Further principles of the Apocalypse letters
Letters ii and iii
The dragon scenes two and three we saw were firstly, the dragons pursuit of the woman, and then the woman flies to a rest from the serpent with the wings of the fowl.
It is still a time of distress, as in time times and a half time?which means three and a half times, or half of seven?which symbolizes great imperfection, since 7 is perfection. But, nevertheless it is still a period of rest from the serpent.
Here there is a vivid image of what happened in the Old Testament.
Earlier in my writings I associate Egypt with pagan Rome as a purgative way for the people of God.
There then, they are delivered from this oppression or persecution, as it were, and into the kingdom , but it is a process or a journey.
For the Jews, it was wandering in the desert for 40 years, and for the church, it was the progressive Christianization of Europe over what is called by seculars the Dark Ages.
The possession of the Kingdom by the Jews can then symbolize the possession of the New Testament Kingdom by the Catholic church , or the middle ages, where the church was the supreme cultural influence of Western Civilization.IIndeed, there was never any greater period to be Catholic, so it was in a certain sense a veritable rest for the church from the dragon.
Yet, on the other hand, it was a trying time, for there were the resurrection of the dualistic heresies and the inquisitions, namely the albigensians and catharsis. Two, the assaults of the islamics all around the borders of Western Europe in the crusades added to the time of distress, as it were, which we saw mentioned in the three and one half.
Now, regarding the woman's flight to a time of rest, how might we envision the wings of the foul that help the woman fly to this rest away from the serpent. Well, we need to interpret scripture using scripture with scripture. In Daniel chapter 7, four great beasts arise from the sea that symbolize the four great kingdoms from Babylon to Rome inclusive that would arise in the confrontation with Jewish people.
Long story short, the third beast or the leopard was Greece, and this was appropriate since the leopard is the fast animal and Alexander swept down through the Middle East and the known world very quickly in his conquering. And it had four heads because when Alexander died prematurely, his kingdom was split up between his four primary generals. And here is where the wings of the foul come in for the church.
The scripture of Apocalypse 12 says that the wings of the fowl are given to the woman enabling her to fly to that same rest. This would seem to insinuate that she acquired wings somewhere else from scripture. Well, indeed let us look up on this. Well, the leopard Greece had four wings. Here , one can anticipate elements of culture which elevate the kingdom above a brute materialism. Well, indeed Greece possessed four great aspects of it?s culture which did in fact elevate it above a brute materialism that Rome had.
The aspects were clearly philosophy, art, drama, and Athletics. And behold, the church took two of these great elements of Greek culture and Christianized them into wonderful fulfillments that enhanced to great influence over the culture of the Middle Ages, making the Catholic Church the greatest impact on civilization for Western Europe at that time. The two elements of course were philosophy and art.
The Church took philosophy and wonderfully applied to the theology in a synthesis that enabled the church to flourish with scholasticism.
And then the Catholic Church took the blasphemous art of the Greeks and transformed it into sacred art for the church , the wondrous cathedrals with Corinthian pillars and architecture and the beautiful statues and images of Saints, Mary and the Christ.
Another thing to mention, as we saw before in the apocalypse letter three, there is a brief mention of fornication and meat to idols in baal and balak. Once more, we have seen this to be an image a proto Protestantism , where fornication is spiritual and indicates the informal cohabitation between a Protestant Minister and his flock spiritually.
Moreover , the meat to idols symbolizes that Protestant worship is not the Eucharistic sacrifice but only , as it were , what they considered to be a symbol , which is not the true meat of God, the body blood soul and divinity of the Christ.
We need to hear also additionally how I discuss this mysterious person Antipas , the faithful witness who is martyred in this third letter, as the papacy, since, we saw the greatest witness to the gospel is the papacy, and in the great schism, on the left end of the Middle Ages, the East spiritually slaughtered Peter?s office by rejecting its special infallibility.
More specifically, and interestingly, in the third letter of apocalypse a mysterious man called Antipas is murdered and is called a faithful witness. Now the martyrdom of Antipas in this third letter is kind of spoken of as in the past. This could mean effectively that in the beginning of the Middle Ages, the martyrdom of this mystical man occurs. Interestingly too, he is called the witness. But now we must ask who is the greatest witness in the church to the truths of God? Obviously Peter because of his singularly supreme charism of infallibility to protect the truth.
And get his, if his spiritual office is declared null, It is like spiritually murdering him in his wonderful being. Behold, it was in the beginning of the Middle Ages that the great schism occurred in which Peter was figuratively martyred by the great rejection of his office.
Finally, we need to look at the following: The nicolations return in the third letter. Remember that, in my treatment of the first apocalypse letter, which I view as pagan rome, the nicolations imaged the dualistic heresies. Hence, that this reappears in letters 3 would seem to imply that there is a resurgence of the dualistic heresies in the Middle Ages.
Let us know firstly that this is exactly what happened in the Middle Ages. More specifically , one of the other major aspects of the Middle Ages other than proto protestantism , which we have just dealt with before, was the Albigensians and the catharsis. These were indeed dualistic heresies that saw matter as evil and spirit as good. Unfortunately, the way that the church dealt with these was largely with the inquisitions , but be that as it may this was one of the serious components of Middle Ages.
Secondly as well we recall that in the big picture, the church goes through the ways of the saint. Toward this end, pagan Rome was the purgrative way, and the three subsequent letters were the subages of light of the illuminative way. It made sense that the dualistic heresies arose during pagan Rome since the purification involves the spirit correcting the flesh.
However, the spirit is not out to annihilate the flesh , as if the flesh were intrinsically evil, but merely to correct it in order to the mind and according to reason and love.
