now presented before Man.

Would humanity seek wisdom under the guidance of its Creator?

Or would it seek knowledge apart from Him?

Would freedom become the path toward maturity?

Or the road toward separation?

The trial was inevitable.

For beings created in freedom cannot be prevented from choosing.

They can be instructed.

They can be warned.

They can be loved.

But they cannot be forced.

And so the First Trial began.

The consequences of that choice would extend far beyond a single generation. They would shape the destiny of nations, civilizations, empires, and ages yet unborn.

The history of mankind had begun.

 

6. The First Trial

No kingdom is tested in times of peace alone.

No loyalty proves itself until alternatives appear.

The ancient rebellion that had wounded Heaven cast its shadow toward Earth, and the same questions that once stirred among the sons of God were now presented before Man.

Would humanity seek wisdom under the guidance of its Creator?

Or would it seek knowledge apart from Him?

Would freedom become the path toward maturity?

Or the road toward separation?

The trial was inevitable.

For beings created in freedom cannot be prevented from choosing.

They can be instructed.

They can be warned.

They can be loved.

But they cannot be forced.

And so the First Trial began.

The consequences of that choice would extend far beyond a single generation. They would shape the destiny of nations, civilizations, empires, and ages yet unborn.

The history of mankind had begun.

 

5. The Firmament of Heavens

The embrace of the Almighty. Oh, the warm embrace of the Almighty. The warmth of your muscles, oh God, is the warmth of the first kiss between virgin spouses, the warmth of a father’s first word to his baby, wrap me in your breath, my God… Oh Earth, how many verses, how many lines it wrote in its solitude, each one a white dove crossing the waters in search of the olive branch that would keep Noah's hope alive. Its joy, its runaway heart, its unleashed pulse, its vibrating nerves the day the light of the Great Spirit of its Creator shone dazzlingly, crossing the field of galaxies at the speed of thought! Its warm Voice, its tender Word, oh brothers and sisters, I am dying to pour the balm of the echo of its strings into my ears, when its Word breaks the Silence.

And so it was. The Great Spirit returned, embraced her, devoured her with kisses, spoke to her, and Confusion vanished at once.

Wrapped in that Mantle of Ice forged at temperatures below absolute zero, Mantle of Ice that resulted from the Fusion of the Primary Crust and Sublimation of the consequent Primordial Atmosphere, God separated the Earth from the Darkness and placed it in the Heavens. He led her to meet the Sun and the Planets. In the warmth of the encounter, the ice melted and turned into Air and Water. Under the Firmament that separated Waters from Waters, the two blocks of ice began their retreat toward the North and South poles. And since then, the Firmament remains there, separating the waters of the everyday seas from the gravitational Waters that fill outer space.

The Firmament in the Word of Genesis is the Atmosphere created in thad Day. A Firmament that He also called 'heaven,' the heaven of every day, blue, red, white, yellow, orange, violet, purple. A Firmament whose architecture we will have time to explore, and speaking of which we touch on its Genesis, leaving for another place the foundations of the Biosphere, foundations that will lead us to the definition of the constituent elements of the Ecosphere. (In GENESIS, CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE, you have the wonderful opportunity to follow the creating mechanics of these processes step by step).

 

6. The Hand of God.

The waters of the mother ocean kept receding under the Sun. And they continued to fall until they reached the level of the seas. Then, when the waters withdrew to let Life follow its course, the imprint of the Creator's Hand was engraved on the stone of the ocean ridges, and on the surface of the imprint of its five fingers, the tree of species took root.

This is the origin of life on Earth..  

 

7. The World of Birds

The seas became filled with living creatures, so many that they could scarcely be contained within the vastness of those waters that encircled the world. The level of the Waters beneath the Firmament continued to fall, and as it did, the pressure increased.

Then the Tree of Life crossed the boundary between water and air, and the firmament of Heaven became filled with creatures bearing wings and beaks.

Other branches reached the solid earth directly, passing from water onto land. Yet the world belonged to the birds. They laid their eggs upon the ground and spread inland to the farthest limits of the mountain ranges.

Thus, when the amphibians began venturing beyond the shores and took the eggs of the ancient birds as food, the need to defend what was their own brought about a revolutionary transformation: wings became arms.

This is the origin of all beasts that bear living young.

 

8. The Sons of God

As life continued to evolve, men and their families increased among the forests. From the borders separating their lands from the realm of monsters, they witnessed the gods descending from Heaven.

The sons of God were distinguished from all other creatures by the fact that they walked upright upon their legs. Great also was the power their word exercised over every beast.

Then there awoke within mankind a singular instinct: the instinct of intelligence. Men discovered that their natural ability to imitate the gods offered them a path toward mastery of the world.

It was in those days that the sons of God adopted mankind as their disciples.

 

9. Mesopotamia: The Land of the Earthly Paradise

God assigned to each of His sons a sphere of influence upon the Earth.

According to the Seal that each people had received from its heavenly mentor, the formation of the Five Original Peoples, from whom the whole human race descends, naturally gave rise to five distinct cultures.

The Plan was to unite those five cultures into a single civilization, from which would emerge the idea of a worldwide kingdom, the original homeland of all the future peoples of mankind.

The crown of that kingdom would be given by God to the First Man, who would call Him Father, and no one would have the authority to claim that power for himself.

And so, while this process of formation among the peoples of the Earth was unfolding, families arriving from many different regions met together in Mesopotamia, known in modern times as Iraq.

They formed societies, built cities, and established systems of social order.

Yet never did they presume to grant themselves the power to choose a king and undertake, by their own authority, the work of unifying all the peoples of the Earth into one great kingdom.

God would give.

 

10. Adam and Eve

And He did.

The findings of archaeology surrounding the First Civilization, discovered between the great rivers of Mesopotamia, allow us to relate the Golden Age of the Neolithic and its Agricultural Revolution during the fifth millennium BC to the foundation of the city-states from whose union there emerged the first kingdom ever known upon Earth.

From families to cities, and from cities to the Kingdom of God on Earth, this was the Universal Movement along whose guiding lines the History of Humanity embarked upon its great Adventure under the guidance of the sons of God.

The structure of the cities, born from the gathering of the families of the Earth in Mesopotamia, demonstrates that the progressive development of the encounter between different human lineages within the walls of the city-states was moving toward the creation of that Kingdom, destined to gather within its Crown all the nations of mankind.

Yet the Crown could descend only from Heaven.

That is to say, the man destined to become king, and therefore a son of God, could be called to that dignity only by God Himself, from the very womb of his mother.

And so it came to pass.

God gave His chosen one a new name: Adam.

God adopted him as His son.

And He revealed to him the future of humanity, woven beforehand within His own Mind according to His Foreknowledge.

Beyond Eden, the voice of the Spirit spread the message. The divine election had taken place. The Crown had descended from Heaven. The Kingdom of God upon Earth had become a reality. Such was the origin of the First Kingdom established among the families of men.

This is the origin of Abraham, father of Israel.

 

11. Adam's Achilles' Heel

The original human society had not been founded upon property, deceit, or the conquest of power.

Everything belonged to God, and His priests stored the fruits of labor within the Temple, from which they were distributed according to the needs of every family.

A man's word was law.

Man, created in the image and likeness of his Creator, never spoke in vain.

The Word is God, and the Word of God is Law. Therefore the word of Man is law, fashioned in the image and likeness of the Word of God.

Here lay man's strength in the eyes of his Creator: in that innocence which led him to trust the word of his neighbor as he trusted his own.

Until the son of perdition arrived.

He turned that very strength into the target of his treacherous arrow.

And civil war came to pass.

The sin of the King of Eden was to proclaim Holy War as the means by which the Kingdom of God should be carried to every nation of the Earth.

Against this temptation, the temptation to choose war over peace and terror over love, God had already pronounced His omnipotent and eternal decree:

"On the day you eat of it, you shall surely die."

Therefore:

Death to all who make war.

Death to all who rise in arms against their brother.

Every kind of war, whether holy or profane, is an offense against the Creation of God and therefore against the Creator Himself.

Was not the Serpent cunning?

Since Man had been created in the image and likeness of God and regarded the Word as divine, the Serpent clothed himself as a messenger of God and, through words, murdered those for whom the Word was Law.

 

12. Greater Still Would Be the Vengeance

Woe to the Serpent when the Father of that Child should return.

The Dragon would be cast beyond the boundaries of Creation, into the realm where non-being suffers a death that never fully comes and never departs.

His plans to force God into transforming Paradise into a world of gods beyond good and evil were doomed to complete failure.

In God, the Father and the Judge are one indivisible reality. Justice and Love are the two arms of His Spirit.

To Hell with those who love Hell. Blessed be God and His holy spirit of justice.

He cannot endure the sight of all that we have seen and heard, and for this reason the whole Creation has waited in expectation, dreaming of the Day of the glorious freedom of His children, when the King of Paradise shall rise at the head of His House against all that Hell has sown among the sons of Earth.

Dance, warriors, the dance of victory in honor of the Unconquered One. Clap your hands, winds of the North. Carry the news across the seas, winds of the West. Bear the cry of hope to those who dwell in the shadows of the East:

The King is coming. Princes shining like suns surround Him. The army of Paradise, the army of the Good, sings once more at the end of the Night.

Yes, children of the Earth, woe unto the Rebels for a third time. They filled to overflowing the cup of divine patience. In their madness they sought to transform water not into wine, but into poison. Then God swore that He would not sheathe His sword until its blade had fallen upon the head of the murderer and his accursed accomplices. He swore by His honor and His glory that a Child born of that Eve would inherit His sword, the sword of the Creator. Then the Word of God would be fulfilled:

"He shall crush your head."

Do you not see, children of the Great Spirit, the vision granted to the Eternal Warrior?

What arm fashioned from clay could possibly lift the sword of the Hero whose galaxies roam joyfully through infinity?

The answer lies within yourselves, for He was among us:

The Arm of God. The Arm of His Son. The Arm of Yahweh.

