[ CONTENTS ]
|Part-1| — |Part-2|
|Part-3| — |Part-4|
After the disappearance of the Roman Empire in 1453 the Four Roman Patriarchs of
Constantinople New Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem continued to oversee this
work of the cure within the Ottoman Empire using the monasteries as the training ground
for those specializing in this method of cure. Now missing from this foursome was the
Roman Papacy of Elder Rome which had been taken over forcefully by the Franco-Latins
who transformed it into a Franco-Latin Papacy. These new Franco-Latin proprietors
continued to call their Papacy "Roman" in order to trick the West Roman serfs
and villains into thinking that the Pope of Rome was still a Roman like themselves. The
Franco-Latin struggle to capture the Roman Papacy began in earnest in 983 and reached
its climax between 1009 and 1046.[ 49 ]
The Carolingian Franks began their doctrinal career knowing fully only Augustine. But
Augustine was a Neo-Platonist before his baptism and remained so the rest of his life.
Because of this Franco-Latin Christianity remained Neo-Platonic until Occam and Luther
lead sizable portions of Western Europe away from Neo-Platonic metaphysics and
mysticism and their monastic supports. What Luther and Occam had done was to liberate
whole sections of Franco-Latin Christianity from the metaphysical part of Augustinian
paganism. However, Augustine's pagan understanding of original sin, predestination and
revelation were still adhered to.
Charlemagne began his attack on the Roman Papacy by contradicting Pope Hadrian's I
(771-795) support of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of 786/8. This illiterate king
condemned this Ecumenical Council at his own Council of Frankfurt in 794 in
the very presence of Pope Hadrian's legates. When the Franks captured the Papacy during
1009-1046, they had rejected not only the Seventh, but also the Eighth Ecumenical
Council of 879/80 which had been supported conjointly by Pope John VIII (872-882) of
Elder Rome and Patriarch Photius (877-886) of New Rome, as well as the remaining
Roman Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. This Council was convened to
get the Franks to accept the Seventh Ecumenical Council and to convince them to remove
their Filioque which they had added to the Roman Creed of the Second
Ecumenical Council. Instead the Franks continued to accept as their Eighth
Ecumenical that of 869. This Council had been annulled by the common consent of the
Roman Emperor and by all Five Roman Patriarchates, i.e. Elder Rome, New Rome,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem at their Eighth Ecumenical Council of 879/80 already
mentioned. The Council of 869 had removed Patriarch Photius as one who had illegally
replaced the former Patriarch Ignatius (846-858). In the mean time Photius had been
writing humorous attacks on the Frankish addition of the Filioque to the Creed
which infuriated the Franks. So it served their interests to create the impression that
Photius had been condemned for doctrinal errors in 869 and that he had never been
recognized by the Roman Papacy. Of course Pope John VIII fully cooperated with
Patriarch Photius during the Eighth Ecumenical Council of 879/80.[ 50 ]
In other words a bunch of illiterate and barbarian Franks began their career in dogma
during the reign of Charlemagne (768-814) by being against whatsoever is produced by
Roman Emperors, Popes, and Patriarchs. This same Charlemagne even added his Frankish
Filioque (which has nothing to do with the West Roman Orthodox
Filioque[ 51 ]) to the Creed
of the Second Ecumenical Council in order to improve it. In
addition he condemned all who disagree as heretics at his Council of Aachen in
809. All this has been approved ever since 1009 by all "infallible"
Franco-Latin Popes.
To the first Seven Roman Ecumenical Councils the Franco-Latins added the annulled
Council of 869 and their own 12 "Ecumenical" Councils. However, their
acceptance of the first Seven Roman Ecumenical Councils has been only formal since they
continue to distort them within the context of Augustine's presuppositions. In other
words the Franks transformed these Councils from the cure of the sickness of
religion into support of the cause of the sickness of religion. They simply
transformed them into Augustine's own Neo-Platonic sickness of religion and therefore
into a pagan form of Christian teaching and practice based on metaphysics and
mysticism.
The Roman Emperors from Constantine the Great (306-337) to the last Roman
Emperor Constantine XII (1449-1453) accepted Christianity as
the official cure of the sickness of
religion and not as one more form of religion. It was because the prophets of the Old and
the New Testament knew by means of their glorification in and by Yahweh the
cure of this specific disease in the heart that Christianity became the religion of the
Roman Empire. This cure had nothing to do with either religious or philosophical
speculation. The pinpointing of this sickness and its cure in the heart is also the only
key to the union of Christians among themselves and the reason why members of the
society practicing this cure accept the Nine Ecumenical Councils of the Roman
Empire. These Nine Ecumenical Councils are part of Roman Law. What unites them
into one whole is the cure of the sickness of religion by means of the purification and
illumination of the heart and glorification of the whole person. Each of the Nine
Ecumenical Councils condemned specific heresies of their time exactly because they
deviated from this cure by attempting to transform the medical practice of the Church
into systems of philosophical and mystical speculations and practices.
However, Peter the Great lead the Russians into believing that there are only
seven officially approved Ecumenical Councils. These Roman Councils happen to
be the ones that the Franco-Latin Papacy continued to accept in common with the four
East Roman Orthodox Patriarchates after the Franks captured the Patriarchate of
Rome.[ 52 ]
This reduction of the Ecumenical Councils from Nine to Seven had become a first step in
the attempted union between the Franco-Latin Papacy and the Roman Emperors of New
Rome during the latter part of the 13th to the middle of 15th centuries. Submission to
the Franco-Latin Papacy was the price that the Roman Emperor of New Rome was
required to pay for Franco-Latin help against the Turks. This union was supposed to have
been consummated at the union Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438-1442. This Council
was condemned by the three Roman Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem at
their Council of Jerusalem (1443). These three Roman Patriarchates were
within Moslem held territories. Then in 1453 New Rome fell to the Ottoman Turks
putting all four Roman Patriarchates within the Moslem world, putting an end to the need
for asking for help from the Franco-Latin royalties and nobilities of Western Europe and
their Pope. The reality of the matter was that the three Roman Patriarchates of
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem had opted to continue their tradition of the cure of the
sickness of religion of the Old and New Testaments and of the Nine Ecumenical Councils
and were re-joined in this work by the Patriarchate of New Rome in 1453 after the
Ottoman takeover of the capital of the Roman Empire.
Perhaps the most serious among these deviations from the cure in question was that of
Augustine. Indeed the Ninth Ecumenical Council condemned the philosophical and
mystical speculations of Barlaam the Calabrian not knowing that he was simply
repeating the philosophical and mystical speculations of Augustine. Since the rule of
Charlemagne (768-814) Augustine had become the heart and core of Frankish theology
and spirituality. As the Franks were becoming acquainted with Fathers of the Ecumenical
Councils they simply understood them within the context of Augustine's writings. From
the time of Charlemagne's rule until the beginning of Peter Lombard's doctrinal career (d.
1160) these Franks knew not one Father of an Ecumenical Council. Peter
Lombard introduced St. John of Damascus' (c. 675-749) summary of the doctrines of the
Seven Ecumenical Councils which he and his fellow Franks have been reading through
Augustinian lenses since.
Augustine's doctrine of original sin, and by extension his nonsense about
predestination, was condemned at the Council of Orange
(529). This means that the Merovingian Franks belonged to the
Orthodox Patristic tradition. Augustine's teaching about revelation by means of creatures
which God brings into existence to be seen and heard and then pass back into
non-existence when their mission is accomplished was condemned by the Ninth
Ecumenical Council of New Rome in 1341. The Fathers of the Council did not know at
the time that the source of this nonsense was Augustine.
An essential part of Franco-Latin distortions has been their falsification of Roman
History itself. This was inaugurated by Charlemagne in 794 at the Council of Frankfurt.
