An Excerpt From 'The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition' by Paul J. Alexander

 

Related:

The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius.

John Bale’s 'The Image of Both Churches'

Constantinople In Christian Eschatology.

University of California:

Paul Julius Alexander was born in Berlin, Germany in 1910. He earned law degrees in Hamburg in 1932 and Paris in 1934. In 1935 he moved to the United States and in 1940 earned his Ph.D. in ancient and Byzantine history from Harvard. His first teaching post was at Hobart College in 1945, and from there he moved to Brandeis University in 1954, Michigan in 1958, and then Berkeley in 1968 as professor of History and of Comparative Literature. Numerous awards included Guggenheim Fellowships in 1951 and 1965, membership in the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton in 1951 and 1970, and a Senior Fellowship of the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1974. One of the world's leading Byzantinists, he was well grounded in the classics, learned Syriac, Arabic, Old Church Slavonic and Russian, and also worked on secular biography, patristics, iconoclasm and codicology. His major work (and first book) was The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople: Ecclesiastical Policy and Image Worship in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford, 1958); which was recognized as the standard monograph on the later iconoclastic period (815-843A.D.). He died in 1977.

University of California Press:

Throughout Christian history, apocalyptic visions of the approaching end of time have provided a persistent and enigmatic theme for history and prophecy. Apocalyptic literature played a particularly important role in the medieval world, where legends of the Antichrist, Gog and Magog, and the Last Roman Emperor were widely circulated. Although scholars have long recognized that a body of Byzantine prophetic literature served as the source for these ideas, the Byzantine textual tradition, its sources, and the way in which it was transmitted to the West have neve been thoroughly understood. For more than fifteen years prior to his death in 1977, Paul J. Alexander devoted his energies to the clarification of the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition. These studies, left uncompleted at his death, trace the development of a textual tradition that passed from Syriac through Greek to Slavonic and Latin literature. Using a combination of philological and historical detection, the author establishes the time, place, and circumstances of composition for each of the major surviving texts, identifying lost works known only through descriptions. In showing how Byzantine prophecy served as a bridge between ancient eschatological works and the medieval West, Alexander demonstrates that apocalyptic literature represents a creative source for the expression of political and religious thought in the medieval world. 

An excerpt from, "The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition" By Paul J. Alexander, University of California Press, 1985, Pg. 13:

The document to be discussed in this chapter was, as will be seen, composed far beyond the frontiers of the Byzantine Empire, in fact, on enemy territory: in Mesopotamia during the first decades of Arab domination. Still, it deserves a detailed discussion, indeed a place of honor, in this study of the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition, and this on two grounds. In the first place, it was, for reasons that will become clear in the second part of this book, translated into Greek soon after its composition, and in its Greek form it became the basis of the most important branch of the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition. The Greek translation was copied frequently and adapted to historical events as they developed. In 1897 the editor of the Greek text, the Russian philologist V. Istrin, distinguished four Greek redactions, of which the last three were based on the first, and used at least fourteen manuscripts. Actually, the number of surviving manuscripts is larger and must have been very considerable in mid-and late-Byzantine times, to judge from texts excerpted, translated, or otherwise derived from codices now lost. Indeed, an entire branch of Byzantine apocalyptic literature, the Visions of Daniel (many specimens of which will be discussed later), were in fact combinations of Pseudo-Methodian excerpts with materials of more recent origin. The many translations of the Greek texts into other languages (notably into Slavic languages and into Latin) are another measure of the popularity of the work both in the Byzantine Empire and abroad. A second reason for this discussion of the Syriac text is the effect that it had, through its Greek translation, on other branches of Byzantine apocalyptic literature, apart from the Pseudo-Methodian tradition proper. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that in the development of the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition the translation of the Syriac text of Pseudo-Methodius into Greek marked the end of the era of Antiquity, and the beginning of that of the Middle Ages. None of the apocalyptic writings written after the translation was made fails to show traces of its influence. Moreover, inasmuch as the Syriac text was informed by the spirit of a non-Classical civilization, that of Syriac Christianity, it was natural that the ideas contained in the Syriac work, as translated into Greek, contributed to the Orientalization of Byzantine apocalyptic literature. True, this Near Eastern element had not been absent from apocalyptic literature before Pseudo-Methodius' work was translated into Greek, for the entire genre was of Near Eastern-Hebrew and Aramaic-origin. Yet one need only compare the last major apocalypse antedating the Greek Pseudo-Methodius, the Oracle of Baalbek, with this Greek text or with any later apocalypse to realize how thoroughly the genre was infused with Syriac features by the translation of Pseudo-Methodius' Syriac text into Greek.