Having seen his Father's vision, Adam rose from the ground and danced upon the ruins of his despair, dancing the dance of heroes in honor of the Champion whom the Great Spirit had chosen for the children of Earth.

This is the origin of Christ.

 

13. East of Eden

In the bitterness of the despair that split his soul and tore apart his mind, Adam beheld the entire history of mankind, from the first fratricide to the final bomb that shattered the Earth and reduced it to mountains of stone dissolving into the smoke of the stars. The horrors he witnessed terrified him so profoundly that he found it impossible to believe that his God and Father would allow such a tragedy to take place.

And it came to pass that Adam was not mistaken.

God felt Satan's betrayal like a dagger thrust into His back, like a spear driven through His very heart. With His chosen one dead, the Earth would be left at the mercy of a Dragon consumed by the desire to impose his empire from one end of the world to the other.

Yet through His omniscience and His almighty power, God knew that the Ancient Serpent had just signed his own sentence of eternal exile from Heaven, from Earth, and from the whole of Creation. By His honor, a son descended from that same Adam would one day rise to the clouds, lift up his arms, and bring down upon the murderer of Adam the Hammer of Vengeance.

Adam and Eve, too, were driven far from their homeland. They were sent where no one could find them and kill the Child of the Prophecy.

It was as though the earth itself had swallowed them. God hid them from the wrath of their brethren among the peoples of the mountains, cave-dwellers, the hunters and skin-clad highlanders of the East.

This is the genealogy of the sons of Noah.

 

14. The First Mesopotamian Civil War.

Immediately after the Fall, the very ancient cities of Ur, Lagash, Kish, Umma, appointed kings, and each king set out to make the utopia of the universal kingdom a reality using force.

The rebellious angels opened Pandora's Box, gave our world as their field of action, and the long reach of their tentacles touched all nations. It also reached Cain, who killed Abel in a desperate attempt to force God to give him the glory of the prince of the avengers.

Consoled by Wisdom, Adam and Eve taught Seth the Messianic Doctrine of the Patriarchs. No one except God Himself knew the time of the Birth. When those first fratricidal wars ended, Seth’s children should returned to the lost homeland to learn to live with the other families in freedom and equallity, never forgetting the state of declared war between Heaven and Hell, and the part assigned to them in the encounter.

The first man who called God Father was Adam; but by no means was Adam going to be the last one whom God would call Son in front of all creation.

This is the mythological origin of King David.

 

15. Towards the Great Flood.

The chronicles known for the period of the Fall of the City-States and the Era before the Flood come to us in an arcane form from the records discovered in Middle Eastern archaeological sites. They speak of royal chronicles, of the divine origin of royalty. They align with the Hebrew Genesis in the account of the Flood.

As can be deduced from the history of that world of myths and heroes, the City-States bought peace at a very high price. The No-Law the Law uniting being and non-being in a bomb handed over to the empire of the ancient gods the scepter of the Four Regions. These, the evil and cursed gods who sowed the weeds of their lies from one end of the world to the other, with neither fear nor honor nor shame in their hearts, not content with having declared war on the one they still called Father, offended him limitless by trampling on a sacred, inviolable law, a crime so unbearable that the Great Spirit suffered the unspeakable in silence. But swallowing his pride, with his blood burning, the Divine Warrior endured the suffering, storing in his soul the fire in which those wicked and cursed demons would burn forever. Because if a father, out of love for a child, allows that child to kill his other siblings, that father is the evil and perverse demon from whose womb such an evil child would emerge. Such criminal behavior is far from Divine Fatherhood.

Silent, with clenched teeth and nerves on edge, God endured the unspeakable the day His sacred law against the crossing of cosmic races was trampled on. Satan and his cursed brothers joined with human women, and from them were born creatures half-human, half-demon, whose guts were torn by an immortality that was denied to them, spreading destruction across the world, turning the lands into a field of devastation where, through human sacrifices, they sought from their demonic parents the immortality that was denied to them.

They, the heroes of long ago, were the founders of the bloody religions that ravaged the lands and compared our ancestors to beasts, sacrificing them on the altar of their impossible passions in the quest for the fountain of eternal youth. Maddened by being neither divine nor human, they sowed the world with those wars and senseless violences that the Ancients recorded in their stories and legends, when out of love for a woman a man was capable of setting an entire city on fire, as if in the world that Helen had been the last woman on the face of the earth. Savage, monsters born from cursed seeds, the heroes of long ago were born to die dragging to the grave everyone around them, as is shown in the tombs of the Ra and the Amons of Egypt.

Unable to bear the presence of that world any longer, where bestiality set the rule, God chose to bring that work to an end, tear it down, and start a new one. Whether the Flood affected all the continents in the same way and at the same time is a matter for another story. If it was so, each people suffered it in their own way.

 

16. From Noah to Abraham

Radiocarbon evidence places the Flood near the close of the fourth millennium BC and the dawn of the third. Archaeological reconstruction broadly supports this testimony.

Many survived the catastrophe and began anew. In that age of reconstruction, the sons of Noah descended from the eastern mountains and entered once more the arena of human affairs. They came not as wanderers but as builders, warriors, and founders of nations. The traditions preserved in Akkadian myth bear a remarkable resemblance to those found in the Hebrew record. It is therefore no surprise that many historians have sought connections between the story of Gilgamesh and the ancient memories preserved in Genesis.

Let us remember the promise given by God to the sons of Noah:

"Your descendants shall possess the gates of Hell."

In that promise the Father of Adam reaffirmed His ancient oath against the princes of the Abyss.

Already the cursed demons celebrated what they believed to be their final triumph. They rejoiced over the destruction of the old world and mocked the coming of the Son of Eve before His birth.

Yet the Silent King did not despair. The Great Spirit showed no sign of defeat. Instead, He raised His head and renewed His oath before Heaven and Earth:

"The Son of Man shall crush your head. Dance while you may, you cursed One."

So Noah and his sons came down from the mountains of the East. Again, the cuneiform traditions themselves remember that Gilgamesh, the greatest warrior of his time, came from the highlands.

The descendants of Noah settled among the cities, multiplied, and spread throughout Nippur, Uruk, Ebla, Kish, Lagash, Umma, and Ur. In this Ur of the Third Dynasty lived the parents of Abraham when egolatrous madness led the king of Ur to grant himself the constitutional immunity that was presumed to belong to the gods.

But let us outline in broad strokes the succession of those events.

According to the archaeological evidence at our disposal, we can place the date of the Flood at the end of the Fourth Millennium and the beginning of the Third. The so-called Protodynastic Period, according to the Sumerian King List, situates its origin in 2900. This placement requires us to position a couple of centuries between the catastrophe and the rebirth of the populations..

There, amid the rebirth of civilization, the foundations of a new age were laid. But since this is not so much about translating the List as about unifying History with Genesis, we need to start by identifying the Neolithic Golden Age with the Ubaid Period and Culture, between 5000 and 4000 BC, a period that, by injecting into its dynamics the logic of Human Nature, frames it as the culmination of the great family movements that had been taking place from the East and the West. In the western Mediterranean case, it left its marks in megalithic architecture and Cave Painting (Altamira, Lascaux, etc.). From the south of the Iberian Peninsula to the south of the Anatolian Peninsula, this migratory process of Homo Sapiens, whose genius is already natural, historically culminates in the Mesopotamian region, where the western population merges with the Asian and African populations to give rise to the Ubaid Culture. The List then begins where Genesis ends. Adam-Alulim is the final result of the socio-historical growth of an Original Civilization that spreads throughout the region and determines its political evolution in the direction of the Foundation of the Monarchy, which “descends from the sky” in Sumerian terms, and proceeds by God’s Choice according to biblical terminology. Despite the distance the List aims to invoke, the memory of the Fall of the first Monarchy known to the world, which gave rise to the First Historical Civil War, couldn’t be far removed on the other side of the Flood. If the founding of Eridu is calculated around 4900, integrating its origins into the general movement of international populations that founded the Ubaid Civilization, the emergence of the political growth that led to the Foundation of the Monarchy wouldn’t arrive until well into the Fifth Millennium, already on the border of the Fourth Millennium before Christ. Taking as a relative but approximate calculation the 3,760 years of the Jewish Era, it makes sense legally to place, between the Civil War that follows the Fall of Adam and the destruction of the world of El Obeid under the waters of the Flood Cataclysm—when the Columns of Hercules fall (the Strait of Gibraltar opens), Atlantis sinks (the Strait of Marmara opens), etc.—a span of a few centuries, and to allow a few more centuries for the populations to regain their numbers. The trauma represented by a Civil War compounded by the Tragedy of a Flood would inevitably leave a deep scar in the Memory of the Survivors, who, even without the capacity to record past events, would still be marked enough to bear witness to the two major events at the root of their misfortune: The Foundation of the Monarchy and the Flood that buried its Crown under the waters.

When the waters receded, Kish was the first city to rise and establish a king.

Soon afterward Uruk entered the stage of history, bringing with it the adventures of its legendary ruler, Gilgamesh. After Gilgamesh's death, leadership returned to Kish. Later it passed to Ur, then to Lagash, and eventually to Umma, whose ruler claimed for himself the Empire of Eden.

Yet Umma held that power only briefly. A young cupbearer of Kish named Sargon seized it from their hands. He rebelled against his master, founded the imperial city of Akkad, and from Akkad he went forth to conquer the world. And conquer it he did. His dynasty ruled for nearly a century before the first barbarian invasions swept across the Empire of Eden, spreading anarchy throughout the Four Regions.

With the fall of Akkad, the ancient cities returned once more to prominence.

Lagash rose again under the leadership of the renowned Gudea, though it was not Gudea who liberated the land from barbarian domination. That task fell to the coalition of the southern cities led by the king of Uruk. Under that banner, after the defeat of the Barbarians, the chief Utukhegal wanted to proclaim himself emperor, which Chief Nammu and his council of princes of Ur didn’t like at all, and they declared the logical war of independence against him. Under this banner, indeed, we can place the fathers of Abraham. We are on the border between the two millennia, the Third and Second BC, whenm Uruk's ruler, Utu-hegal, sought to proclaim himself emperor. .