He then began the centuries old Franco-Latin propaganda that the Romans attached to the
Emperor of New Rome Constantinople and his Roman Patriarchies of New Rome,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem are a bunch of "Greek heretics." Up until
this time the Franks had always called the Empire of Constantinople the Imperial
Romanum and its citizens Romani. The very last time that these Franks
used these correct titles is witnessed to in Charlemagne's Libri
Carolini where he calls the Empire of New Rome the pagan Imperium
Romanum. But this position evidently backfired against him because both enslaved
and free West Romans were still praying in their Church services for the Imperium
Romanum.[ 53 ]
So he kept the names Romania and Imperium Romanum for the
Papal States only. He evidently believed that in this way these prayers would become
efficacious for the Papal States only and baptized the rest of the Roman Empire the
"Imperium Grecorum". Now the Franco-Latin nobility has managed to
lead naive historians into the use of terms like "Byzantines" and
"Byzantine Empire." There was never a "Greek" or "Byzantine
Empire" nor a "nation of Byzantines." Only those who dwelt in the new
capital of the Roman Empire called themselves "Byzantines" which was the
name of the small town which became Constantinople-New Rome in 331 AD.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus came to Rome, learned Latin, and studied Roman sources in
order to write his history of Rome. There is a tendency to make him look like one who
is looking for proofs that the Romans are Greeks. But Dionysius, however, reports what
the Romans themselves say about their origins. It was the Roman Senator and
leader Porcius Cato who wrote the classical work on the origins of the Roman people in
his book De Origines which is also a history of the Italian cities besides Rome.
This book inspired the leaders of the French Revolution into realizing that they are
descendants of both the ancient Greeks and Romans. This book is now lost?
The keepers of the Lie of Charlemagne have, of course, serious problems with
Dionysius. An example of how they cope with this historian is the introduction to the
Loeb Classical Library edition of Dionysius' Roman Antiquities. Earnest Cary claims that
Dionysius "promises to prove that Rome's founders were in reality Greeks, and
Greeks from no mean tribes." But what E. Cary omits to say here is that Dionysius
allows the Roman writers themselves to do the proving for him as follows: "But the
most learned of the Roman historians, among whom is Porcius Cato, who compiled with
the greatest care the genealogies of the Italian cities, Gaius Sempronius and a great
many others, say they (the Aborigines) were Greeks who used to live in Achaia (in
Southern Greece) and migrated many generations before the Trojan war." After at
least a thousand years in Italy these "Aborigines no longer knew where exactly in
Achaia they came from, to which tribe they belonged and who the leaders of their
colonies were."[ 54 ]
Having in mind the older Roman historians, like P. Cato and G. Sempronius, both Livy
and not only Dionysius agree with the tradition handed down to them that the
Greek-speaking nation of Latins came into existence when the indigenous Greek-speaking
Aborigines[ 55 ]
and the Greek-speaking Trojans of Aeneas became one nation. The Aborigines
occupied an area of the West Italian coastline South of the Tiber river and the Greek
speaking Trojans had landed on the coast of the land of the Aborigines where they finally
settled. The Aborigines and the Trojans became one nation. This took place when King
Latinus of the "Aborigines" gave his daughter Lavinia in marriage to Aeneas,
the leader of the Trojans who migrated to Italy as refugees from the Trojan War. Because
of this marriage they called themselves Latins (after Lavinas' Father Latinus had passed
away) and their land Latium. The capital of this united Latin nation was Alba Longa.
Some time later the twin Greek-speaking Latin brothers, Romulus and Romus, left Alba
Longa and founded Rome. These Latins[ 56 ]
and some Sabines,[ 57 ] also a Greek-speaking people,
founded Rome and the Roman nation. This is why the kings of Rome were mostly of
Latin or Sabine origin except for the Tarquins whose ancestors originated from
Corinth.[ 58 ]
In time the Romans tried to convince the Latins of Alba Longa to unite with them into
one nation to better protect themselves, especially against the Etruscans. The Latins of
Alba Longa refused. One of the basic reasons for their refusal was that the Sabines,
whose ancestors were Greeks from Lacedaemonia in Southern Greece, were, according to
the Latins, no longer pure Greeks. A bit latter King Ancus Marcius of Rome (640-616
BC), defeated the Latins and razed their capital in order to "force" the Latins
of Alba Longa to become Romans. The Latins of Alba Longa were settled on the Aventine
and were incorporated into the Roman system of the gentis. One of these Latin
gens or families of Alba Longa were the ancestors of Julius Caesar. The term
gens-gentis comes from the Greek word genos meaning the family or
tribe one belongs to. This term gens became the difference between those of
Greek origin and the tribes of those not of Greek origin. The gentes were those
who belonged to the Patrician families who made up the Roman Senate. Eventually all
Romans became members of Tribes, but only those of Greek origin remained members of
tribes or families called gens and gentes. This is the origin of our
word "gentleman."
We return to the author of the above introduction to Dionysius' "Roman
Antiquities". He literally accuses Dionysius of adding material to his history from
his imagination. According to him Dionysius invents many speeches where no speech is
called for. In comparison Livy, who reports many of the same historical events has no
speeches for the same occasions. Not taking seriously the claim of the Romans
themselves that they are Greeks the author does not take Dionysius seriously when he
writes that he worked with the Roman chronicles annalists. So therefore all
Dionysius had to do is to copy the Greek texts of speeches from the chronicles
and annalists and put them directly into his history. Livy wrote his history in
Latin. He would have had to translate all these many Greek speeches into Latin.
At the time that Dionysius went to Rome in about 8 BC he of course had to study the
spoken Roman dialect of what was still a Greek language, although more mixed than
usual with non Greek words and with a pronounced Roman accent. This also means that
the chronicles and annalists were still in a more archaic form more
easily readable to Dionysius than to Livy. About this still Greek language Dionysius
writes, "The language pronounced by the Romans is neither utterly foreign, nor
perfectly Greek, but a mixture, as it were, of which the greater part is Aeolic (Greek)
and the only pleasure they (the Romans) enjoy, when they intermingle with various
nations, is that they do not always pronounce their sounds properly. But among all
colonists they preserve all indications of their Greek origin."[ 59 ]
Apart from the description which the Romans make about themselves, there are also
linguistic indications which clearly point to the Greek reality of the ancient Latins,
Romans and Sabines.
The claim that the name Rome e.g. is simply a place name, which may derive even
from the Etruscans, is sheer nonsense. The name "Rome" in Greek means
"power," " force," "fighting army" and "speed
tactics."[ 60 ]
The name "Rome" derives from two the Greek verbs: 1)
roomai which means "to move with speed or violence, to dart,
rush, rush on, esp. of warriors."[ 61 ]
The name "Rome" also derives from of
the Greek passive verb: 2) ronnymi which means "to strengthen,
make strong and mighty" and "to put forth strength, have strength or
might.[ 62 ]
The closest Latin equivalent verb is ruo, which is connected to the Greek verb
reo meaning "to flow, run, to hasten." Of all the uses of this verb
both active and passive there is none that even comes close to meaning
"rome" in Greek.
Romans, Latins and Sabines were agreed that the name quiris (sing.)
quiretes (pl.) would be their common name which dictionaries translate as
citizen, but the Romans had a name for citizens, like the Greeks, polites, i.e.
civitas. But the names quiris-quiretes derive from the Greek name
kouros (sing.) kouretes which means young men of fighting age and
therefore warriors, "young men, esp. young warriors,"
Iliad 19. 193, 248.[ 63 ] So
the Romans, Latins and Sabines called themselves first "Warriors" and later
citizens.
Because all three groups of Romans, Latins and Sabines came to Italy by sea from
Greece and Asia minor they were warrior sailors and sea faring peoples. It is obviously
for this reason that at their weddings they shouted the Greek word Thalassios,
sailor, at the groom and not the Latin name marinos.
Of the seven hills of Rome the Quirinal, the hill of Mars, was originally that of
the Sabines. It was from here that the Roman warriors of Romulus stole their wives
from. Quiris was not only the Sabine name for a spear, but also for their god of war.
They called their god of war "The Warrior" in their Greek language and later
Mars.