How Putin The Master of Public Perception Handled The Anti-Semitism Charge

In Washington tail wags dog. In Moscow dog wags tail. 

To Jews, like all minorities everywhere, you have to be stern, but fair. There must be no discrimination and no favouritism. But the ruler must also be strong. A house can only have one master. Otherwise there's chaos. 

The antisemitic charge that Jewish oligarchs and Jewish political entities possess is a strong wildcard in the game of power, a magical and inflammatory item, but its effect can be muted. If a ruler shows fear, they will wield it like a get out of jail free card. Like spoiled children they don't know any better. They must always be reminded who is in charge of the state and that the rule of law applies to all, Jews included.

An excerpt from, "Putin's Jews" by Konstanty Gebert, Moment Magazine, November 5, 2015:

Then there was media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky. The once-powerful oligarch (worth $1 billion-plus in 2000), owner of the then-independent NTV channel, was the first Jewish oligarch to experience President Putin’s wrath. Putin was displeased with NTV’s coverage of Russia’s war with Chechnya, the breakaway Muslim republic in the Caucasus that won its autonomy in a war in the mid-1990s.  This rupture had major ramifications within the Russian Jewish community because Gusinsky was the founder of the Russian Jewish Congress (REK), a non-Orthodox umbrella organization established in 1996 to bring together Jewish groups in Russia and to promote Jewish culture, education and welfare.

Putin wanted a Jewish organization that was loyal to him and did a masterful end-run around Gusinsky, who, according to a Jewish insider who did not want to be named, had “set up the Russian Jewish Congress for his own protection, to be able to claim anti-Semitism if he was attacked by the authorities.” In order to deprive him of this protection, the insider says, Putin set up an alternative Kremlin-affiliated Jewish structure called the Federation of Russian Jewish Communities. “This worked,” he says.  In quick succession in 1999, Putin’s buddy Leviev established the new organization, which was chaired by Putin pal Abramovich. Gusinsky was arrested in 2000, stripped of most of his assets and forced into exile in the United Kingdom, where he now lives quietly.

Chabad Rabbi Berel Lazar, an American citizen and a native of Milan, Italy with no political ambitions, was quickly granted Russian citizenship and appointed chief rabbi of the new federation. “It seems to me that Putin made pragmatic calculations,” says Zvi Gitelman, a University of Michigan professor of political science and Jewish studies and a leading observer of Jewish life in Russia. “When he purged the oligarchs, it turned out that so many were Jewish that he exposed himself to being suspected of anti-Semitism, like some of his predecessors. Therefore, he found the perfect cover or fig leaf for his actions: Embrace the most ‘visibly Jewish’ Jews, those with beards, side-curls and a long tradition of cooperating with whoever was in power, and make them the ‘court Jews.’”

Berel Lazar, who declined to be interviewed for this story, first visited Moscow as a rabbinical student in 1987. Himself a child of Chabad emissaries—known as shlichim—he returned to the USSR in 1990 as one of 15 Chabad shlichim after receiving his rabbinical certification. At that time, hundreds of thousands of Jews were moving in the other direction in search of the safety and prosperity of Israel and the West. The liberalization that made their emigration possible also made possible the re-establishment of Jewish communal life, including the arrival of many foreign Jews. They came to fill the chasm left by three generations of forced Soviet assimilation and official atheism, but most found the task too hard. Lazar, who became rabbi of the synagogue in the Marina Roscha neighborhood in northern Moscow, was one of those who stayed and set to work, bringing Judaism—specifically the Chabad brand—to Russia.

It is not known exactly when Putin and Lazar first met, but Putin, who is said to be impressed by Lazar’s strict religious observance, has showered Lazar with his appreciation. First and foremost among these privileges was his blessing of Lazar as chief rabbi of the Federation. This was not as simple as it may sound, since Gusinsky’s Russian Jewish Congress already had a chief rabbi—the Siberian-born Adolf Shayevich, the spiritual leader of the Russian capital’s prestigious Moscow Choral Synagogue. Shayevich refused to step down and has alleged that Leviev offered him $240,000 to resign. To this day, there are two chief rabbis of Russia and a deep enmity between the two men. Earlier this year, Shayevich called Lazar “an agent of the Kremlin” on Russian TV. 