Within that world lived the forefathers of Abraham.

However, let us note that before the discovery of the Sumerian Lost Cities, in the second half of the 19th century, when speaking of Nineveh, Ur, Kish, Akkad, Lagash, and so on, these Cities and their World, which are part of the Prophetic-Old Testament World, those cities and their world, in the opinion of 18th and early 19th century Science, never existed, with the Genesis of Moses and the books of the Prophets, dealing from Nebuchadnezzar backward, being pure literary invention, a tale of mythological old women that the Israelites had pulled out of thin air and the Christians had rescued in order to keep the nations in darkness, from which Science was going to pull them all, especially by the heights of the 20th century, the date that scientists signed as the date of Christianity’s death.

But due to one of those events that should never happen but do, a generation of crazy scientists, as if vested with the power of Jesus Christ to raise the dead, set out to resurrect the Lost Cities of Sumer, which until then had been just old wives' tales. Sayce, Maspero, Rawlingson, etc., blew apart the dialectics of 19th-century historical materialism with the New Science of Interpreting Languages rescued from the Tomb: Sumerian, Hittite... where Nineveh, Ur, Kish, Lagash, Akkad, etc., etc., the cities featured in the Sumerian King List, were resting. The relationship between the lifespans in the Biblical Genealogies and the lifespans of the kings on this List was and still is one of those jaw-dropping phenomena.

Let’s remember:

 

The Sumerian King List

Kingship descended from Heaven.

Eridu was chosen as the royal city.

Alulim, the first king upon Earth, reigned for 28,800 years.

Alalgar, the second king upon Earth, reigned for 36,000 years.

Thus two kings ruled for a total of 64,800 years.

Then Eridu fell, and kingship passed to Bad-tibira.

There En-men-lu-ana reigned for 43,200 years.

En-men-gal-ana followed him for 28,800 years.

Dumuzid the Shepherd reigned for 36,000 years.

Thus three kings ruled for a total of 108,000 years.

Then Bad-tibira fell, and kingship passed to Larak.

En-sipad-zid-ana reigned in Larak for 28,800 years.

Larak fell, and kingship passed to Sippar.

En-men-dur-ana held the crown in Sippar for 21,000 years.

Sippar in turn fell, and kingship passed to Shuruppak.

Ubara-Tutu reigned in Shuruppak for 18,600 years.

Thus eight kings ruled five cities for a total of 241,200 years.

Then the Great Flood swept across the land.

 

On the Rediscovery of the Sumerian King List

Returning to the topic of the discovery of this real Sumerian List, it is necessary to say, in trying to address the Recreation of historical times derived from the Archaeological Revolution of the late 19th century—a revolution much bigger by far than the Darwinian one, to focus on the topic—from whose field Ideological Nazism would come to light, from which Hitlerian National Socialism and Stalinist Socialism would emerge as its two most worthy putative children in the global civil-war-like structure that ideological Darwinism carried in its extra-scientific formulation; Archaeological Revolution that precisely the two monsters born of Darwinism, whether they intended to or not, buried in silence under the roar of the two world wars that shook the body of the 20th century, and precisely because of that silence to which Archaeology was subjected: the continuation of that late 20th-century revolution ended up in the hands of a school whose prejudices became evident, one of them during the last of the two wars, whose nature we can sum up in one keyword: Antisemitism, and the other that had been operating in the German-English school since the Reformation: Anti-Catholicism; prejudices that led to the acceptance of fundamental mistakes that should have been corrected, but which, thanks to the interlude of the world wars, not only weren’t corrected but were even reinforced at the university level. Under this antisemitism law, any line of research that led to a Hebraic-Mesopotamian connection was condemned to exile because it could be used as an argument in favor of Catholicism. Following this unscientific path, the successors of the nineteenth-century archaeological school turned a blind eye to all the evidence pointing to a Hebraic-Mesopotamian connection, irrationally reversing the assumptions, so that it wasn’t the other peoples who derived their traditions from the Hebrew Memory, but rather the Hebrews who built their myths from the Mesopotamian-Babylonian substrate.

The case of the Flood is the most pathetic example served. Not only did they deny, and continue to deny, the existence of such a catastrophe, even when its memory was corroborated by extra-biblical sources, but in a display of zero intellectual ability, they dismissed the testimony of those sources that supported the Bible, claiming that the Bible was based on that Sumerian mythology, thus twisting the meaning and nature of the Scientific Method. Instead of using both sources as door jambs to enter and make their way into the interregnum between the First Mesopotamian Kingdom, founded by the Generation of Adam, Alulim from the Sumerian King List, the New Historical School that emerged from the Two Great World Wars simply accepted the error of their teachers, treating the millennium from the Fall of the Kingdom of the Four Rivers to the First Kingdom of the Four Regions as a black hole and unfathomable gap.

The Neolithic Golden Age, identified here with the Ubaid world, appears as the culmination of vast movements of population extending from the western Mediterranean to Mesopotamia. The traces of those migrations survive in megalithic architecture, cave painting, and the archaeological record scattered across Europe, Anatolia, and the Near East. In Mesopotamia these currents converged. There, peoples of diverse origins merged into a new civilization that acquired a collective consciousness of its destiny and projected itself toward the future through the founding of a kingdom. The ruler remembered as Alulim in the Sumerian tradition, and identified in this interpretation with Adam, stands at the symbolic beginning of that process. The tragedy that followed was the corruption of that original vision. War became an instrument of expansion. Power became an end in itself. And the kingdom that had been founded under the sign of unity entered the path of division. In theological language, this was the Fall. In historical language, it became the first great civil conflict remembered by civilization. The Flood, which followed generations later, brought that world to an end. Its cities disappeared. Its institutions collapsed. Yet its memory survived. Buried beneath mud, legend, and the passage of millennia, it waited until the archaeological discoveries of the modern age brought fragments of it back to light.

This should have been the basis from which, instead of using the Sumerian King List as a Source for the Bible, it should have been used as a Witness, the Recreation of Ancient History of the 4th Millennium BC should have made its way toward the Golden Age of Neolithic Sumer. Not only was this not done, but the method adopted was to erase from Research any trace that could lead to a connection between Biblical Heroes and Sumerian Heroes.

In defense of the Historical Sciences, let's say that Theology's outdated inability to make way, trapped in its dogmas of the Creation of Man from a pair and her from his rib, made such an opening of History to the Bible impossible. This Century will see the correction of past errors and will put everyone in their place. In the meantime, let's observe how when men begin to multiply again, the same evils that led the Sumerian City States to Civil War and ultimately to their destruction, reemerged. Next, we have the First Period of the Great Chiefs. That is, men confront each other again and appoint Military Chiefs to attack and defend. This Period culminates with the founding of the first of the kingdoms, subject to continuous palace revolutions, passing the crown from one family to another, following in this the most general law of History: despotism gives way to absolutism, and absolutism to revolution. Despotism comes back, absolutism comes back, and so on until war becomes the modus vivendi of the aristocratic classes that emerge over time. Specifically, the first of the historicized figures is Enmenbaragesi, from the fourth monarchical period, king of Kish, around 2700 B.C., overthrown by Dumizid the Fisherman, successor of Lugalbanda the Shepherd.

 

The First Monarchical Age

In E-ana, Meskiaggasher, son of Utu, proclaimed himself lord and king. He ruled for 324 years.

When Meskiaggasher vanished beyond the sea, his son Enmerkar succeeded him and built the city of Uruk. He reigned for 420 years.

Thus the House of Meskiaggasher ruled for a total of 745 years.

 

The Age of the Great Chieftains

Lugalbanda the Shepherd ruled for 1,200 years.

After him came Dumuzid the Fisherman of Kuara, who reigned for 100 years.

It was he who captured Enmebaragesi.

 

The Second Monarchical Age

Then came Gilgamesh, lord of Kulaba, whose father was said to be a spirit from beyond the world of men.

Gilgamesh reigned for 126 years.

Ur-Nungal, his son, succeeded him and ruled for 30 years.

Udul-kalama, son of Ur-Nungal, ruled for 15 years.

Labacum reigned for 9 years.

Ennuntarahana for 8.

Mese the Smith for 36.

Melenana for 6.

Lugalkitun for 36.

In all, twelve kings ruled for a period of 2,310 years.

Then Uruk fell, and kingship passed to Ur.

 

Ur: The First Dynasty

In Ur, Mesannepada ruled for 80 years.

His son Meskiag-Nanna ruled for 36 years.

Elulu reigned for 25.

Balulu for 36.

Thus four kings ruled for a total of 171 years.

Then Ur was conquered, and kingship passed to Awan.

In Awan, three kings ruled for a period of 356 years.

Thereafter Awan fell, and kingship returned to Kish.

 

The Second Age of the Great Chieftains

In Kish, Susuda the Deceiver ruled for 201 years.

Dadasig followed him for 81 years.

 

The Third Monarchical Age

Mamagal the Boatman ruled for 360 years.

Kalbum, his son, ruled for 195.

Tuge ruled for 360.

Mennuna, son of Tuge, for 180.

 

The Third Age of the Great Chieftains

Ibbi-Ea ruled for 290 years.

Lugalju for 360.

Eight kings in all held power during a period of 3,915 years.

Then Kish fell, and kingship passed to Hamazi.

 

Hamazi

Hadanish ruled Hamazi for 360 years.

Then Hamazi fell, and kingship returned once more to Uruk.

 

The Return of Uruk

Enshakanshanna ruled for 60 years.

Lugalure for 120.

Argandea for 7.

Thus three kings ruled for a total of 197 years.

Then Uruk fell, and kingship returned to Ur.

 

Ur: The Second Dynasty

Nani ruled Ur for 120 years.

Meshkiag-Nanna, his son, ruled for 48.

His successor reigned for only two years.

Three kings ruled for a total of 170 years.

Then Ur fell, and kingship passed to Adab.