In the Roman tradition Romulus did not die, but ascended deified to heaven without
leaving behind his body since he was or became the Quirinus, a or one of the
god(s) of war.
These are some of the contexts within which the Romans thought and spoke about
themselves. No historian has the right to change this. Now whether this version of Roman
history is correct or not is entirely another matter. But it remains a fact, however, that
the Romans themselves, the Latins themselves and the Sabines themselves believed and
wanted to believe that they are Greeks. Not only this, the united Roman nation of
Romans, Latins and Sabines, spoke their own common Greek Language.
Now some scholars may search for sources which may prove otherwise, i.e. for some
reason the Romans who were not really Greeks came to believe that they are Greeks. So
what? That would be like proving that a black American is not an American because he
is black.
Each Roman gens sometimes was composed of several thousand Romans each
one headed by a Patrician member of the senate. The members of gentis
memorized their laws from childhood and kept their laws a secret among
themselves.[ 64 ] A
form of an Italian language was that of their slaves and dependents which also
evolved into the Latin dialect mixed with Greek. It was these non Greek speaking
dependents of Rome who finally forced the Romans to reduce the laws to written form. It
was because of the violent protests of their Italian dependents that the Romans produced
a text of laws in primitive Latin in about 450 BC. The problem was serious because
these dependents did not know the laws by which they were being punished by Roman
magistrates. Faced with the revolt of these dependents the senate sent a delegation to
Athens to search for a solution to the problem. The result was a set of 10 texts on
bronze tables which finally became the "The Code of Twelve Tables." Table 11
forbade the marriage between members of the gentes and the rest of the
population of Rome, in other words between those of Greek origin and those of non-Greek
origin.
The origin of this problem was that for centuries the members of Greek colonies were
being assimilated by the barbarians among whom they lived. This was solved by the
position that the gentes had to remain a pure race so that the offerings of their
priests to their gods may be heard and that the auspices be taken correctly and correct
answers received from the gods when making decisions on legal, social and especially
military matters. "The tribune of the Plebs, Gaius Canuleis, proposed a bill
regarding the intermarriage of patricians and plebians which the patricians looked upon
as involving the debasement of their blood and the subversion of the principles inhering
in the gentes, or families and a suggestion, cautiously put forward at first by
the tribunes, that it should be lawful for one of the consuls to be chosen from the plebs,
was afterwards carried so far that nine tribunes proposed a bill giving the people power
to choose consuls as they might see fit from either the plebs or the
patriciansàWhat tremendous schemes had Gaius Canuleis set on foot! He was
aiming to contaminate the gentis and throw the auspices, both public and private
into confusion, that nothing might be pure, nothing unpolluted; so that, when all
distinctions had been obliterated, no man might recognize either himself or his kindred.
For what else, they asked, was the object of promiscuous marriages, if not that
plebeians and patricians might mingle together almost like the
beasts?"[ 65 ]
That the debate was not about the rights between rich and poor is shown by the
following joke told by Gaius Canuleis in the same speech, "Why, pray, do you not
introduce a law that there shall be no intermarrying of rich and poor"?
[ Return ]
(a) From Roman racism to Orthodox equality.
All humans suffer from this short-circuit "since all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:23) The difference among humans is not equality
or inequality of race, but whether one is being cured or not. Within this context we have
a complete reversal of the above foundation of the Hellenic paganism of the Roman
Empire. The great struggle between paganism and Christianity in the time of Emperor
Constantine the Great (306-337) is reflected in the difference between Roman Greeks
(meaning Pagans) and Roman Christians. All Pagan Romans were defending their
aristocratic ancient Hellenic identity and traditions which was being torn apart by the
aristocratic identity of the cure of glorification which was open to all Romans, both
gentis and non-gentis, and to all non-Romans.[ 66 ]
The "Aristocracy" of Glorification is no respector of the aristocracy of birth.
Having conquered the West Romans the Franco-Latins called themselves the
"gentis" and their Roman slaves "serfs" and
"villains". Pan-German ideology was clearly expressed to an extreme degree by
the followers of Hitler who were out to enslave at least the Slavs. But a theological
expression of this Germanic racism is found in Albert Schweitzer's book, "The
Quest Of The Historical Jesus." For example, on the first page of Chapter I he
claims that,
"When, at some future day, our civilization shall lie, closed and completed, before the eyes of later generations, German theology will stand out as a great, a unique phenomenon in the mental and spiritual life of our time. For nowhere save in the German temperament can there be found in the same perfection in the living complex of conditions and factors — of philosophic thought, critical acumen, historic insight, and religious feeling — without which no deep theology is possible."
All this has been done without the slightest knowledge of what glorification in the Lord
(Yahweh) of Glory is (in both Old and New Testaments). This is ignored equally
by both Germans and their Protestant and or 'Catholic' colleagues. Because of Augustine's
Neo-Platonism, both Protestants and Latins have always imagined that the Fathers of the
Ecumenical Councils accepted both the analogia entis between God and His
creation and analogia fidei between God and the Bible. This created not only
their Biblical fundamentalism, but also made Greek philosophy the foundation of their
understanding of the History of Dogma which is certainly not that of the reality of the
Roman Ecumenical Councils. The reason for this is that Western Biblical and doctrinal
scholars are ignorant of the Four Patristic Keys to the Bible and the Dogmas of the
Roman Ecumenical Councils explained earlier. But even many "Orthodox"
scholars follow either the Protestant or 'Catholic' scholars by "sniffing."
Albert Schweitzer and his students saw clearly where their quest for the "historical
Jesus" was leading, i.e. to the dissolution of the doctrinal fabric of what passes off
as Christian Tradition in the Franco-Latin West. One typical Orthodox reaction has been
to become proud that the Fathers of the Church had supposedly Hellenized Christianity
thereby making it acceptable to the Hellenic mind of the Roman Empire.
The Slavophil branch of Pan-Slavism also believed that the Slavs understood the Bible
better than other races. But the supposed reason for this is that among the Orthodox the
Greco-Roman Fathers of the Church belong to the historical manifestation of the Kouchite
movement in history, whereas the Slavs belong to the Iranian
movement in history.[ 68 ] In
other words the Slavic Orthodox are a superior brand of Christians than the Roman
Fathers of the Church, not because they may have reached glorification, but simply
because they are Slavs.[ 69 ]
It is a fact that the Carolingian Franks wanted and decided to believe that the Romans
were an Italo-Latin speaking race. Latin was beginning to be made the official language
of the Franks. Their own language was a Teutonic Dialect. The tradition that the Romans
were Latin and Latin speaking was invented within the Carolingian circles and became
manifest in the year 794. In the Libri Carolini the Franks were still calling the Empire of
New Rome the Imperium Romanum. But since 794 this same Empire begins to be
called "Imperium Grecorum." It must be emphasized that when this
change took place the Franks were ignorant barbarians. Since Charlemagne himself was
illiterate it is probable that the Saxon Alcuin, the director of his Palatine
School, perhaps did some kind of research which convinced him that the Romans were a
people who spoke Latin only. This would mean that the Greek language became a Roman
language only because so many Greeks had become Romans in the course of Roman
conquests. The Franks knew very well that the Romans in Southern Spain, Southern Gaul,
Southern Italy were Greek-speaking. Even Rome itself had been a Greek-speaking city
until Constantine moved the Roman Capital to Constantinople-New Rome. The void left by
the so many Romans who moved to New Rome was filled mostly by Latin-speaking
Romans. This obliged Pope Damasus to introduce Latin into the services of Rome. Italy
had two Synods of bishops: the Northern Synod centered in Milan and the Synod of Rome
whose members were all the bishops not only of the rest of Italy but the whole of the
Balkans excepting Thrace which had been transferred to the Patriarchate of
Constantinople.
