Logos

science painstakingly accumulated over the previous gions tried most strenuously to liquidate when it firstone thousand years would have been inevitable. For emerged in the Judeo-Christian revolution. Suchall practical purposes, the human race would have secrets, thought the priests of Isis and the Stoics, hadceased to exist, and what scattered fragments of been dead for hundreds of years, only to reappearhumanity did manage to survive would have had to suddenly and with incredible fury in the writings ofbegin all over again the Promethan task of rediscov- Philo and in the New Testament! Embodied in theering epistemology, so-called Christian "mysteries"--the Incarnation ofActing openly when possible, in alliance with christ, the Trinity, the Redemption--was, for "thoseprinces, Roman senators, and sometimes even with that hear," the content of this secret knowledge. "Ithe emperor himself, 2 at other times acting with will open my mouth in parables," said Christ, asclandestine stealth and communicating by secret rite, recorded by the Gospel According to St. Matthew:parable, and allegory, the Christian conspiratorstr.ansformed the heritage of Platonic philosophy and "I will utter things which have been kept secretsoence into the founding principles of a universal from the foundation of the world." (Matt. 13:35)humanist empire.The explicit goal of the early Christian party was Of course, the form used by the Apostolic Churchthe establishment of what Philo Judaeus, Jesus of Fathers and their successors toconvey this knowledgeNazareth, St. Paul, and St.John called the "Kingdom was myth. The elite of the early Christian churchof God." That concept, also described as the "King- were undoubtedly aware that the superficial details ofdom of Heaven," is not, as is usually suggested, an the story of Jesus of Nazareth and the literal meaningotherworldly one. The Christian movement was very of key Church doctrines were merely part of aemphatically political, and its enemies were very technology for communicating deeper truths. Perhapsmuch in this world indeed. The enemy of the Chris- the founders of the Christian movement had notians was the unholy alliance uniting the reactionary recourse but to propound their ideas in allegoricalRoman nobility and Persian oligarchy, the Aristote- format, The material-cultural level of existing Romanlians in the Peripatetic school of pseudo-philosophy, social organization was abysmally low, and the popthedegenerate Stoic and Epicurean cults, and espe- ulation of the Mediterranean world hardly fit todally the evil priesthood of the Oriental cults con- receive undiluted science into their daily lives. Furtrollingthe hundreds of local associations dedicated thermore, the conditions prevailing at the time of theto rites of animal worship, castration, and death. Roman empire were, to say the least, not conduciveAgainst this satanic coalition--personified today, to overt political-philosophical organization. And thein direct line of succession, by the Black Guelph principles of human psychology had not yet beenmonarchists and the heirs of liberal British empiri- sufficiently elaborated to permit a more direct pedacism--theChristians sought to establish the primacy gogical approach aimed at leading dulled and backofPlatonic epistemology in order to transsubstantiate ward human minds through a complex process ofthe groveling mass ofsheeplike peasants into republi- self-understanding.can citizens of the Kingdom of God. In bringingreason to the masses, the Church confirmed itself tobe a direct threat to the Isis priesthood and the empire. BUT THE IMMORTAL ACHIEVEMENT of the earlyThe Roman oligarchs did not deceive themselves Church was that, for the first time, masses of citizensinto thinking that Christianity would lull their sub- were able to grasp the Platonic method, as promuljectswith promises of a paradise in never-never land. gated by a permanent and lasting institution, and toFor such was not the case: the political blueprint of guide their daily lives by its ethical and spiritualPhilo Judaeus, the sermons of Jesus, the revolutionary principles.writings of St. Paul, and the explosive response that The contentof the Christian religion and its "raystheGospel elicited among the inhabitants of the teries" was most centrally located in the doctrine ofRoman empire made it evident that the Kingdom of the iogos. For Philo, the logos was the "principle ofGod was, indeed, at hand. creative reason," that is, the principle by which theThe Grand Design of Christianity, to perfect the Creator-God brought order to chaos and therebystateby bringing it and its citizens into harmony with generated the seed-principles of the creation andthe Platonic ideal of reason and natural law, was development of the universe.based on a systern_bf philosophical concepts that, in Philo knew that the vast majority of the citizenssum, represented a "secret knowledge." It was this of Rome were victims of a barbarian cult ideology.secret knowledge compiled most efficiently in the Addressing himself therefore, first of all, to the urbanTimaeus of Plato which the cults and mystery reli- Hellenized Jewish community which was capable of18 August 1980 / CAMPAIGNER