Lugal-Anemundu reigned in Adab for 90 years.

Afterward kingship passed to Mari.

 

Mari

Anbu ruled for 30 years.

Anba, his son, for 17.

Bazi the Fuller for 30.

Zizi the Deceiver for 20.

Limer the Gudu Priest for 30.

Sharrumiter for 9.

Thus six kings ruled for 136 years.

Then Mari fell, and kingship returned to Kish.

 

Ku-Bau and the Kings of Kish

Ku-Bau the Innkeeper ruled Kish for 100 years.

After her reign, power passed to Akshak.

There Unzi ruled for 30 years.

Undalulu for 6.

Urur for 6.

Puzur-Nirah for 20.

Ishu-Il for 24.

Shu-Sin, son of Ishu-Il, for 7.

Thus six kings ruled for a total of 99 years.

Akshak fell, and kingship returned to Kish.

Puzur-Sin, son of Ku-Bau, reigned for 25 years.

Ur-Zababa, his son, succeeded him.

The dynasty of Ku-Bau endured for 131 years.

Thereafter came Simudarra, Usiwatar, Ishtar-Muti, Ishme-Shamash, and Naniya the Stonecutter.

Seven kings ruled for a total of 491 years.

Then kingship passed from Kish to Uruk.

 

Lugalzagesi and the Rise of Akkad

Lugalzagesi ruled in Uruk for 25 years.

Then he was defeated, and kingship passed to Akkad.

There arose Sargon.

His father was a gardener, and he himself had served as cupbearer to Ur-Zababa, king of Kish.

Sargon broke away, founded Akkad, and from Akkad established his dominion.

He ruled for 56 years.

After him came Rimush, his son.

Then Manishtusu.

Then Naram-Sin.

Then Sharkalisharri.

Together they formed the great dynasty of Akkad.

For 157 years the empire endured.

Afterward confusion descended upon the kingdom.

"Did Irgigi reign? Did Imi reign? Did Nanum reign? Did Ilulu reign?"

So the ancient scribes asked.

Four kings ruled a combined total of only three years.

Then came Dudu and Shu-Dudu.

Eleven kings ruled for a total of 181 years.

At last Akkad fell, and kingship returned to Uruk.

 

The Gutian Interregnum

Then came the Gutians.

Among them there were no great dynasties, only chieftains who rose and fell in rapid succession.

Twenty-one rulers governed during a period of 124 years and 40 days.

At last the Gutians were defeated.

Kingship returned to Uruk.

There Utu-hegal ruled for seven years, six months, and fifteen days.

When he fell, kingship passed to Ur.

 

Ur: The Third Dynasty

Ur-Nammu ruled for 18 years.

His son Shulgi ruled for 46.

Amar-Sin for 9.

Shu-Sin for 9.

Ibbi-Sin for 24.

Five kings ruled for a total of 108 years.

Then Ur was destroyed.

The very foundations of Sumer trembled.

And kingship passed to Isin.

 

Isin

Ishbi-Erra ruled for 33 years.

He was followed by Shu-Ilishu, Iddin-Dagan, Ishme-Dagan, Lipit-Ishtar, Ur-Ninurta, Bur-Sin, Lipit-Enlil, Erra-Imitti, Enlil-Bani, Zambiya, Iter-Pisha, Ur-Dul-Kuga, and Sin-Magir.

Fourteen kings ruled Isin for a total of 203 years.

 

The Reckoning of Kings

Thus eleven royal cities bore the Crown.

One hundred and thirty-four kings held dominion over the land.

According to the reckoning preserved by the ancient scribes, their combined reigns amounted to 28,876 years.

And so the memory of kingship passed from age to age, from city to city, until history and legend became one.

 

17. Abraham

The structure of the historical record allows us to suppose that Nahor, Abraham's grandfather, was among the leaders of Ur who, under the command of Utu-hegal of Uruk, liberated the land from the anarchy into which the Gutians had plunged it.

Following this line of interpretation, Terah, Abraham's father, may likewise have taken part in the coalition of princes of Ur who rose under the leadership of Ur-Nammu against the tyranny to which Utu-hegal had surrendered himself.

The victory of the coalition of Ur enabled the sons of Ur-Nammu to seize the Crown.

Yet that Crown soon succumbed to the same corruption that had brought ruin upon earlier ages, when Ur-Nammu's successor, Shulgi, proclaimed himself a god upon Earth.

It was as though the world had returned to the days before the Flood, when the heroes of old declared themselves true sons of the gods and laid claim to the rights of divinity itself.

Were it not such beliefs and ambitions that had led the nations to destruction?

It was during the reign of the sons of Ur-Nammu, while Shulgi and his brothers ruled in Ur, that Abraham departed from his native city.

Unable any longer to endure such self-glorification, he left Ur.

Curiously, no one attempted to stop him.

The facts leave little room for doubt.

The military strength later displayed by the pastoral warriors under Abraham's command strongly suggests that the son of Terah stood near the very center of the political storm unleashed by Shulgi's deification.

Had his God not intervened, the son of Terah might well have led the revolt against the house of Ur-Nammu.

In that case the fate of Ur would have been decided by Abraham's army.

Thus, when Abraham departed from the city, the son of Ur-Nammu watched his most formidable opponent disappear into exile.

With the voluntary departure of the son of Terah, opposition to the dynasty was reduced to almost nothing.

And so Abraham set out at the head of a powerful host of shepherd-warriors.

He followed the course of the western river northward, and none dared stand against him.

Crossing into Syria, he entered a land open alike to shepherds and brigands, a frontier country claimed by none and contested by all.

Scripture relates that Abraham fought even against five kings together.

And he prevailed.

He continued to prevail.

Nor did Pharaoh dare carry through the bold intentions he had conceived.

What became of that proposed marriage to the wife of the Son of Noah?

An army of hardened men who obey the word of a single leader has never been an enemy easily challenged.

As for the approximate date of Abraham's wanderings, together with those of his son Isaac throughout the lands of the Ancient Near East, the famines recorded in Scripture correspond remarkably with those that afflicted the realm of the sons of Ur-Nammu, especially during the reign of Ibbi-Sin between 2028 and 2004 BC.

These events provide a possible location for Abraham within the chronology of history.

The presence of Abraham and Isaac among the Amorites, traditional enemies of Ur, further illuminates the geopolitical world in which the father of Isaac moved.

Their relationship appears to have followed the oldest rule of politics:

the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

And thus the historical setting in which Abraham lived emerges more clearly before us.

 

18. Israel

To many, Abraham's decision must have seemed incomprehensible.

He abandoned a course that might have won him glory and instead chose obedience.

What others may have called cowardice, Abraham understood as wisdom.

He preferred the counsel of his God to the judgment of men.

His theology admitted neither compromise nor revision.

The hour of the Son of Eve had not yet come.

That was his certainty.

To believe otherwise, to dismiss the story of Paradise Lost as nothing more than an old tale, was in Abraham's eyes the very temptation of Satan.

For impatience had been the mother of Cain's sin.

Ignorance, not wisdom, had driven his crime.

The One who swore vengeance reserved unto Himself the right to determine the hour of the final struggle between the Son of Eve and the Serpent.

The time and the manner belonged to God alone.

He speaks, and all Creation writes:

And so it was done.

For life itself resides within His Word.

Then God spoke to Abraham:

"Count the stars of Heaven, if indeed you are able. So numerous shall your descendants be."

Where now are the descendants of the House of Ur-Nammu?

After Isaac's death, during the lifetime of Jacob, father of Joseph, famine once again struck the lands of the Ancient Near East.

From Egyptian papyri comes evidence of a powerful Hebrew clan established along the Nile during those difficult years.

The Hebrew connection introduces Joseph into the great social and political movements that reshaped the court of Pharaoh during the age of famine.

With Joseph, Providence entered Egypt.

It is therefore easy to understand why Pharaoh and his court, in gratitude, permitted the brothers of Joseph to settle wherever they pleased along the banks of the Nile.

With Providence dwelling among them, the years of hardship seemed finally at an end.

 

19. Moses

We have placed the age of Abraham within the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur, between the opening and closing decades of the twenty-first century BC.

We have also seen how, during the reign of Amenemhat II, between 1929 and 1895 BC, Asiatic tribes began moving into Egypt, gradually advancing farther and farther south.

By the time of Senusret II, firm evidence for this immigration already appears in the historical records.

Yet the point that chiefly concerns us lies elsewhere.

Our attention is drawn to the famines that struck Egypt during the reign of Mentuhotep III.

These provide a connection with the story of Joseph and allow us to place the arrival of the Hebrews in the Nile Valley near the beginning of the second millennium BC.

The significance of this connection lies in the question it raises.

How was it possible that pastoral tribes should establish themselves so successfully within the kingdom of the Pharaohs, whose civilization had long been agricultural and deeply suspicious of nomadic peoples?

The answer points toward the profound transformation brought about by Joseph's presence at the royal court.

Indeed, it was during this period that Pharaoh began to acquire many of the characteristics later associated with the great imperial monarchies of Asia.

It is therefore understandable that, until the rise of the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, the Hebrews enjoyed a privileged friendship with Egypt.

Benefiting from that favor, they multiplied, expanded their settlements farther south, and gradually abandoned the pastoral traditions of their ancestors.

How swiftly prosperity makes men forget adversity.

One generation saved a kingdom.

Another became the labor force upon which that kingdom was built.

In time, the descendants of the saviors became the fathers of slaves.

And through one more turn of history's wheel, that very system would contribute to Egypt's ruin.

Yet we must proceed step by step.

The policy of friendship toward the peoples of the Near East pursued by the Pharaohs of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasties attracted another people into Egypt:

the Hyksos.

It is among the upheavals brought about by their rise that we must seek the identity of the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.

The Hebrews refused to support the Hyksos seizure of power.

Their reward was slavery.

As the Fourteenth Dynasty declined, the path to power opened before the Hyksos already dwelling within Egypt.