The reason for this falsification was the Frankish need to convince their West Romans
serfs and villains that their Emperor and fellow Romans in the East were nothing but a
bunch of "Greeks" and "heretics." The purpose was to cut off the
West Romans from the East Romans who were still trying to help their fellow-Romans in
the West enslaved to the Franco-Latins. But what about modern historians today? Why
are they not better historians of Rome than their barbarian ancestors of the Dark
Ages?
The last group of Latins of Roman history were created as part of the settlement
between Rome and those Italians who revolted between 91-83 BC demanding Roman
citizenship. A second group of Italians also revolted at the same time and fought for
their complete independence from Rome. The first group was not given the Roman
franchise, but the "Latin name." The second group was simply defeated. This
distinction between Roman and Latin citizens of Rome which resulted from this war was
abolished by Emperor Caracala in 212 AD when he gave these Italian Latins the
"Roman name."
It is possible that the Merovingian Franks may have been given the "Latin
name" as indicated by the fact that their gold coins bore the effigy of the Roman
Emperors of Constantinople-New Rome from Anastasius I (491-518) through the reign of
Heraclius (610-641). The latter's rule coincided with his ally the Frankish King Dagobert
I (d. 639). Together they fought the Bulgarians and Slavs.
The title of the Merovingian kings was "King of the Franks." Dagobert's reign
was followed by the "do nothing kings," evidently made that way by their
Carolingian Mayors of the Palace who after the reign of Dagobert become the real rulers
of the Roman Province of Gaul. It is significant that the name Francia is not once
mentioned in Gregory of Tours' "History of the Franks" since it remained the
Roman Province named Gallia. In other words the Frankish King was the King of the
Franks not the King of the Romans. The ruler of the West Romans was still the Emperor
of the Romans in Constantinople-New Rome, especially after the West Roman Emperor
disappeared in 476.
It is also possible that the Carolingian Franks may have been given the "Latin"
name in conjunction with Pope Leo III's (795-816) crowning Charlemagne "Emperor
of the Romans" in 800. In any case we call the Teutonic Latins of the Middle Ages
Franco-Latins in order to distinguish them from the Greek Latins who were Romans and
the Italian Latins who became Romans in 212 AD. The Franks never became Romans, but
rulers of the Romans. In sharp contrast to the Merovingian Franks, who were allies of
New Rome, the Carolingian Franks literally hated the Romans. This is clear from the
Libri Carolini, the Carolingian preface to Salic Law and Otto I's Ambassador to
New Rome Luitbrand of Cremona who revealed this same reality in his tirade against the
very name "Roman," which, according to him, all Franco-Latins use to insult
their enemies.[ 70 ]
Frankish hatred for Romans, and not dogma, was the basis of
Charlemagne's condemnation of Romans as "heretics" and "Greeks"
at his Councils of Frankfurt in 794 and Aachen in 809. The main purpose of these titles,
"heretic" and "Greek" was to teach the enslaved West Romans that
the only Romania left was Papal Romania and their prayers for Romania and its Emperor
should stop there.[ 71 ]
The Franks began brainwashing their now subjected Roman
revolutionaries into believing that this Romania of their Pope is all that exists since the
rest of the Empire was a "heretical Grecia" somewhere in the East.
The second reason we use the term Franco-Latins is because the mostly Teutons in
question looked upon Charlemagne as the founder of their Latin Empire and Civilization
which its leaders believed was destined to rule the world. They call Charlemagne's
Empire the First Reich, Emperor Otto I's (912-973) "Roman" Empire the
Second Reich, while some of the Franco-Latin royalty and nobility considered Hitler's
(1889-1945) candidate Empire the "Third Reich." In any case Charlemagne is
considered the primary Father of today's United Europe whose real purpose is to compete
with the United States dollar for control of the world's wealth.
One Orthodox nation, Greece, is part of today's United Europe and a second one, Cyprus,
is a candidate. Others want to follow. This means that United Europe is indeed becoming
not only the real "Third Reich," but also a Third Imperium Romanum,
both combined into one. In such a case this State should be named
"Franco-Romania" and its citizens Franco-Romans. This is a historical reality
since almost all Europeans are descendants of either Franco-Latins or Romans. But this
can become a reality only by the recognition of religion as a neurobiological sickness
which divides people, according to the figments of their religious imaginations, into
fanatic enclaves. This sickness is exactly what divides Europeans in the sphere of
religion and to a certain degree in culture also.
It is also a reality that the prophets of the Old Testament and their students had been
one of the sources of this tradition whereby religion was considered a sickness of man's
spirit in the heart and which is cured by the purification and illumination of the heart,
as we shall see. This prophetic tradition was preserved by the Hasidim through the
Hellenistic and Roman periods of Jewish history and preserved, as it seems, by them
even up to our time.[ 72 ]
The very cure of the sickness of religion is what had been incorporated into the
foundation of Constantine the Great's New Rome in 330 AD However, this sickness and
its cure has been forgotten by many Orthodox because of Peter the Great's (1672-1725)
Westernization of his Russian Orthodox Church. This was imposed as policy by Britain,
France and Russian upon those nations which were created by Balkanization of the
European part of the Ottoman Empire. This is why both the Vatican and most Protestants
continue to believe dogmatically indeed, that the only key to relations with the
Orthodox is the "way" of Tsar Peter. Both the Anglican and the Vatican
Churches have specialists who follow Orthodox theological developments and carefully
pick out those Orthodox "specialists" who follow such lines of convergence
with the Augustinian tradition in order to promote them to key dialogue
positions.[ 73 ]
In sharp contrast to Peter the Great's policies, the Merovingian Franks, who ruled
Gallo-Roman Christians were part of this tradition of the cure of the sickness of religion.
Even the few Christian Lombards at the time belonged to this
tradition.[ 74 ] However, this
was never understood by the Carolingian Franks who made Augustine's Neo-Platonism
their religion (and sickness) in sharp contrast to the Merovingian Franks who witnessed
and supported the condemnation of Augustine's teaching about grace and original sin at
the Council of Orange (529). The Carolingian doctrinal tradition began with this
Platonism of Augustine which they never abandoned and which still dominates both
Vaticanism and Protestantism. In other words both Western and Eastern Europeans must
return to the unity they had in this cure of the sickness of religion under New Rome and
the Merovingians in order to complete the current effort for European union. What is of
interest is that many Jews still belong to this tradition of the cure. To speak of a
separation between East and West is nonsense. In reality the separation is one between
those who do not know that religion is a sickness and those who know that religion is a
sickness and know its cure. Since one is speaking about a common disease of all humans
one can not confine its cure only to a United Europe.
There are two keys to this study which may be distinguished but in reality are two faces
of the same coin. For this reason we will deal with them together.
One key to this study is that religion is a neurobiological sickness. It stems from a
short-circuit between the heart and the brain. The "spirit of man in the heart"
should be spinning in a circle praying when in its normal state of communion with the
uncreated glory (shekina), i.e. the uncreated "reign (basilea) of God."
This uncreated glory or reigning power of God is everywhere present saturating all of
creation. Like the rest of creation all humans are already in communion with this glory's
creating, providential, ruling and even purifying energy at various levels. However, few
go on to participating in the "illuminating" and "glorifying" energy
of the "glory" of God. The reason for this is that "all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23)" The reason for this is that the
"spirit" or the noetic faculty of each one usually begins to unfold
itself out of its natural circular state during infancy into a straight line and sticks itself
to the brain causing a short-circuit. In this way this "spirit" in infants, while
always anchored in the heart, becomes enslaved by means of the brain to the
shortcomings of its parents and its general environment since all thoughts in the brain
originate thence.
It seems that the reason why neurologists have not yet found a center for religion in the
brain, as far as I know, is that it resides in this short-circuit between the heart and the
brain and not in the brain itself. It is this short-circuit which creates the fantasies of
religious convictions, as well as other signs of a disorded mind, from mild to serious,
including acute criminality and barbarism.
