World Religions (Continued)
In their discussion on Protestantism on the preceding page, (it covers the 15th century after Christ) this period witnessed two religious movements; the disruption of the unity of Christianity in the Occident; and the synthesis of a new religion in the Orient. In Europe, institutionalized Christianity had attained that degree of inelasticity which rendered further growth incompatible with unity. In the Orient, the combined teachings of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism were synthesized by Nanak and his followers into Sikhism, one of the most advanced religions of Asia. It isn’t very big though; the Sikhs are not a large community but they are compact and they fight hard.
Back to Judaism. Judaism carries the heaviest strain of Melchizedek teachings and Judaism is not an original religion. Judaism started out with Egyptian culture. Moses himself was half-Egyptian. If you would like to trace out the Egyptian background of the Old Testament there is only one book that has it and that is “The Dawn of Conscience” by Brested. “The Dawn of Conscience” is an examination of the evolution of moral concepts along the Nile. Its an awfully good book to read in connection with the section in these papers which discuss the Melchizedek teachings along the Nile. It is the only book I have found in which you can read much about Amenemope mentioned in the blue book. And Brested points out where Amenemope’s teachings from his Book of Wisdom had been repeated in the Old Testament and how it explains some of the peculiar idiom of the Old Testament which doesn’t make good sense in a pastoral country but makes excellent sense in the Nile Valley.
Jewish religion is a synthesis of Melchizedek’s teachings as reflected in some of the teachings of Ikhnaton, the teachings of Amenemope, perhaps the teachings of Okhban whom we don’t know anything about (he’s mentioned in blue book as a prophet in Egypt.) They speak of four prophets of having arisen along the Nile. Okhban they murdered; Amenemope they ignored; Ikhnaton they disavowed; and Moses they drove out. Moses was the fourth prophet along the Nile.
I think the Jewish religion is the only religion which had a fortuitous succession of teachers. I think the Old Testament is fascinating because you can see the God concept evolving if you look for it and are not beguiled by the fact that the same name is used.
These papers speak of two religions which have evolved enormously: Judaism and Mahayana Buddhism. Starting from something they became something quite different. The Yahweh concept starts out as the spirit-demon of the fulminating volcano of Sinai. This is the kind of a demon who could give, you might say, underhanded advice to his chosen people. He is for his people and he doesn’t care about any other people. When they are getting ready to flee Egypt he advises them to glom onto all the Egyptian possessions which they can get their hands on. This concept of a God for us and not the aliens apparently is a necessary part of the evolution of religion.
Example: When Ikhnaton a century or so prior to Moses, taught that Aton was an international God, it took the heart out of the Egyptian army fighting in Syrian army. If Aton is as much for these Hittites as he is for us, we are whipped. It subtracted from men’s courage. Ikhnaton’s teaching of monotheism helped collapse the Asiatic possessions of Egypt.
The Jews had an additional reason to believe in a future because their God was not alone, but he was greatest among the Gods and he was for them. Moses started with henotheism which is the exultation of one God among the many and apparently is a necessary step in the evolution of monotheism out of polytheism.
The Jewish religion was greatly influenced by the Babylonian captivity. In the Babylonian captivity they received the full exposure to Zoroastrianism. They also received a terrible shock to their nationalism and it was in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley that the great ideological struggle was fought between the two forces of Judaism. And the bad guys won. It was a struggle between nationalism and internationalism. The priesthood was espousing the nationalist cause. Second Isaiah portrayed the internationalist concept of Yahweh. This is the apex of the evolution of the God concept among the Hebrews. And if you read part four of the Urantia Book carefully, you will discover that Jesus has virtually quoted everything that Second Isaiah said, which means he endorses him. This is a big God concept.
This nationalist victory was accomplished by the rewriting of the Old Testament. They took the Book of the Doings of the Kings of Judah and the Book of the Doings of the Kings of Israel and a few other sources and they rewrote this Old Testament as we now have it. They miraculized the Old Testament. This helped get the people back to Judea; it helped rebuild Jerusalem; it was a powerful nationalistic stimulus. And it was so powerful that when they later on lost their sovereignty and regained it and lost it again, it made it impossible for them to accept Jesus because he was not the Messiah. He was not coming in the nationalist pattern. They were looking for another David as they had written David up. And as near as I can see, David was a bit of a stinker. The Bathsheba episode is just plain shameful.