Only after the destruction of the Hyksos army, drowned in the waters of the Red Sea, would the Egyptians recover their lost throne.

Seen in this light, if the arrival of the Hebrews belongs somewhere within the twentieth century BC, their departure some four centuries later may reasonably be placed around the middle of the sixteenth century BC, precisely at the time of the fall of the Hyksos and the restoration of native Egyptian rule.

 

20. Joshua

Let it be said plainly: innocence was not Joshua's Achilles' heel.

In the Age of Bronze, it was metal that spoke, and Joshua was fluent in the language of arms. Under his command, the conquest of the Promised Land advanced from victory to victory.

Modern history, with its curious habit of denying while affirming and affirming while denying, tells us that during the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries BC a great tide of migrating peoples overturned the established order of the ancient Near East.

What happened, in simpler terms, was this:

Joshua and his Hebrews swept all before them.

The conquest of Biblical Palestine by a host of warrior-slaves could scarcely fail to unleash the terror that always precedes a stampede.

News of the liberation of the Hebrews spread fear throughout the lands west of the Jordan.

From our comfortable vantage point, three and a half millennia later, we summarize the story by saying that Egyptian slaves had rebelled against Pharaoh, avenged the deaths of their children, and destroyed the armies of the lord of the Nile upon the shores of the Red Sea.

They had crossed the Sinai.

Now they were advancing toward the lands of the Jordan under the command of a military leader who knew no mercy.

Their message to every city-state west of the river was unmistakable:

Flee, or be destroyed.

That is how the story appears to us.

But to the peoples of Biblical Palestine the tale was very different.

It seemed as though a nation had risen from the depths of the sea, like the descendants of some vanished Atlantis.

These sons of the ocean had shattered the empire of the Hyksos Pharaohs and now turned eastward with a single purpose:

to conquer, devastate, and destroy.

For who defeats an imperial army and then turns away instead of claiming the empire for himself?

They had crossed the wilderness only to bring ruin.

Then, just as the force of the Hebrew conquest resembled a rock crashing into the waters, another people emerged from those depths: the Philistines.

Yet the Philistines would not enter the story until its later chapters, when the peoples of the Near East finally discovered that the Hebrews were not monsters from a lost world, but men like themselves.

Let us recall the state of the world five centuries after Abraham.

The collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur left the Scepter of Empire waiting for the boldest adventurer to seize it.

While Joseph transformed the institutions of Egypt, Gungunum of Larsa rose to supremacy in Mesopotamia and dominated the final decades of the nineteenth century BC.

His death emboldened the kings of Isin, who failed in their efforts to recover their former preeminence and instead witnessed the deification of Gungunum's heirs.

This peculiar theocracy, so characteristic of Mesopotamian civilization, ultimately opened the path that would lead to the Babylon of Hammurabi.

During the eighteenth century BC, Assyria under Shamshi-Adad, Larsa under Rim-Sin, and Babylon under Hammurabi struggled among themselves and against their neighbors for mastery of the Empire.

By mid-century Hammurabi prevailed.

Once more, the Land of Eden lay in the grasp of a single ruler.

Yet his dominion proved short-lived.

In 1595 BC his dynasty passed away, and the land returned to the familiar anarchy that had so often marked its history.

The rise of a new ruling people, the Kassites, broadens our horizon.

For by this time three great kingdoms had emerged: the Hittites, Mitanni, and Egypt.

Together they inherited the geopolitical role once played by the old city-states.

The importance of Joshua's conquest may be measured by a striking fact:

none of these great powers succeeded in crossing the frontiers established by Joshua.

The Hebrews, known in many records as the Habiru, earned a reputation as formidable opponents along the borders of the Mitanni kingdom.

Only with the Philistine advance would this situation begin to change.

The Philistines shattered the Hittite world and erased the boundaries of the fallen kingdom of Mitanni.

They were also the first armies known to stand before the Hebrews confident of victory.

Even the armies of the renowned Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I, though reaching the Phoenician coast, neither dared nor succeeded in violating the borders established by Joshua.

It would not be until the eleventh century BC, after the collapse of the classical kingdoms of the Late Bronze Age, that those frontiers would finally be overrun and the Hebrew people themselves brought to the brink of destruction by the very forces that had overthrown the Hittites.

The Philistine ambition to seize Egypt, the third great kingdom of the age, required first the destruction of Israel.

That was no easy task while the God of Moses stood beside His people.

As the Hebrews had once freed Egypt from the Hyksos, so they would again become Egypt's deliverers, this time against the Philistines.

 

CORRELATION BETWEEN EVENTS IN THE NEAR EAST DURING THE SECOND HALF OF THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C., SUPPORTING THE EXODUS IN THE 16TH CENTURY B.C.

1750. The Hyksos conquer Avaris

1595. End of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Murshilish I, grandson of Khattushilish I, destroys Aleppo and Babylon.

1573–1550: The Egyptians expel the Hyksos

Exodus and the Fall of Jericho

 

The final chronology of the Near Eastern period in relation to Biblical history allows us to view events from a new perspective. The fragmentation of the chronology within the field of archaeology—intended to separate universal history from divine history—led, in the late 19th century A.D., to a shift in the dating of events that placed the Exodus in the 13th century B.C.

The impossibility of reconciling the events recounted in the Bible with our knowledge of Egyptian Pharaonic civilization and culture prevents us from attributing historical significance to an official chronology whose origin is unbiblical.

The primary factor that invalidates this dating of Moses’ birth to the 13th century B.C. lies in the monolithic endogamy of the Pharaonic House. To believe that an imperial dynasty founded on the closed endogamy of the Pharaonic family could have admitted into its ranks the son of a slave—as in the case of Moses—is to deny all accumulated knowledge regarding the mindset of the Pharaonic dynasty.

Truly, one must have one’s feet firmly planted in the most ferocious anti-Christianity to, against one’s own reason, blind oneself and overlook such barbarism.

It would be futile to attempt a reconstruction of the Pharaonic endogamous mentality, which we saw in its most brutal form in the story of Cleopatra VII. Racism is a modern phenomenon. Ancient peoples did not understand racism as we understand it. But to believe that a Hebrew, the son of slaves, could have been adopted—in the very 13th century B.C.—by the Pharaonic House as a prince is truly to demand that we cut off our own heads or detach ourselves from our brains.

Given the endogamous nature of the Pharaonic system—which would remain in force throughout the Ptolemaic era until its final gasp with Cleopatra VII—opening the gates of the Pharaoh’s court in the age of the Ramessides to the Moses of the Exodus is tantamount to asking us to let our brains be ripped out. Either the historical reality of this biblical hero is denied, or the official chronology of the Exodus—which places the Crossing of the Red Sea sometime in the 13th century—is rejected.

In the face of the Pharaonic endogamous mindset, there is no other choice. Such an event—the adoption of a slave by a Pharaonic princess—could only have taken place at the court of the Hyksos kings. Since both the Hebrew Israelites and the Hyksos people stemmed from the same lineage—two branches of the same Mesopotamian-Asian phenotype—the adoption by a Hyksos princess of the son of an Israelite slave was comparable to a Spanish woman adopting a French or Italian child. On the other hand, the endogamy of the Hyksos dynasty was limited to the military nature typical of any act of invasion and conquest.

That reaction by the Hyksos rulers to the growth of the Israelite population was never recorded, at any time, as characteristic of the native Egyptian court; and there are no records of such a measure, in general, and especially against the Israelites, for the simple reason that such barbarism was not in the nature of the Egyptians. Only a non-native court—the Hyksos, who saw themselves as invaders and were constantly on guard lest the coup d’état they had staged against their hosts, the Egyptians, backfire on them like a boomerang at the hands of the Israelites—could give its blessing to such a genocidal measure. That’s one point.

On the other hand, let us return to the coup d’état that the Hyksos carried out against their hosts, the Egyptians, in 1750 B.C.

From this year, 1750, until the year of their downfall, around 1550—give or take a decade—the Hyksos enjoyed two centuries of absolute rule, during which the Egyptians retreated to the south and waited there for their moment. What event suddenly enabled them to launch an all-out attack against an invader who had imposed its rule along the Nile for two centuries? We find that Egyptian military forces during the period prior to the fall of the Hyksos were virtually nonexistent.

Then there is Jericho, the walled city that could not withstand the siege of Joshua’s trumpets. Archaeologists acknowledge that it was at that time that its walls fell… but that they did so as a result of an earthquake.

We do not know on what evidence they base their claim that the region suffered an earthquake. Unless the earthquake was centered exclusively beneath Jericho, it is reasonable to believe that anti-biblical prejudice clouded the thinking of the founding fathers of Near Eastern archaeology, and—even with the dates aligning—anchored in their anti-biblical stance, they refused to connect the events.

First: Around 1750, the Hyksos—a people who did not know Joseph—entered Egypt.

For another two centuries, until approximately 1550—making it four centuries from Joseph to Moses—the Hyksos ruled the Pharaohs’ empire with absolute power.

In this same century, the 16th century B.C., the Hittites rearmed and set out to conquer Syria and Babylon.

Politically speaking, the Hyksos pharaoh had to confront this problem of the Hittite empire’s expansion. In fact, once Hyksos power had fallen, the Egyptian pharaoh established relations with the new power from the north.

What I mean is, the Israelites were a slave population that could have been used as a Trojan horse by the Hittites. A population of slaves yearning for freedom is always an internal threat prone to revolution, especially if it has external support. The Hyksos pharaoh could not go to war with the Hittite king while leaving this army of slaves behind. The decree to kill all Hebrew male children served to rub salt into the bleeding wound of the burden of slavery, while at the same time branding any insurrection with the iron of extermination. In fact, the Hittites did not cross the “Red Line” of Hyksos influence over the city-states of Biblical Palestine.

The Egyptians were biding their time. The rise of Hittite power could be used by the Egyptians against Hyksos power. Caught between the North and the South, in the middle stood an army of slaves awaiting a Liberator sent by their God to lead them to the land of their forefathers.