The second key to this study is the phenomenon of deliberate falsification of history as
part of the enslavement of others. It is generally agreed, even by the Franco-Latin
nobility, that the civilization of the Roman Empire was Hellenic in its inception. But this
same nobility claims that this Romano-Hellenic Civilization changed into a Western
Civilization in the 8-9th centuries in Western Europe and into a Byzantine Civilization in
the East at about the same time. But what had really happened was that the
Franco-Latins had reverted to a period of sheer barbarity under the leadership of the
Carolingian Franks which up until recently was still being called the "Dark
Ages." How else can one describe France, for example, in 1789 when 85% of her
population were still serfs and villains guarded from escape by
40,000 castles.[ 75 ] How can
such a France be better described than part of the Dark Ages. It can, of course, be made
to look like a civilized society only when history is controlled by the aristocracy and the
middle class of 13% which still keep this so-called "free" 85% in abject
slavery to history as written by themselves.[ 76 ]
So that we may not be accused of exaggerations we quote a description of the condition
of the serfs of France before the French Revolution written by Germaine de Stael, the
daughter of Jacques Necker (1732-1804) the finance minister of Louis XVI. She writes,
"Young people and strangers who had not known France before the revolution, and
today see the people enriched by the division of properties and the suppression of the
tithe and the feudal regime, can have no idea of the condition of this country, when the
nation was carrying the weight of all the privileges. The supporters of slavery in the
colonies have often said that a peasant in France was more unfortunate than an Negro.
This was an argument to comfort the whites, but not to harden them against the
blacks."[ 77 ]
From this viewpoint the real beginning of Western Civilization is the American
Revolution of 1775-81 which was completed by the abolition of slavery in 1865. The
French Revolution of 1789 was also a beginning of Western Civilization since it
immediately liberated the serfs and villains from their captivity to the 40,000 castles
which the peasants enjoyed burning together with their castellani inhabitants. But
democracy itself was squelched by Napoleon in 1800. After he fell from power the rest of
the nobility returned from mostly self-imposed exile. Both the Napoleonists and the other
royalists got down to work and re-enslaved the 85% of Gallo-Romans. Of course they
were no longer called serfs and villains. However, they are still called
"peasants" (paysan) which had been the collective name for the
"serfs" and "villains" before the revolution. Now all Gallo-Roman
children are being brainwashed by the comic figure "Asterix" into believing
that they are the "Celts" who were enslaved to the Romans as though they
were not Gallo-Roman citizens during Imperial and Merovingian times. It was the
ancestors of these children now being brainwashed by "Asterix" who are the
descendants of the 85% of Gallo-Roman serfs and villains liberated in 1789.
The leaders of the falsification of history today are the nobilities of France, England and
Russia. What these nobilities had been losing in battle and politics has been gradually
recouped by their progressive re-writing of history. One of their greatest successes has
been creating a partnership between the Encyclopaedia Britannica and naïve
Chicago University in order to put it into every American home. It has been transforming
the way Americans think about so many aspects of historical reality into conformity with
the interests of European nobility. The basic reason for their success is that it is easier
for Americans doing historical research to copy English scholars rather than learn the
sources themselves which are in a wide range of languages. Americans in general could
never suspect that scholars of such prestigious Universities as Oxford and
Cambridge and British professors teaching in American Universities are capable of
deliberately shading or even falsifying historical reality in support of their class
interests. After all isn't Charlemagne still their Great Father?
Being misled, as it seems, by their first teacher, the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin, the
Carolingians came to believe that the ancient Romans spoke Latin and were therefore
Latins. As we already saw it was the Latins who were absorbed into the Roman nation.
Also the first language of the Romans was Greek because they were simply Greeks who
came to Italy as a result of the War between Trojan Greeks and the Achaean Greeks.
What is even more interesting is that the basic reason the Latins refused to become
Romans before they were conquered by King Ancus Marcius is that the Latins considered
the Romans impure Greeks because they had intermarried with the Sabines who were
also Greeks, but not pure Greeks. The Latin General Mettius Fufetius argues with the
Roman King Tullus Hostius that "...if we should yield the command to you, the base
born will rule over the true born, the barbarians over Greeks, and immigrants
over the native born."[ 78 ]
In sharp contrast to this historical reality the Franks believed that the Roman Emperor
Constantine the Great (306-337) had abandoned the Latin language and tradition in favor
of the Greek language and tradition when he moved his capital from Rome to New Rome
officially in 330. This nonsense was clearly argued by Emperor Louis II (855-875)
against Emperor Basil I (867-886) in 871.[ 79 ]
The falsification of Roman history in question
has become the power base of the Franco-Latin nobility's ability of ruling so many
millions of Romans by means of their ignorance of their true identity and why they are
not really members of the ruling class.
Since religion had been one of the determining factors in this change we shall
concentrate a bit here. Under the weight of Augustine Franco-Latin Christianity became
one of the barbaric forms of religion and one of the clearest manifestations of the
sickness of religion. At the very same time the Roman Empire in the East had continued
to promote this cure of the sickness of religion. The very foundation of the Dark Ages
was the cultivation of the short-circuit between the brain and the heart which is the
basis of the sickness of religion. At this very same time the Roman Empire in the East
was still concentrating on the cure of this short circuit between the brain and the heart
among its citizens, being guided by monasticism which had become the center of this
cure. In sharp contrast Franco-Latin monasticism was mere Augustinian Neo-Platonic
mysticism in Christian dress. This is exactly what much of Protestantism rejected during
the Reformation. A basic reason why many Orthodox do not see this any more is that
they follow the Franco-Latin translation of the Patristic term Secret Theology by
Mystical Theology. Secret Theology simply means that the uncreated glory of God seen in
glorification has no similarity whatsoever to anything created and therefore
cannot be described or expressed in words or concepts. Mystical Theology means union
with the so-called archetypes of creation in God which is an "invention of
demons" according to the Orthodox Fathers, as we shall see. Words and concepts
may lead to glorification in which one sees in not seeing since it is the uncreated glory
which sees itself by means of the glorified. There is here no liberation of a soul from a
body since the individual, body and soul, and everything in sight is saturated by
uncreated glory of God dividing itself without division and is everywhere present.
In order to make the function of this short-circuited "spirit" in the heart more
intelligible to the Hellenic mind the Fathers of the early Church called it also by the
Greek term noera energeia which we translate noetic energy or
noetic faculty. Of the three Greek terms for rational activity, i.e.
nous, dianoiaand logos,
the Fathers used nous to
designate the "spirit" of man which prays in the heart without ceasing when
restored to normal. In this way they accorded this spirit in the heart a reality equal to
the brain. The original use of this praying spirit is to be found in St. Paul. "I will
pray with the spirit, but I will also pray with the intellect. I will recite psalms with the
spirit, but I will also recite psalms with the intellect (nous)" 1 Cor. 14:14.
These are the Old Testament psalms being recited quietly in the heart and not
the strange sounds being passed off today as "speaking in tongues" by the aid
of a translator.
The cure of this short-circuit which causes the sickness of religion is the key to both
the Old and New Testaments. Within this context such titles as Christian, Jew, Moslem,
heretic, Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, atheist, infallible Pope, etc., are in reality
meaningless when this sickness of religion and its cure is ignored and sometimes
accompanied with phenomenal pretensions and even with barbaric conduct. The center
stage in the cure of this sickness is held by the prophets of both the Old and the New
Testaments and their successors, who having been cured themselves guide others in this
same process of cure. If one does not know this cure, yet fancies himself, or is fancied
by others, to be inspired by God, he is indeed inspired, but only by his own
short-circuit.
That quite a few religions have been historically dangerous to the liberty of the
individual and to the proper functioning of society is obvious enough and must be handled
accordingly. More recently the communists had handled religion as a psychological and
social problem and tried to uproot it by means not very democratic. In contrast to such
approaches the prophets of the Old and New Testaments practiced a concrete cure of the
sickness of religion which the Roman Empire espoused in order to produce normal
citizens who would put the common good and neighbor over self at the center of
individual efforts. Most Jews and Christians are no longer aware of this short-circuit let
alone its cure. In contrast the leaders of the Roman Empire had become very much aware
of this sickness and cure and incorporated it into its administration, exactly as modern
medicine is being supported by governments today.