But Putin has found plenty of ways to express his preference for Lazar. He invited Lazar, not Shayevich, to his first State of the Nation speech in June 2000; the following year, he removed Shayevich from the government’s religious affairs council and appointed Lazar in his place. Lazar reciprocated by assuring the public that Putin’s actions against the likes of Gusinsky and Berezovsky had nothing to do with anti-Semitism, and that Russia at large was free of that scourge. In the face of growing Russian anti-Semitism in the middle of the first decade of the century, Lazar has toned down the latter point. He condemned a 2005 open letter signed by 500 nationalists, including members of the Russian Parliament, that called on Putin to ban all Jewish organizations. He also spoke out against violent attacks on Jews, including one on a Chabad rabbi in Moscow.

Lazar has consistently followed Putin’s lead. “Challenging the government is not the Jewish way,” Lazar has said. As a result of the Putin-Lazar bond, Chabad has become the dominant Jewish force in Russia, with synagogues, schools, festivals, extensive programming and representatives in nearly 50 cities across the country. It is reported to have a $60 million annual budget, much of it supplied by Putin’s Jewish allies, eclipsing all other Jewish denominations. In 2012, Lazar received what can only be considered the jewel in the crown: Putin gave him supervision of Moscow’s $50 million Jewish Museum and Center of Tolerance, which was largely funded by  Jewish oligarchs Abramovich and Vekselberg. The Lazar-Putin relationship is so tight that during the 2014 Olympics, Putin gave the 50-year-old rabbi special dispensation to enter the stadium on Shabbat without passing through the electronic gate. Again, Lazar returned the favor: A month later, he attended the victory speech Putin gave at the Kremlin after the occupation of Crimea. He was the only Jewish leader present.

Even the secularly oriented Russian Jewish Congress, which has an annual budget of $12 million and 37 local chapters, rarely strays far from Kremlin policy. Investor Mikhail Fridman (net worth $15.6 billion), founder of Alfa Group—one of Russia’s largest privately held investment groups—and another of Putin’s Jewish oligarchs, sits on its board. The group is particularly proud of its flagship Memorial Synagogue, erected in 1998 in a huge park on Moscow’s Poklonnaya Gora, which is dedicated to the Soviet victory in World War II and to those who perished in it. The park is a reminder of the breakup of the Soviet Union into independent nations, an event that remains a gaping hole in the Russian psyche, especially Putin’s. The synagogue’s presence in Poklonnaya Gora is both a testament to the Jewish contribution to the war and an expression of allegiance to the Russian state. “Of course we support the political authorities that exist,” Russian Jewish Congress president Yuri Kanner tells me. “This is halacha.” He adds: “The most important thing is that the authorities do not hinder our efforts to rebuild Jewish life.”

Author Masha Gessen says that with respect to religion—all religions—Putin is simply continuing the policies adopted under Stalin. “Religion is to be a subordinate part of the state,” she says. “Conflict, if there is any, is between independent clergy and their religious institution, but not between that institution and the state. And in the case of the war of the rabbis, from Putin’s perspective, both Shayevich and Lazar are subordinate to the state. Their personal rivalry might be intense, but it’s politically insignificant.”

Norman Cousins - The Challenge to Change - 1984

 

Wikipedia:

Norman Cousins (June 24, 1915 – November 30, 1990) was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace through world state advocate.

. . .In the 1950s, Cousins played a prominent role in bringing the Hiroshima Maidens, a group of twenty-five Hibakusha, to the United States for medical treatment. He served as president of the World Federalist Association and chairman of the Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy, which warned that the world was bound for a nuclear holocaust if the threat of the nuclear arms race was not stopped. In the 1960s, he began the American-Soviet Dartmouth Conferences for peace process. Following the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy saw that he was the proper person to find the terms that would be accepted by Nikita Khrushchev to avert nuclear war. Both sides used unofficial intermediaries to relay messages outside the usual diplomatic routes. For example Kennedy used Norman Cousins, who was well appreciated in Moscow for his leadership of SANE, the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy. This helped the two leaders forge the highly successful Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. For his role he was thanked by President John F. Kennedy and Pope John XXIII; the Pope also awarded him his personal medallion. Cousins was also awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Peace Award in 1963, the Family Man of the Year Award in 1968, the United Nations Peace Medal in 1971, and the Niwano Peace Prize and the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, both in 1990. He also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1972 to 1975.