Mass infanticide would have been a sound political measure to keep this army of slaves—forged by labor from the cradle to the grave—in check. It is reasonable to believe, judging by the Hittites’ inaction and the Egyptians’ silence, that the Hyksos managed to contain the threat and establish a new international balance of power.

It was precisely then, when the Hyksos had firmly established themselves on the throne, that—out of the blue—that child saved from the waters appeared, at a most inopportune moment, the Hyksos would say, to repay the Hyksos in the very same coin with which the Hyksos had repaid the Hebrews: the death of all the Hyksos firstborns.

God did what comes naturally to God when God wishes to reveal Himself as God: He plunged the Hyksos throne into the abyss and restored the Egyptian to the court.

Now the problem begins. Did Jericho fall due to an isolated earthquake that sent its shockwaves exclusively against the walls of Jericho?

The chronological correspondence could not be clearer.

In approximately the 20th–19th centuries B.C., Joseph was viceroy to the Pharaoh.

Two centuries later, in the 18th century B.C., the Hyksos seized the throne of the Pharaohs.

Two centuries later, in the 16th century B.C., Moses freed the Hebrews and handed over command to Joshua.

While Joshua began the conquest of Palestine, the Egyptian returned home. A gift from Heaven, a grace from the God of Moses.

Jericho falls around 1550 B.C. Terror grips all the kingdoms of Palestine. A restructuring of the Ancient World begins in preparation for the Coming of the Redeemer, whose principal figures will be David, Solomon, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, and Octavian Augustus.

We will return to this Concordance at a later date.

But in this, as in so many other things, it is a matter of recounting drops from the ocean. Without going any further, we see how the spheres of influence between the Hyksos and the Hittites—established following the Hittite conquest of Aleppo and Babylon—are respected by the Hebrews. Joshua extends the expansion of the tribes within that geopolitical framework. By establishing the Jordan River as the national border, Joshua avoided a direct confrontation with the Hittite kingdom at the height of its imperial power. We must not forget that, in the science of battlefield warfare, the Hebrews—who had just emerged from four centuries of isolation—were inexperienced warriors. A direct confrontation with the Hittite kingdom was the last thing Joshua could afford.

In other words, the geopolitical structure of the region and the Hebrews’ conquest of Palestine coincide in time with such precision that there is no room for doubt when it comes to situating this event—of universal character and significance—in the 16th century B.C.

First, Moses brought about the fall of the Hyksos Dynasty in Egypt and, as a consequence, the restoration of the native Pharaonic Dynasty; then Joshua became the epicenter of the earthquake that brought down the walls of Jericho and spread terror among the city-states on this side of the Jordan.

We also observe that the Hittites respected the geopolitical framework established after their conquest of Aleppo and Babylon—a conquest that paved the way for the Hebrews’ entry into the Promised Land—and we view this as the Divine action that prepared the way for the Exodus. It is absurd to believe—given Babylon’s hunger for empire in those days—that if the Hittites had not brought an end to its kingdom, Babylon would have stood idly by in the face of the consequences of the Exodus.

If, on the contrary, one seeks to make us believe in a matter of coincidences, our response can only be that which suits one who has blinded himself to reason and sees in the darkness only what he imagines he sees. The fact is that between subjective imagination and objective reality there exists a wall, on one side of which lies ignorance and on the other, madness. In this century, the historical sciences—like all the branches of the Tree of Knowledge—will have to choose which side they stand on; depending on that decision, the appropriate and necessary measures will be taken to place that Tree in the Garden to which it naturally belongs: the Garden of Truth.

 

21. The Judges

With settlement in the Promised Land came all the ailments of ancient sedentary life.

"Tell it to me again, Grandfather."

The Sacred Scriptures.

Always the Sacred Scriptures.

"Ask the elders, and they will tell you."

"Hear, O Israel..."

In time, ears grew weary of hearing the same story repeated a thousand times.

Yes, yes.

Adam and the forbidden fruit.

Noah and the Flood.

Abraham and Isaac.

Joseph and his brothers.

The generations that followed gradually adapted themselves to the world around them.

Their neighbors called it progress.

Whenever they embraced it, the road seemed easier.

Moses remained the great exception.

Yet they never learned.

And so, when that faith which once moved mountains finally found itself facing Goliath in the arena of history, the truth must be told:

it no longer moved mountains. It scarcely moved its own feet.

They stood frozen with fear, rooted to the ground, living perhaps the last hours of their freedom, perhaps the last hours of their lives.

The Philistines' treatment of conquered peoples filled everyone with dread.

And Goliath took pleasure in reminding them.

Death or slavery.

Had they already forgotten the days when they themselves had driven nations from their lands with the cry:

Flight or Death!

And it was precisely there that Pharaoh had made his mistake.

"Kill the dog and the rabies dies with it,"

Goliath mocked before them all.

 

22. David

Would any man ever have spoken to Joshua as Goliath spoke to Saul?

The people of Jericho hid behind walls so high and thick they might as well have been the Great Wall itself.

What good did it do them?

How long did they think they could hold out?

Until the infants at their mothers' breasts grew beards?

Ha!

Did God not work a miracle when He brought Israel out of Egypt?

Why should He not work another now?

"For example," croaked Goliath when he caught sight of the one who had uttered such childish nonsense, "He might save your life."

The giant burst into laughter.

They had chosen as their champion a skinny shepherd boy, a gangling stripling bouncing about between the giant and the enemy ranks.

Was it not ridiculous?

The Philistines howled with delight.

But David answered:

"Be silent, pagan dog.

You know nothing.

You are as foolish as you are large.

God is about to perform a work as great as the one He performed in Egypt.

Those who hear of it will scarcely believe it.

They will say to one another:

'Have you heard the latest Hebrew joke?'

A shepherd boy is tending his flock upon a hillside when a giant appears before him, armed like a second Hercules.

Hungry, the giant seizes one of the shepherd's fattest sheep.

The boy catches him in the act.

And what do you suppose the shepherd says to the giant?"

That is the part you will never believe.

For the shepherd boy was a lion under an enchantment.

He did not speak.

He roared.

Not like a cub.

Like the king of beasts himself.

Round and round the giant strode the enchanted shepherd, moving to the rhythm of war drums.

Above his head his sling whirled in widening circles, the stone spinning with terrifying speed.

The enemies urged on their champion.

Yet they recoiled whenever the young shepherd rushed toward the Philistine line, driving before him that strange roar which seemed to tear through the senses like a spell.

At last Goliath lost patience.

Driven beyond endurance by the sight of that dancing fool, he committed the unforgivable mistake.

With a curse he tore off his helmet and hurled it to the ground.

He was about to speak.

He opened his mouth to say something.

He never had the chance.

The shepherd released the stone.

The missile flew.

A perfect strike.

Between the eyes.

In the blink of an eye it was over.

The giant fell backward like a sack of grain.

Then David cried out in triumph:

"This is what the Son of Adam shall do to the Devil.

Watch well, warriors.

He shall raise the sword and sever his head with a single blow."

And so a shepherd boy stood against the loudest giant in the world and struck off his head.

Is that not a marvelous thing?

 

23. The Court of the Prophet-King

Saul reigned from 1025 to 1010 BC.

David reigned from 1010 to 955 BC.

The coronation of Saul reveals to us the chaos into which the Philistines had plunged the world.

The Hittites, the Mitanni, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, all were but shadows of what they had once been.

The future of civilization rested in the hands of the Hebrews.

Yet even they would not have survived had it not been for the God of David, the true architect of Israel's victory over the armies that Hell had raised in its war against Heaven.

But let us leave Divine History aside for the moment.

During the course of his reign David learned what had truly happened in Eden.

God also revealed to him His plan for the universal redemption of mankind.

When David beheld in spirit the end of the battle between the Son of God and the Beast, he rejoiced.

Yet David was never a man to reveal all that he knew.

Surrounded by enemies who sought either his throne or his life, he kept much hidden within his own heart.

What he made public was what God inspired him to write.

Thus were born the songs, prophecies, and sacred writings destined for future generations.

The idea of the Messianic King soon took hold among the young warriors of Israel.

It grew steadily until it found its champion in Absalom.

Absalom was neither willing nor able to tolerate the triumph of Solomon's faction.

He believed they intended to exploit the king's old age in order to secure the rights of succession for a puppet of their own making.

And so he resolved upon a single objective:

Solomon had to die.

 

24. Solomon

"The first thought is rarely the last.

More often it is merely the first stone in an entire architecture of events.

Wisdom does not require old age before it may be attained.

The final word belongs not to the oldest man, but to the wisest.

And yet even the wise distrust the omnipotence of their own reason.

The king receives his thought from God, and from the will of God he receives his strength.

The thoughts of man are mist among the shadows.

It is the Spirit of Wisdom that breathes life into the intellect and raises it toward the answer known only by the One to whom God has revealed all things.

God speaks and God acts.

Here lies the beginning of human understanding."

Solomon grew up beneath a rain of teachings such as these.

Within the court of his father the Spirit of God moved freely.

The prophet Nathan, for example, came and went through the palace of the most heavily guarded king in the world as though he were entering his own home.

And indeed, had Nathan remained silent, David's great crime might never have been exposed.

For David had killed a husband in order to take his wife.

Nathan entered the royal palace as Moses himself had once entered the halls of Pharaoh.

No ordinary man could have passed through the seven walls of undefeated warriors who guarded the king of Jerusalem.

Yet Nathan walked directly into the throne room.

The knowledge of David's crime burned within him.

The man who possessed the most beautiful women in the world had allowed himself to be carried away by the most reckless of passions.

Nathan confronted the king and asked:

"If a man kills another in order to rob him, is not his life forfeit?

And if he steals his neighbour's wife at the price of his brother's blood, what punishment does he deserve?"

David's sin was all the greater because he had been anointed by God.

The question hung over the court.

Had David trapped God within Satan's own dilemma?

Would God condemn an entire people for the sin of a single man?

And yet only one man in all the kingdom could have spoken to David in this manner.