However, Augustine, in sharp contrast to Ambrose who had baptized him, was not aware
of this sickness and cure and passed on his ignorance to his followers. The Carolingian
Franks, their allies, the Vatican and most Protestants have been and continue to be his
followers. Add to this all Orthodox victims of Peter the Great's Westernization of
Russian Orthodoxy.
Augustine himself tells us how he came to first believe that Christianity and Platonism
were two sides of the same coin and how he later came to see some basic differences.
He tells us in his Confessions how he yearned to discuss his problems of faith with
Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, but ended up speaking about them only with Simplicianus,
(VIII.ii) the presbyter who was to succeed Ambrose as bishop of Milan. As soon as
Augustine mentioned that he was studying the Platonists, Simplicianus reacted by
rejoicing "over me, that I had not fallen upon any other philosophers' writings"
Then Simplicianus recounted how, when he was a priest in Rome, he had received
Victorinus into the Church. He was the very same translator of the Platonists whose
writings Augustine was studying. Augustine left this meeting with Simplicianus with the
impression that Platonism and the Bible are both two sides of the same coin. Had
Augustine paid closer attention to Ambrose's sermons he would seen how the bishop of
Milan saw no identity in doctrine between Platonism and Christianity. In answer to
Augustine's query about what to study in preparation for his baptism, Ambrose wrote
back that he should study the book of Isaiah.
Augustine tells us that he did not understand this Book of Isaiah. So he and his friends
engaged in philosophical discussions in their preparation for baptism. Minutes of these
discussions were kept and later published. One of the basic conclusions of these
discussions was the following statement of Augustine: "Meanwhile, I am confident
that I shall find among the Platonists what is not in opposition to our Sacred
Scriptures."[ 80 ]
He later corrected himself in his Confessions by pointing out those
Biblical teachings which he claims to have found in the Platonists and those which he
did not find there.[ 81 ]
This became the Franco-Latin distinction between natural revelation
to the pagan philosophers and supernatural revelation in the Bible. According to Augustine
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity belongs to natural revelation and the incarnation and
related matters to supernatural revelation, a position rejected by all Fathers including
Ambrose.
For the Fathers of the Nine Roman Ecumenical Councils there is no such distinction
between natural and supernatural revelation since there is no similarity between the
created and the uncreated. There is only the cure of the sickness of religion by means of
the stages of the purification and illumination of the heart which leads to glorification
during which one sees that there is no similarity whatsoever between the created and the
uncreated.
Augustine did not have the slightest suspicion of the existence of these fundamental
presuppositions for understanding the Old and New Testaments from the viewpoint of
those who had reached glorification and which ordains prophets. Therefore, he never
understood "that there is no similarity whatsoever between the created and the
uncreated and that, therefore, it is impossible to express God and even more impossible
to conceive God." On the contrary he writes "I will not be slow to search out
the substance of God, whether through His Scripture or through the creature. For both of
these are set forth for our contemplation to this end, that He may Himself be loved, who
inspired the one, and created the other." The technical term for this division
between supernatural and natural revelation is analogia fide and analogia
entis which are both rejected by the Fathers of the Church as the fundamental basis
of heresy.
The Carolingian Franks started their theological tradition in the latter part of the 9th
century knowing only Augustine. These Franks had not yet become acquainted with at
least a second Father of the Church when Charlemagne went ahead with condemning the
Roman Empire as "pagan" and "heretical" in his Libri
Carolini. This is the first time in history that a whole nation was condemned as
pagan and heretical and indeed by illiterate barbarians who knew only the text of the
Bible and Augustine. Up until this time individual leaders and their followers were
considered pagan or heretical, but not a whole nation. What is most amazing is that at
this time the first Frankish theologian in history, Rabanus Maurus, was an 18 year old
student of the Saxon Alcuin, the director of Charlemagne's Palatine school, who himself
knew only Augustine. Then Charlemagne's Council of Frankfurt (794) re-confirmed the
heretical and pagan nature of the Roman Empire. It was at Frankfurt that Charlemagne
started the tradition of calling the Roman Empire by the name "Greek
Empire." However, he kept the name "Roman Empire" for the "Papal
States." In this way all enslaved West Romans, including the Irish after
1066,[ 82 ]
would now be praying only for the "Papal Roman Empire" and no longer for the
now supposedly heretical and pagan "Greek Empire."
Being a "commoner," and therefore not privy to the reasons for the
Franco-Latin nobility's falsification of Roman history, Edward Gibbons (1737-1794) used
the name "Roman Empire" in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire" right up to its fall in 1453. He read history out of the Roman sources and
not as a scheming member of a conspiracy. This is what he found in all the sources of
Roman history. The keepers of the Carolingian tradition reacted by transforming the
Roman Empire into a "Byzantine Empire" which supposedly appeared in about
717AD. This date comes quite close to Charlemagne's date whereby he transformed the
Roman Empire of his Libri Carolini into the Greek Empire of his Council of
Frankfurt in 794. However, the real reason for the transformation of Charlemagne's Greek
Empire into a Byzantine Empire was avoid the ridiculous reality of what was
becoming reality in, for example, the London Protocol No.59 of January 30,
1836. There "Greeks" who fought in their revolution to break away from
Turkey and establish their own state, but were left outside of its borders, are depicted
as becoming "Hellenes" by virtue of the right they are being given to leave
Turkey and immigrate to Hellas. In other words they are being liberated not only from the
Ottoman Empire, but also from Charlemagne's "Greek" Empire which had
survived as a Church within the Ottoman Empire. This is reality from the linguistic
Franco-Latin and Russian viewpoints. However, from the viewpoint of the linguistic
tradition of these "Greeks" and of the Turks these "Greeks" are
called Romans in Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Coptic, Syrian, Armenian, Ethiopian, etc. In
other words Charlemagne's "Greek" was at this time limited to the confines of
the Franco-Latins. This Protocol was signed upon the occasion of the settlement of the
final maps which had been drawn up showing the boundaries between Hellas and the
Ottoman Empire and to permit those "Greek" or Roman revolutionaries, who
ended up in Turkey, now that the maps between the two countries had settled, to go to
the new State of Hellas as being now already "Hellenes."
We translate from the original "Lingua Franca.": "Always understood that,
those who will be considered Hellenes from now on, and will take their place in the
category of those who will profit with the right of emigration are: - 1st All the native
Greeks of the Ottoman territory, who had emigrated before June 16, 1830, and who did
not return to Turkey to re-settle there: 2nd. The Greeks to whom the right of emigration
had been accorded by the Protocol of June 16, 1830, and who emigrated between the
date of said Protocol and December 9, 1835, the day that the Map of the frontier had
been delivered to the Port; on condition that they have fulfilled the conditions in regard
to this present Act." Here we have a distinction between Greek Hellenes and Greeks
who are not Greek Hellenes which we find in a Declaration of the Three Courts (Britain,
France and Russia) "0n the occasion of the election of Prince Othon to throne of
Greece" dated august 30, 1832 which opens with the salutation
"Hellenes!" and goes on to call these Hellenes "Greek" also. So here
we have a distinction between Greek Hellenes of Greece and those simply Greeks within
the Ottoman Empire.
But the British, French and Russians had also set the trap for the eventual disappearance
of the Roman name. After we deal with how they almost finished the job, we will turn
our attention to the reason why. One may have a clue by asking oneself whether one is a
member of the Franco-Latin royalty or nobility or not. If the answer in no, then one is a
Roman or a descendent of Romans or of ancestors who migrated to, or were taken by
force, to former Roman Provinces.