Nationalism in the Jewish religion finally splintered under Titus. There were too many Romans. It’s like the Finns fighting the Russians. I’ll bet these Jews gave the Romans the fight of their life but the Romans had too many legions. And they dispersed the Jewish people; they completed their dispersion all over the known world. The later history of the Jewish people in Europe is a rather horrible thing to read. If you’ve got a good strong stomach you’ll find it in Will Durant’s “Story of Civilization” in the volume “The Age of Faith.” In Will Durant’s “The Age of Faith”, I find the only account that is handy of what happened to the Jews in Europe. And as you read this story you are going to grow very ashamed of Christians. Did you know that the first crusaders, when they came along the Rhine decided it would be a pretty good idea to take care of these heretics and thousands of Jews were killed? The Synagogues were broken into and when they broke in they found that the men had killed all the women and then had killed each other to avoid forcible conversion. There was one real sporting German Baron that gave them a castle as a sporting chance and the crusaders did not take that castle; they fought them off.
It’s a shameful story and it represents the greatest problem that the blue book has in dealing with Jewish people today. If you would like to read something else, you might read Scholamash’s (sp?) “Introduction to the Nazarene” in which he tells how, as a little boy in Warsaw, he first met Christ. He was a very small boy and he left the ghetto to go across town on the Sabbath. He was dressed up in his Sabbath best. And some Polish boys, good Christian boys, much larger than he was got a hold of him, roughed him up, they tore his clothes, the bloodied his nose, until he said, “We crucified Christ.” This is how Scholamash met Christ for the first time.
Today, I find this among Jewish people. My grandparents were Orthodox, my parents were confused, I have no religion. This is pretty much the pattern. I pick it up in our attempt at measurement of religious motivation. Many of them score quite low. I make this prediction: As Judaism looses its hold on the Jewish people, the Jewish people will cease to be Jews. This is the cement that has held them together many, many generations. I think the liberal Jew is a good prospect for the Urantia Book if he didn’t meet Christ as Scholamash met Christ. The word Christ is a pretty dirty word.
We have one religion left; do you want to talk about it? Christianity. Christianity started out competing pretty hard with not the established religion of the Roman state with the mystery religions which had come into the Roman state and which the Patrician Roman families abhorred. These were Oriental mysteries. Who was it that said the Orantes, or the river along side of Antioch now flows into the Tiber.
The Romans never had much of a religion, any more than did the Greeks. The Romans had even less of a religion than the Greeks. Happy go lucky Zeus is hardly an object of worship. In the last analysis, Zeus remained a small-sized God; he never became of king-sized God because Zeus never became master of fate in Greek thinking. Zeus was just as subject to fate as was any man who walked on earth. I think this is the one thing that Zeus missed. If he could have only gotten on top of fate he might have evolved just as Yahweh evolved.
The mystery religions really competed with Christianity and Christianity took on their coloration in making a mass appeal. The original Sabbath was Saturday. That’s when Jesus worshipped. But Sunday, the day of the Sun, was the holy day of Mithraism. And when they switched the worship from Saturday to Sunday, it felt better, you know what I mean? Everybody was happy about this. They took on much of the ritual. If you want to get a book on this subject get “The Mystery Religions and Christianity” by an Australian Presbyterian minister by the name of Pangus. “The Mystery Religions and Christianity.”
We think these mystery religions are pretty bad, because remember, the Christians wrote the story of the mystery religions. We don’t read about the Mithraic martyrs who were slaughtered for the Christians. But they’ve been dug up where they were slaughtered kneeling at their pews. There was infighting on both sides.
Christianity first articulated its organization into the Patriarchs. There was the Patriarch of Alexandria. There was the Patriarch in Jerusalem. There was the Patriarch in Antioch. There was the Patriarch in Constantinople. There was the Patriarch in Rome.
(Audience member: “Those were the early divisions of the Christian church?”)
Yes. The concept of Bishop is a successor of the Apostles, and this Bishop has received his powers by consecration from those who once were consecrated by someone of the twelve who were consecrated by Jesus.