An excerpt from, "The improbable triumvirate Khrushchev, Kennedy, and Pope John" by Norman Cousins:

In 1963, a new spirit of hopefulness was abroad in the world. The upturn was largely the result of a strange and magnificent interaction among three men: President John F. Kennedy, Pope John XXIII, and Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev. Ideologically and personally, they were one of history’s most implausible triumvirates: an American President, a Pope, a Communist. What brought them together was the vulnerability of civilization to modern destructive power. The particular event that gave blistering reality to their common concern was the Cuban crisis of October 1962.

The crisis over Cuba was bridged but the terror it produced created a new sense of resolution and dedication.

At American University on June 10, 1963, President Kennedy proposed an end to the Cold War. The proposal produced an affirmative response from Prime Minister Khrushchev. Pope John used the full weight of the Papacy to speak about the need for world peace under law. His encyclical Pacem in Terris was perhaps his single most important document. It called for a new spirit of world cooperation in building an enduring world order.

Video Title: Norman Cousins - The Challenge to Change - 1984. Source: Quest For Peace. Date Published: May 23, 2012.

The Psyop is the Psyop | featuring Augustine Virgil

 

"INFERNO: A Journey Through Modern Hell in Search of Eternal Truth" by Augustine Virgil.

Video Title: The Psyop is the Psyop | featuring Augustine Virgil. Source: Analogia Entis. Date Published: March 29, 2026. Description:

In this episode, I am joined by Augustine Virgil, author of “Inferno: A Journey Through Modern Hell in Search of Eternal Truth”, published by Stabat Mater Press.

In this conversation we discuss the limits of political consciousness in an age of mass media psychological operations; the international dialectic; Communism; Fuentes, Tucker, Candace et al.; the alchemy of the scrying mirrors; and learned helplessness.

Are the forces of organised naturalism attempting to immanentize the eschaton, defer it, or perform some combinatory magic wherein the edge between the revealed and concealed we can no longer discern? And most importantly: How do the “Errors of Russia” warned about by Our Lady of Fatima prepare us for spiritual warfare in this moment in time?

Lost Lessons From October 7: Hamas, Controlled Opposition, And The Fall of Heaven

"The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves." - Lenin.

"Segev reportedly stated his part in financially aiding the Palestinian Islamist movement, viewing it as a "counterweight" to the secularist Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as "a creature of Israel.")

. . ."The Israeli government gave me a budget," Segev confessed to a New York Times reporter, "and the military government gives to the mosques."

In a startling revelation, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli official who worked in religious affairs in Gaza for over twenty years, told the Wall Street Journal, "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation."

. . .Reflecting on the chain of events, David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military based in Gaza, admitted, "When I look back, I think we made a mistake." - The Business Standard, "How Israel went from helping 'create' Hamas to bombing it" October 14, 2023.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza was planned long before October 7, 2023. 

Just like 9/11, 10/7 holds immens symbolic value. The occult intelligence agencies that were behind these criminal events operate on a different time scale, a more esoteric calendar than our ordinary, day-to-day one. 

Those dates were specifically chosen and planned long in advance, not just for the purpose of building global political consensus for Israel's war on the Palestinians and conquests of the Middle East, but for deeper, more religious reasons.

The apes who they present as the faces of Hamas and Al-Qaeda are not capable of carrying out such divinely guided terrorist attacks. They're useful idiots and controlled opposition. They're just given a script to act the part. The master masons who control the CIA and Mossad are a different matter. They are formidable. They are clever like their father the devil, and they have set out to wage war on God and all creation, not just Palestinians. 

If they were waging war strictly on the Palestinians I wouldn't absorb myself so much in this material and this history. Frankly, I really don't care about the Palestinians. But their war is also a war against us, against everyone, against God, against the birds and the bees, against the clouds, against the Earth itself. So they must be psychologically, intellectually, and spiritually opposed. These evil intelligence agencies and their masters must be defeated, and as Kennedy said, scattered to the winds.