During the French Revolution the Gallo-Roman serfs and villains made up 85% of the
population and were being guarded from escape by 40,000 castles. The mostly former
Gallo-Romans and now the Middle Class made up the 13% of the population. This means
that the Gallo-Romans made up 98% of the population of France in 1789. In other words
the nobility comprised only 2% of the population. Napoleon destroyed the power
of the Gallo-Romans and saved France and Noble Europe and Russia from a general
takeover of Europe by the sub-strata of society which at the time was not educated
enough to make profit on their overwhelming numbers.
But the greater danger facing the royalties and nobilities of Europe lay in Edward
Gibbons' revelation that the so-called "Greek Empire" is really the Roman
Empire. This history was translated into French in time to have an impact on the French
Revolution. This intensified the awareness of the Roman unity between East and West
Romans which had been distorted by Charlemagne's "Greek Empire" which was
hidden from the enslaved West Romans. Because of Gibbon the Gallo-Romans produced
their revolutionary song called the CHANSON DE BELISAIRE (The Song of
Belisarius) the great Roman general who was sent by Emperor Justinian to liberate the
West Romans from their Teutonic conquerors. Napoleon finally suppressed the
overwhelming power of the Gallo-Roman element and restored the power of the Frankish
nobility. He himself belonged to that part of the Franco-Tuscan nobility which had
remained faithful to the Carolingians and for this reason supported the French Revolution
against the descendants of King Hugh Capet (987-996) who had terminated the
Carolingian line in France. By means of Napoleon's victory over the Gallo-Romans and his
suppression of their revolution, he personally transformed the Robespierrian plans to
support an East Roman Revolution against the Ottomans into an Ancient Greek Revolution
against both the Romans and the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. Napoleon and Tsar
Alexander I agreed on this plan in 1806. Their successors continued the effort
and were joined by Great Britain.
The foundation of the plan for the destruction and the dividing up of the Ottoman Empire
between Britain, France and Russia became the Balkanization of Ottoman Rumeli and the
Westernization of both the Orthodox Christians and the Moslems. But this process
required the use of a new term in order to cover up the falsification in progress. What
had to be solved was a problem inherited from the Franco-Latin tradition which came
into existence in 794. Since this year the Franco-Latins had been calling the East
Romans by the name "Greeks." But these so-called "Greeks" were
still calling themselves Romans while the Turks, Arabs and other non Franco-Latin
peoples were calling them Romans also. So to claim that Hellenes are being liberated
from Romans made sense in these languages, but not within the Franco-Latin tradition.
To say in the Franco-Latin tradition that "Hellenes" are being liberated from
"Greeks" is a nonsensical contradiction in terms. The name "Greek"
is the Latin word for Greek and "Hellene" is the Greek word for Greek. So the
term "Byzantine" was finally chosen by Britain, Russia and France to make it
possible to depict the Hellenic Greeks as being liberated from the Byzantines. This
position was first made public in George Finlay's "History of Greece" But
before Finlay's "History" appeared, we come across decisions whereby Greeks
are being legally transformed into Hellenes. Thus, in the London Protocol of 1/30/1836
signed by Britain, France and Russia, we come across "Greeks" being legally
transformed into "Hellenes" in the French language. In Turkish we have
"Romans" being legally transformed into "Hellenes." Because Greek
diplomats at the time knew French they therefore felt that they did not require
translations. But in translations subsequently made we find "Hellenes" being
transformed into "Hellenes" instead of "Greeks" being transformed
into "Hellenes." In other words they did not know that the Franco-Latin use of
the name "Greek" had become a substitute for the name "Roman"
since 794.
In order to hammer more nails into the coffin he was building for the eventual demise of
the Roman Empire, Charlemagne added the Filioque to the Roman Creed of the
Second Ecumenical Council of 381 and condemned all who disagreed with him as heretics
at his Council of Aachen in 809. Charlemagne accomplished all the above when his
specialists knew only Augustine. Franco-Latins who could read and write were a
rarity.
When these Franks realized that they could not quote only Augustine when debating with
free Romans, as had happened in Bari in 1088, they began their peculiar
tradition of collecting isolated sections of the Fathers which they found in collections of
canons (Church laws) and scholia on the Bible and enslaved them all to Augustinian
categories. They continued to do the same with complete books of the Fathers as they
became available. In this way the whole Franco-Latin tradition got bogged down into
trying to understand texts of the Bible, Fathers and Councils out of context in an
Augustinian mindset. This tradition was followed by all the allies of the Franks.
Even in this age of so-called dialogue the nobility of the Vatican and that of the
Protestants, in their new cooperation via the World Council of Churches, is still
searching for those Orthodox who use their own Augustinian categories
to negotiate with.[ 83 ]
What comprises the core of the last part of this paper was adopted by the Central
Committee of the World Council of Churches meeting in Moscow as part of the material
to be studied at its General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Canberra. In
other words the Central Committee which is the legislative body of the Council was
circumvented by those who really run the WCC's show.
What is left is to translate the biblical "spirit of man" and the patristic
"noetic energy" into the categories of neurobiological sickness due to the
short-circuit between the heart and the brain and its cure. And indeed the whole of
Vaticanian, Protestant and Peter the Great Orthodox theology is indeed nothing else than
the result of this short-circuit between the heart and the brain.
What one must realize is that terms which belong to metaphysical categories were and
are used only by heretics in support of their positions. The Fathers were forced to use
these terms and categories against the heretics themselves, but never with the intention
of using these terms and categories as parts of definitions of God. This Augustine never
understood.
In sharp contrast to the Augustinian metaphysical tradition all decisions of the Nine
Ecumenical Councils of the Roman Empire are founded on the following three axioms:
1) There is no similarity whatsoever between the uncreated and the created.
2) It is impossible to express God and even more impossible to conceive God.
3) What is common in the Holy Trinity is common to all Three Persons and what is individual belongs to only One Person.
One can understand how and why Augustine is not aware of these axioms. He simply did
not pay attention to Ambrose's sermons. I am not aware of any Western history of
Christian doctrine which is aware of the existence of these three axioms in the theology
of the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils.
The second key to this study is the historical context within which the sickness and
cure in question was sidestepped by the Teutonic conquerors of the West Romans who
fell in love with Augustine's doctrine of predestination which coincided with
their tradition of settling questions of truth by trial by fire. According to Augustine
everyone has inherited the guilt of Adam and Eve and is worthy of eternal damnation. But
God has predestined that number of humans to replace the fallen angels regardless of
their inherited guilt and worthiness for eternal damnation. Therefore, the salvation of
those predestined does not depend on their personal worthiness, but solely on God's
choice. Because many French revolutionaries of 1789 assumed that Augustine's version
of the teachings of St. Paul and the Bible were correct they blamed their many centuries
of enslavement under the Franco-Latin royalty and nobility on Christianity
itself.[ 84 ]
The most important of the Teutons were the Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Lombards,
Normans and West Saxons. Most of the East Saxons of England were enslaved by the
Normans and remained part of European Roman society and found it normal to
join the Varangian army of New Rome. The Franco-Latins conquered the whole of West
Roman society and reduced it the status of serfs and villains. By about the 11th-12th
century some Roman serfs and villains began the process of becoming the middle class of
the Franco-Latin feudal system. They began to appear in walled towns defending
themselves from their former owners, i.e. the castellani (the dwellers in fortresses with
their families) who guarded the slave camps from which these Romans had been
escaping.
The castellani in question had become virtually independent of their emperor and kings
during the 10th and 11th centuries. This was because of the power they had acquired as
the ones who had become mainly responsible for enslaving the revolutionary Romans in
turmoil during the period that the Franks were fighting to take over the Roman Papacy.
Otto II (973-983) forcefully placed the first non Roman, the Lombard Peter of Pavia, on
the papal throne as John XIX (983-984) and provoked a revolution of the Romans in
Rome aided by the Roman Emperor in Constantinople New Rome. Then Otto III
(983-1002) placed Bruno of Carinthia on the papal throne as Gregory V (996-999) and
Gerbert de Aurillac to succeed him as Silvester II (991-1003). These efforts having
failed the German Emperors devised an interim plan of putting Tusculan Roman
Popes on the papal throne between 1012-1046 in exchange of adding the
Filioque to the Creed of Papal Romania. Then the Franco-Latins dropped this
facade with their outright takeover of the Papacy in 1046.