Only a son could rebuke a father.

Only one born from David's own flesh could bind the tongue of the prophet-king.

The God who loved David so deeply knew him perfectly.

And so He raised up from David's own house a son destined to speak the words no other man dared utter.

 

25. The Birth of Judaism

"He gives the orders, my son," Solomon would say to Rehoboam.

"His armies move at the command of His Word.

No leader among His people must assume the prerogatives of the Lord of Hosts.

He is never absent.

He does not abandon His armies to defeat.

He knows the when and the how.

The king is charged with safeguarding the peace and welfare of his people.

Yet the people of the Lord God are His entire Creation.

In His omniscience He directs the course of the nations.

Victory belongs to Him.

It is He who chooses the leaders of His people from their mothers' wombs.

Therefore, my son, be wise."

Alas, all of it was carried away by the wind.

Behind his father's back, Rehoboam embraced the creed that would become Judaism.

The tribe of Judah had resolved to inaugurate the Messianic Age on the day following Solomon's death.

Once Solomon was gone, the other tribes would be confronted with an accomplished fact and, so it was believed, would ultimately join the project.

"My son, do not be dazzled by those who sit at the king's table.

They speak for their own interests, not with the wisdom of God upon their lips.

What good is a ring of gold in the snout of a pig?

And is not greed the ruin of the greedy?"

What a father he was, had he only been blessed with a wiser son.

Beyond the borders established by Solomon, the crocodile of the Nile lay in wait.

Beyond the Great Rivers, the Assyrian bear was beginning to awaken from its sleep.

"Do not be foolish, my son..."

Words of wisdom spoken into the ears of a donkey.

When the Wise King died, the Crocodile of the Nile descended upon Jerusalem.

It stripped the silver stones from her streets.

It tore the golden roofs from her palaces.

It carried away the ivory that adorned her halls.

And it left behind the son of the Wise King, weeping like a woman for what he had failed to defend like a man.

This took place around the year 930 BC.

 

26. The Fall of White Samaria

If the Kingdom of the North took pleasure in seeing Jerusalem plundered, the price of the division of David's kingdom would not be long in coming.

Samaria would pay that price at the hands of the king of Nineveh.

The reckoning arrived in 721 BC.

But before telling that story, we must understand how Nineveh rose to such heights above the great cities of the Bronze and Iron Ages.

The kingdom of Mitanni disappeared from the geopolitical stage around 1350 BC, crushed between the advance of the Hittites and the Assyrians.

To put it simply:

the Hittites ruled western Anatolia,

the Mitanni dominated northern Syria,

and the Assyrians controlled northern Mesopotamia.

The destruction of Mitanni came at an unfortunate moment.

Soon afterward the Philistines, perhaps related to those ancient peoples who descended upon the world after the fall of Troy, shattered the Hittite kingdom and halted Assyrian expansion toward the west.

Earlier we left the Kassites ruling upon the ruins of Hammurabi's empire.

While Kassites and Assyrians struggled for supremacy, Babylon gradually lost its grip upon the southern lands of Eden.

Then, around 1310 BC, the ancient Persians, the Elamites, asserted their independence and rose to the level of the surrounding powers.

Later Babylon itself fell before the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I.

His influence stretched even toward Elam, though only briefly.

By about 1215 BC Susa had recovered its freedom and emerged as a major military power.

Its king exploited the turmoil caused by the arrival of the Philistines to wrest Babylon from Assyrian control.

Babylon fell in 1159 BC, carrying with it the last of the Kassite kings.

War between Assyrians and Elamites followed.

Its outcome took an unexpected turn when Nebuchadnezzar I rose to the throne of Babylon and liberated his nation from its two traditional enemies.

This took place around 1110 BC.

Thereafter the struggle between Babylon and Assyria settled into a long war of attrition that ultimately left Nineveh the dominant power.

Yet Assyrian supremacy remained limited.

The geopolitical order created in the wake of the Philistine invasions allowed Nineveh little more than the preservation of its imperial ambitions.

At first those ambitions were checked by western peoples.

Later they were restrained by the great realm established by Solomon throughout the Near East.

Only after the breakup of Solomon's kingdom, and the collapse of the international order upon which the Wise King had built his peace, did Nineveh find its opportunity.

Assyria exploited the vacuum west of the Jordan and began constructing its empire.

Adad-Nirari first turned his armies against Babylon.

His successors opened the northern front and conquered Media.

Under Shalmaneser III, Assyrian attention shifted decisively westward.

The division of Solomon's kingdom had left Syria exposed.

The crossing of the Jordan came only after a long process of internal consolidation.

Tiglath-Pileser III completed the task.

He subdued Babylon and then turned westward.

Under Shalmaneser V the armies of Nineveh finally reached Israel.

Their encounter with the Kingdom of Israel shattered the pride of the Israelites.

White Samaria, as they called her, fell in the year 721 BC.

 

27. The Fall of Holy Jerusalem

Whether the Kingdom of Judah rejoiced when news arrived of the destruction of its northern brethren, we cannot know.

What we do know is this:

once the decree had gone forth against the divided kingdom, Jerusalem could not escape the fate of Samaria.

This time it was not the Assyrians but the Chaldeans of Babylon, destroyers of Nineveh, who brought judgment upon the Holy City.

The broad outline of events is well known.

The kings of Nineveh expanded their empire to north and south alike, conquering Media and Babylon.

Among the most renowned were Shalmaneser III, Adad-Nirari III, Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, and Ashurbanipal.

Yet the hatred they sowed throughout the lands of Eden ultimately returned upon their own heads.

Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar II and king of Babylon, joined forces with Cyaxares, king of the Medes, to destroy Nineveh.

Their objective was achieved in 612 BC.

The partition of the conquered world left the western lands in Babylonian hands.

When Nebuchadnezzar II succeeded his father, he crossed the Jordan and marched against Jerusalem.

In 587 BC the Holy City fell.

These events are described throughout the books of the Old Testament.

With Jerusalem destroyed and Samaria already gone, the divine decree was fulfilled:

Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to ruin.

And that judgment remained as a warning to every kingdom that would one day imagine it could escape its appointed destiny.

 

28. The Evil One

The Ancient Serpent leapt for joy behind the walls of his silence when Jerusalem fell.

What mind could possibly imagine that God requires spectacles of crystal or rays of light to see into the hearts of His own creatures?

The fall of Jerusalem seemed one more argument in favour of those who advocated the destruction of mankind and believed that the Messiah of the prophecies was already defeated before His coming.

Surely, they argued, God must finally accept the facts.

The creation of man had gone terribly wrong.

Humanity had failed to cross the boundary separating the beasts from the sons of God.

Again and again mankind displayed the same instinctive tendencies that seemed woven into its nature.

The very notion that the son of a man might challenge the Chief of the Rebels to mortal combat appeared so absurd that it could hardly be taken as an insult.

Ridiculous ideas, they thought, require no answer.

Only laughter.

 

29. The Three Pillars of the World

In those days, five centuries before the Birth, three extraordinary children lived in the Babylon of the Chaldeans.

The first was born to become a prophet and leave the world astonished.

His parents named him Daniel.

Nebuchadnezzar gave him another name.

The Messianic doctrine proclaimed by Daniel silenced those orthodox Jews who continued to expect the immediate coming of the Messiah.

According to Daniel the Prophet-Magus, the fulfillment of prophecy still lay far in the future, even five centuries after the words of King David had been written.

 

30. Zerubbabel

The second child was born to lead the caravan of freedom.

He would guide his people toward their lost homeland, raise Jerusalem from the ashes of history, and build a Temple for Wisdom.

His friends called him Zoro.

The king of Babylon called him by another name.

For Zoro was the heir to the Crown of Judah.

 

31. Cyrus the Great

The third child was called Cyrus.

According to Herodotus, Cyrus was the son of a Median princess married to a Persian prince.

Yet Herodotus lacked the knowledge necessary to unravel completely the dynastic structures of the ancient Mesopotamian kingdoms.

Today, with a fuller understanding of the political architecture of the ancient world, we are better positioned to reconstruct the web of relationships that made possible the rise of Prince Cyrus to the Imperial Throne.

Nebuchadnezzar's wife was the daughter of Cyaxares, king of the Medes.

This same Cyaxares had joined forces with Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar, in the destruction of Nineveh.

Together they trapped the king of Assyria within his palace and buried him beneath the ruins of his empire.

To celebrate their victory, they joined their houses through marriage.

Cyaxares gave his daughter to the son of the Chaldean king.

The Chaldean king gave his son to the daughter of the Median king.

The brother of Nebuchadnezzar's wife inherited the throne of Media and later married his daughter to the prince of Persia, father of Cyrus.

Thus Cyaxares became Cyrus' maternal great-grandfather, while Nebuchadnezzar stood among his royal kinsmen.

Through this intricate web of alliances, Cyrus found himself linked by blood to both Media and Babylon.

History offers many similar examples.

After all, Charles V inherited both Spain and Germany through a comparable labyrinth of dynastic probabilities.

For an ordinary Persian prince to unite three crowns beneath one throne seemed as unlikely as a proverb come to life.

The Babylonians would have said:

"When hens begin giving birth to puppies."

Too many circumstances needed to fall into place.

Unless, of course, someone had invited him to take part in a greater design.

A design intended to unite the world beneath a single crown.

 

32. The Fourth Man

And what did the Assyrian prince Nabonidus think of the transfer of empire from Chaldean hands into those of the Persians?

Would he participate in the destruction of his enemy from within the enemy's own fortress?

Would he consent to become a piece upon the chessboard of the Prophet-Magus?

What might Nabonidus receive in exchange for helping bring about so great a transformation?

Could he hope to rebuild Nineveh somewhere in the southern lands?

Would he be entrusted with keys to a new kingdom?

Nabonidus nodded.

"You shall retire to whichever city you choose, far from me," Cyrus told him with a laugh.

Wise and worthy disciple of the Chief of the Magi, Nabonidus built for himself a city among the oases, hidden in the heart of an Eden of his own making.