This is because the flesh is not evil but it?s in fact good, for God made the flesh. Adam exclaims at last is this bone of my bones and flesh of My flesh. And the Lord said this is very good. Christ came to sanctify our human bodies body and soul not to destroy our flesh because it is truly good. It is just that our soul is corrupted and is disordered towards the flesh and abusing it towards evil and selfishness. Through the Incarnation, the death and resurrection of Christ has occurred to redeem our flesh and mind so that our mind and soul might order our flesh according to the good and reason rather than disordered perversion.
The gnostics and other similar heresies misunderstood this by thinking that the flesh is intrinsically bad.
Here then we apply a rule from the way of the saint. According to common analysis, it is understood that some purification arises within the illuminative way to complete itself.
And behold right in the midst of the illuminated way in the Middle Ages, sure enough some purification in a disordered sense re-emerges with the dualistic heresies.
This completes the addendum thank you for reading.
Scooting back to the second apocalypse letter, we see once again that the dragon pursues the woman which can symbolize Christianity wandering in the desert as it progressively converts Europe to the gospel, just as the Jewish people wandered in the desert for 40 years before they took possession of the Kingdom, of which the Catholic Church Christendom is a symbol of.
However, the second apocalypse letter mainly mentions blasphemy against the disciples and condemns those who say they are Jews ,as it were , but are not.
What we can actually anticipate is that since we have seen the first letter as pagan Rome, and this third letter as the Middle Ages, it implies that the second letter spans from Constantine inclusive to just before the great schism.
I?ve argued repeatedly that this era is primarily the era of the great christological and trinitarian heresies.
But now we can note a profound sense. We must realize that anytime an error is brought up against the triune or incarnate God, it is in a certain sense of form of blasphemy against him since it mischaracterizes his nature. But behold, Christ identifies himself with his church. St Paul speaks of the church as the body of Christ. Two, the Christ cried out to paul, Saul Saul why do you persecute me?! Saul of course was only indirectly persecuting the Christ by persecuting his children.
Also, at the Great judgment, Christ equates himself with the least of his brethren so that how we treated the poorest of his children is how we treated him.
Hence, from this analysis, blaspheming the God of Trinity and incarnation is blaspheming the church since the church is identified as the Christ, who is intimately and inseparably bound up with the Incarnation and the trinity.
This enables us to understand possible great meaning in the blasphemy that is brought about against the disciples in the second letter. It can image the blasphemy indirectly against God through precisely the trinitarian and christological heresies that span most of the period between pagan Rome and the Middle Ages not inclusive.
Remaining now is this mysterious mention of the Christ of a period of tribulation for ?10 days.? Toward this end, we must realize that this cannot be taken as any literal time period , even as for example a symbol of a larger period of time. Hence, not only can it not mean 10 literal days, but neither can it be 10 months 10 years, 10 decades, 10 centuries, etc.
This is because first of all, the Christ said at the time of the Ascension, ? it is not for you to know times of seasons.?
Secondly, literal times and seasons are no avail since they do nothing to add to public revelation. For, even if Christ revealed to the apostles the ages of the church, he would not have told them exactly when these ages would arise in terms of the year much less how long they would last, since such information is arbitrary. ?All that matters, is the succession of the ages in terms of their order, their nature, and why they are what they are, not just that they are what they are. Consequently, the 10 days must be in some sense mystical.
But now the question is from where. Here,, I argue that symbolism and analogy must be taken from another scripture that I have developed since there is no other way to do it that I can see.
A solution that seems a long shot nevertheless works out very well. More specifically, the joyful mysteries as image of the entire divine plan that I have dealt with earlier in the book in the greater ages of scripture analogies, has the Jewish month as a symbol of either a period of darkness or period of light, so that just has there are 15 total months from Elizabeth?s conception to Mary giving birth to Christ, so there will be 15 subparts of human history from the fall onto the second coming inclusive.
Toward this end, we realize that the Jewish month is exactly 30 days. 10 days is then exactly 1/3 of a month.
Now for the clincher. Letters two three and four in the Apocalypse form the span between pagan Rome and the modern apostasy exclusive. Meaning that these three letters form the period of light between pagan Rome and the modern minor apostasy. But therefore, as it were, they form a month quote unquote in the sequence of the months of the joyful mysteries. Of course ,in the analysis of the joyful mysteries, month 12 is the period of light that follows pagan Rome and before the minor apostasy of our day.
More specifically , we once again remember that the three ages are firstly the trinitarian and christological heresies between pagan and Rome and the Middle Ages, concurrent also with the progressive christianization of Europe moving towards Catholic Christendom.
The next age of light was the Middle Ages, and the third age of light was protestantism followed by the Twilight of enlightenment deism and rationalism, etc the great supernatural death of the world that rejected Revelation and Grace in favor of a brute natural existence of reason and stoic efforts to find the meaning of life.
The significance is that if these three sub ages conglomeratly form the month of light, the 12th month of light in the joyful mysteries analogy, and if a month in the Jewish essence is 30 days, then we can conceive each of these sub ages as being a third of 30 days or as it were 10 days. Bingo!
It may be far-fetched as it were , but when we see that the joyful mysteries perfectly outlines the divine plan and all of its aspects and details the solution seems somewhat probable where nothing else seems to arise.
This concludes the analysis of letters 2 and 3.
All that remains, since we have covered letter four significantly previously with spiritual sexuality, is the last three letters which is to say Sardis or letter five, Philadelphia or letter 6, and letter seven, or Laodicea.
This will be discussed the final series of the seven letters later.