The Franco-Latins had been forced to take over the Papacy because the Roman Popes
had been using the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, which appeared about 850 AD,
to take control of all Franco-Latin bishops in order to either bring the Franco-Latin
leadership under the rule of law and order and Roman Orthodoxy or even under Roman
rule.[ 85 ]
Having lost any real control over the castellani the Rex Francorum (King of the
Franks) in West Francia retaliated by taking the rebel Roman towns in question under his
protection. He placed his military within the citadels of these Roman towns and
franchised their citizens. At the time the name Frank meant not only a member of the
Frankish race but also a free person. This gave rise to the distinction between middle
class Franks, who descended from serfs and villains, and "noble" Franks, who
descended from the race of the conquerors. The taxes paid by these middle class
Franchised Romans made the Rex Francorum (Roy des Francois), the
richest and most powerful monarch of Western Europe.
The Gallo-Roman serfs and villains called the middle class Romans
"Francimander," apers of the Franks, especially because they spoke the
Frankish language. They called the Franks "Franciman," evidently because the
Franks at the time of the conquest called themselves so in their own Germanic language.
This name Franciman survived in Gallo-Roman patois right up the revolution of 1789 and
in popular poetry and songs.
We remind ourselves once more that when the French Revolution broke out in 1789 the
population of France had just been counted for the convocation of the Estates General.
The total was about 26 million broken down into 2% nobility, 13% middle class and
85% serfs and villains. The position of historians[ 86 ]
that the Romans and Franks had
become one people even in the time of the Merovingian Franks needs a bit more proof
than is usually provided. In any case it is highly unlikely that more than 20 million
Gallo-Roman serfs and villains in 1789 had descended from ancestors who had
volunteered to become the serfs and villains of the ancestors of the Castellani
(Chatelaine) of 1789 who were still living in 40,000 castles and guarding more than 20
million serfs and villains from escape. William the Conqueror's "Book of
Winchester" (Doomsday Book) seems to also corroborate the plight of the conquered
medieval West Romans. At the time of the conquest even the Irish were praying for the
Imperium Romanum not realizing that Charlemagne had restricted the name to the
Papal States and had begun the Franco-Latin tradition of calling the Empire of New
Rome, the Irish were praying for, the heretical "Imperium
Graecorum."
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[ 50 ] For an example of the original position of the Franks on this
subject see F. Cayre, Manual of Patrology and History of Theology,
Translated by H. Howitt, Paris, Tournai, Rome 1940, vol 2, pp. 378-380.
For a much fairer but not exactly correct position see Francis Dvornik,
"The Photian Schism," Cambridge University Press 1948.
[ 51 ] See the chapter "The Filioque" in my "Franks, Romans,
Feudalism and Doctrine," pp. 60-98.
[ 52 ] John S. Romanides, Ibid, pp. 25-29.
[ 53 ] George Every, "The Byzantine Patriarchate," p. 114.
[ 54 ] RA, I, XI, 1.
[ 55 ] Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, I,1,2.
[ 56 ] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, III, 1-6.
Mettius Fufetius, the chief of the Latins, who were resisting the pressure of
King Tullus Hostilius of Rome (672-640) to become one Greek nation with the
Romans argued as follows, "As for us, Tullus, we deserve to rule over
even all the rest of Italy, inasmuch as we are a Greek and the largest of
all that inhabit this country." Another argument: "One cannot point to any
race of mankind, except Greeks and Latins, to whom we have granted
citizenship; whereas you have corrupted the purity of your body
politic by admitting Tyrrhenians, Sabines, and some others — and
that in great numbers too, so that the true born element among you that
went out from our midst become small, or a tiny fraction, in comparison
with those who have been brought in and are of an alien race. And if we
should yield the command to you, the base-born will rule over the true-born,
barbarians over Greeks, and immigrants over the native-born."
[ 57 ] 'Plutarch's Lives' XVI, 1. "The Sabines were a numerous
and warlike people, and dwelt in unwalled villages, thinking that it behooved
them since they were Lacedaemonian colonists, to be bold and fearless."
[ 58 ] Livy l, xlvii, 1ff. Dionysius, RA lll, xlvi1-5, xlvii ff
[ 59 ] RA, I, 90, 1.
[ 60 ] H. G. Liddell and R. Scot, "Greek-English Lexicon," at name
"rome."
[ 61 ] Ibid., at verb "roomai."
[ 62 ] Ibid., at verb "ronnyni."
[ 63 ] Ibid., at name "kouretes."
[ 64 ] Diosysius, RA X, 2ff.
[ 65 ] Livy, Ibid, IV, 1f.
[ 66 ] See my "Romanity, Romania, Rumeli." (in Greek), Thessaloniki
1975.
[ 67 ] Albert Schweitzer, "The Quest of the Historical Jesus",
New York; A. and C. Black, 1910. Pg. 1.
[ 68 ] John S. Romanides, "Orthodox Ecclesiology According to
Alexis Khomiakov (1804-1860), The Greek Orthodox Theological Review,
vol.11, no. 1, 1956, pp. 58 ff.
[ 69 ] This is why Father Georges Florovsky attacked the
theology of the Slavophiles whose modern supporters finally retaliated
by getting him fired as dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary.
[ 70 ] John S. Romanides, "Franks, Romans, Feudalism and Doctrine,
an interplay between Theology and Society,"
Holy Cross Orthodox Press 1981, p. 27.
[ 71 ] All Orthodox Christians, including the Irish, were praying for their
Imperium Romanum. G. Every, "The Byzantine Patriarchate, 451-1204,"
London 1947, p.114.
[ 72 ] This was discovered during a dialogue meeting between Orthodox Christians and Jews in Bucharest, October 1979.
[ 73 ] This is how the first General Secretary of the World Council
of Churches, a Dutch Calvinist, dumped Father G. Florovsky as the natural leader
of the Orthodox in dialogue in favor of Prof. N. Nissiotis. The latter had
promised "to perform a marriage between John Calvin and the Orthodox Fathers"
as the key to the union of the Churches.
[ 74 ] John S. Romanides, Ibid., pp. 53-57.
[ 75 ] Louis Madelin, La Revolution, Deuxieme Edition,
Paris 1912, p. 74.
[ 76 ] For these population figures see the edition of
Germaine de Stael's book, Considerations Sur La Revolution Fancaise, par
Tallandier, Paris 1881, p. 610. Jacques Godechot who prepared the reedition
of this book cites J. Dupaquiers, La population francais aux XVII et XVIII
siecles, Paris (Que sais-Je?) 1979.
[ 77 ] Ibid, p. 96.
[ 78 ] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, III, 10, 3-5.
[ 79 ] Ibid, pp. 17-18.
[ 80 ] Contra Academicos, III, 43.n.
[ 81 ] VII, IX.
[ 82 ] George Every S.S.M., The Byzantine Patriarchate,
London 1947, p.114.
[ 83 ] Both the Vatican and the World Council of Churches are
using every means to make this old Franco-Latin tradition work in the 20th
century and will indeed continue, unless the behind the scene Protestant
nobility decides otherwise.
[ 84 ] See e.g. Jule Michle, Histoire de la revolution Française,
part one, De la religion du moyen age, Paris 1868.
[ 85 ] See my "Franks, Romans, Feudalism and Doctrine,
an interplay between Theology and Society," Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1981.
[ 86 ] E.g. Sir Samuel Dill, "Roman Society in Gaul in the
Merovingian Age," London 1926. For a popular version of this same
position supported by the editors of Time-Life Books see Gerald Simons,
"Barbarian Europe," 1968. It seems that this position is strongly
supported by some European nobilities while others claim that they
are "nobles of the sword" because of their decent directly from the
Teutonic conquerors of Western Europe.
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