Cyrus laughed.

Zerubbabel was not surprised by the cunning of the Fourth Man.

The mystery that concerns us is this:

How did an Assyrian prince manage to ascend the throne of Babylon?

The answer may lie in the collapse of Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty during the days of Belshazzar.

The masterstroke that elevated Nabonidus to power reveals the Assyrian identity of the piece moved by Daniel in preparation for the final transfer of empire into the hands of Cyrus.

For when the decisive hour arrived, that same piece simply delivered Babylon to the new ruler of the world.

From the beginning of Cyrus' reign, the administration of the kingdom passed into the hands of those whom Daniel had prepared.

By the end of that reign, even the armies of Babylon found themselves under the influence of men loyal to the Hebrew vision.

Daniel might have used the structure he had patiently built to stage another revolution and place the heir of Judah upon the throne.

But he did not.

 

33. The Reconquest of the Lost Kingdom

Daniel's prophetic doctrine found in Zerubbabel a star filled with life.

The task before them was clear:

to rebuild Jerusalem,

to lay the first stone of the Temple,

and to recover the land of Judah through peaceful means.

Jerusalem was to serve as the mother colony.

The governor of the City would act as the supreme leader of the settlement, and under his authority selected groups would move wherever the Council of the Wise deemed necessary.

The second phase of Daniel's prophecy declared that within no more than a few centuries the king of Greece would enter Asia and overthrow the empire of Cyrus.

The conquest of Babylon by the West would be followed by the division of the Greek conqueror's empire into four kingdoms.

Soon afterward another kingdom would arise, spread throughout the world, and triumph over the four.

In those days the Angel of Liberty would sound the trumpet, and the Jewish colonies would rise in a war for independence.

Until that hour arrived, every son of Israel was to remain faithful to the original plan.

 

34. Under the Yoke of the Hellenes

Among many twentieth-century historians there arose the theory that the biblical books were written after the events they describe.

From the perspective of unbelief, Alexander the Great did not conquer Asia and then inspire prophecy.

Rather, the prophecies were supposedly written after the Greek conquest had already taken place.

Meanwhile, far removed from such debates, the Magi of the East watched events unfold from their tower in Seleucia-on-the-Tigris.

Synagogues throughout the world sent them reports:

who governed their lands,

what political systems prevailed,

which dynasties had risen,

and which had fallen.

One day a white dove arrived at Seleucia carrying a message:

"The quarrel between Greeks and Persians has begun, Your Excellencies.

Philip, King of the North, has subdued all Greece.

The day of vengeance for the men of Leonidas at Thermopylae is beginning to dawn."

The reply reached Jerusalem quickly.

It read:

"Let every son of Abraham prepare to welcome the Conqueror with palms and acclamations.

Shortly after the death of Philip's son, his kingdom will collapse into a long civil war.

Yet it will survive its destruction by dividing into four kingdoms."

And so it happened.

Alexander's body had scarcely grown cold before his generals began killing one another.

Eventually they glimpsed the devil behind their ambitions and stopped devouring each other alive.

Seleucus I Nicator emerged as master of Cyrus' empire and all the lands Alexander had conquered beyond the Indus.

He did not rebuild Babylon.

Instead, he founded a new city upon the banks of the Tigris.

He called it Seleucia-on-the-Tigris.

Seleucia was conceived as the great inland commercial port joining the Far East to the West.

Let us remember that Solomon himself had understood that wealth lies in controlling the roads by which caravans and ships carry the treasures of one world into another.

 

35. Jerusalem Cries Freedom

The share of the crocodile fell to Ptolemy.

From the day he beheld Alexander's plans for Alexandria upon the Nile, he became possessed by a passion for the New Athens that the son of Philip dreamed of building upon the Egyptian coast.

Silent and precise as a crocodile stalking its prey, eyes just above the water, advancing without ripple or sound, he moved his pieces into position before Alexander had even been buried.

First he declared himself lord and master of Egypt.

Afterward, he left the gods to decide the rest.

 

36. The Greed of Kings

Seleucus' boundless ambition became the family ghost of the Seleucid dynasty.

He died burdened by the pain of losing Jerusalem in what seemed little more than a wager between reptiles.

His descendants never learned how to accept defeat at the hands of the Egyptian Ptolemies.

The Hellenistic wars between Egypt and Syria over possession of Jerusalem became one of the defining struggles of the Near East from the death of Alexander until the age of the Maccabees.

Jerusalem was tossed from hand to hand.

Today Antioch was her mistress.

Tomorrow Alexandria.

The city grew weary.

Its people gradually fell asleep upon the laurels of those who believe they have finally escaped their old Messianic dreams.

When they awoke, they found themselves trapped within the claws of a Final Solution.

Not the first.

Nor the last.

 

37. The Second Kingdom of Israel

Jerusalem watched in disbelief as the religious persecution of Antiochus IV unfolded.

The possibility had never entered their minds.

The Scriptures had promised that after the Four Kingdoms would come Freedom.

Yet there they sat in astonishment, wondering:

What had they been expecting?

A child descending from Heaven to solve all their problems?

A happy ending without effort?

A feast without struggle?

Some feasted well enough.

Others survived on scraps.

So when Judas Maccabeus returned to his homeland and placed himself at the head of the resistance, all those who had nothing to lose and everything to gain gathered beneath his banner.

The course of events between the Maccabees and the Birth unfolded as follows.

Judas Maccabeus led the armies of the Lord from 166 to 161 BC.

For five years he guided them from victory to victory.

Little is known with certainty about his early military formation.

Yet, given the structure of the Seleucid armies, it is highly probable that Judas once commanded a Jewish contingent within the imperial forces themselves.

The Seleucid military relied heavily upon provincial units recruited throughout the empire.

It is difficult to imagine that Judea was not represented among them.

If this was indeed the case, Judas may well have learned the strengths and weaknesses of the imperial system from within.

When Antiochus launched his eastern campaigns and entrusted his regents with the suppression of Judea, the rupture became inevitable.

Judas appears as a man horrified by the king's intentions.

He deserted with his followers.

Returning to Judea, he found bloodshed and devastation.

Together with his father and brothers he took refuge among the hills and declared a guerrilla war against the empire.

Thus, when Apollonius arrived with orders to crush the rebellion, he encountered an adversary already familiar with the tactics and methods of the very army he served.

In 161 BC Judas fell.

As he had lived, so he died:

fighting to the end beside his eight hundred faithful companions.

The remaining exploits of Judas are recorded in the Scriptures.

Jonathan succeeded him.

Then Simon.

It was Simon who truly secured independence.

In gratitude, the Jewish people granted government to his descendants in perpetuity.

There followed John Hyrcanus, Aristobulus, Alexander Jannaeus, Queen Salome, Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II, Antigonus, and finally the rise of Herod.

Meanwhile Rome entered the story.

Pompey intervened.

Civil wars erupted.

Parthians invaded.

Princes betrayed one another.

Dynasties rose and fell.

And, little by little, the House of the Hasmoneans was extinguished.

One after another they disappeared beneath the weight of intrigue, ambition, and bloodshed.

By 7 BC, as Abijah had foretold, the entire Hasmonean line had vanished from the face of the earth.

Herod remained sole master of Jerusalem.

He became both the first and the last king of the Second Kingdom of Israel.

 

38. The Messiah-King

Joseph and Mary, the parents of Jesus, were born during the early years of Herod's reign.

Joseph was likely around forty years of age when his firstborn son came into the world, while Mary was somewhat younger when she gave birth to her only Son.

According to this reckoning, Joseph died at approximately sixty years of age, and Mary would have been of a similar age during the days of the Resurrection.

At what age, according to tradition, the Mother was taken into Heaven from the city of Zaragoza, no one can say with certainty.

What is clear is that the hardships inflicted upon the Jews by Herod nourished within the oppressed people the dream of a Messiah-King.

Like all dreams, it seemed destined never to become reality, at least while Herod and his sons possessed the power to prevent it.

Yet the promised King was born far from the gaze of the court.

He entered the world in a manger.

Warned by the "silent dove of distant lands," the Magi departed from their Tower in the East and hastened to lay both their treasures and their wisdom at the feet of the Holy Family.

Did they precede the Holy Family into Egypt?

Did they finance the carpenter's workshop?

Did they live long enough to watch the Child grow into manhood?

History remains silent.

 

39. The Birth of Christ

It was within the Child.

But the Child did not yet know it.

He would discover it among the Doctors of the Temple at approximately twelve years of age.

There, in the midst of the Teachers, Jesus was born a second time.

God gave Him a new name:

Christ.

He gave Him His own Name:

Yahweh.

And He gave Him the name of His Holy City:

Zion.

He was Christ Jesus of Yahweh and Zion.

He was the Lamb whom His Father would offer for the expiation of the sins of the whole world.

 

40. The Youth of the Messiah

The Child carried away from the Temple a question that remained unanswered.

Why would God abandon Him into the hands of Christ's enemies?

How could He save the world from the grasp of Hell through the very cross that Rome reserved for the accursed?

What did God intend to accomplish through so tragic an event?

Why would He become a stone of stumbling to His brothers and friends?

Throughout His youth, Christ Jesus never ceased searching for the answer to this mystery.

God was about to establish the victory of the Son of Eve through the blood of the Son of David.

Why?

 

41. The Doctrine of the Kingdom of Heavens

The answer Christ Jesus discovered was this:

God was abolishing Empire and founding in its place a Universal Kingdom.

To every creature He granted freedom to embrace or reject membership in that Kingdom for all eternity.

The Crown of that one Kingdom He bestowed upon His Beloved Son:

Christ Jesus of Yahweh and Zion.

Whoever believes in the Son is declared a citizen of that Kingdom here and now.

Whoever rejects this Divine Revolution remains subject to the Final Judgment.

Of all the measures God adopted against Hell after the Third Universal War, this is the Cornerstone.

The others may be deduced from the History of Christianity itself.

 

English translation and editorial adaptation by Ariel.