Early in the evolution of Christendom, the Bishops of the larger cities had more authority. Originally there was no patriarch at Constantinople because originally there was no Constantinople until Constantine founded it. And then its Bishop became a Patriarch and in a church meeting, an ecumenical council where they set up precedence, the Bishop of Constantinople received second precedence in Christendom, ranking with an after the Bishop of Rome. These Bishops – the structure of the Christian church took form when the Roman state adopted it and it patterned itself after the pattern of Roman political organization in the later empire. Rome was divided into provinces, each of which had a provincial capital. The church divided itself into diocese along these lines. The capital of each province was a larger metropolis than the other cities and the Bishop residing in the provincial metropolis was known as a Metropolitan. And the title Metropolitan is equivalent to the title of Archbishop. It was the original title for Archbishop. Later on this Metropolitan attempted to exercise authority over the Bishops situated in his province or dioceses. Originally, the Metropolitan stood between the Patriarchs and the Bishops. Later on that was broken down; this was the big fight between the Papacy and the Metropolitans in the west.
(Audience member: “About what year?”)
We’re getting into about 400 AD. Constantine would have been about 320 AD and this is about 400.
(Audience member: “When was Augustine, about?”)
Yes that’s right, that’s right. Maybe – when did the Vanholds get down there. 400 to 500 AD. 476 AD is the so-called “date of the fall of the Western Empire” for an anchor date.
In the west, this evolution of the church eventually resulted in the direct responsibility of all Bishops to the Bishop of Rome. Whenever another level drew up, a super-Metropolitan drew up. A Primate. A Primate is a Bishop who presides when there is a national conclave. A Metropolitan or Archbishop is a Bishop who presides when there is a provincial conclave. Eventually all of these intermediate groups became authority which was purely auxiliary to the authority at Rome so that all Bishops reported directly to Rome. The Roman church had a major battle on its hands for control of its own Bishops. Every king wanted to control the Bishops in his domain and since these Bishops held extensive feudal properties, each king in the Empire of Germany had an argument. If you were the Archbishop of Leage you held extensive domains in fief from the Emperor. And you were a ladle lord as well as a spiritual lord. The whole struggle between appointment and investiture is a pretty shameful story of a fight between the emperors and the popes.
(Audience member: “The Holy Roman Empire, I’ve never understood that and this seems as if it might clear it up for me.)
The empire went down in the west; it survived in the east until 1453. The empire idea still lived in men’s minds. From 476 until 800 there was no emperor in the west; but the Caesars still sat, or the Augustae still sat in Constantinople. In 800 AD the Pope crowned Charlemagne. He crowned him because he was the strongest guy in the west and he had temporarily produced some order. He had come down and smacked, well his daddy, Pepin the Short (sp?) came down and smacked the Lombards who were threatening the Papacy, etcetera and so. This was the restoration of the imperial crown in the west of Europe. This crown, Charlemagne’s empire was divided; the Franks always divided everything. It belonged to the kingdom of Toulouse at one time. In all manner of things they split the empire three ways: roughly into the east Franks, the west Franks, and the middle Franks. The middle Franks represented an impossible strip of territory running starting in about where Holland is and Belgium and Luxembourg and Alsace Lorraine in Switzerland and the north of Italy down to Rome. And this was the dominion of Lothar, hence the name Lotharinga which we know today as Lorraine.
Ever since the east Franks and the west Franks have been battling for this middle strip. Much of the history of Europe is the war for the control of the Empire of Lothar. The crown – every body didn’t get crowned, it wasn’t automatic, you had to go to Rome to get this crown. There was a period of lapse when there was no emperor in the west. And then when the imperial idea was revived,this time it was revived among the east Franks who are in process of becoming the Germans, as the west Franks are in the process of becoming the French.
The east Germans operated this away: they elected their King. The east Germans had retained a tribal organization which was lost in Gaul. The duke of the barbarians was elected by the Bavarians and eventually the great tribal dukes would elect a king of the Germans. Later on this king of the Germans was want to go to Rome and when he was crowned, then he was Emperor. He received his crown from the Pope. This was the second revival of the Roman Empire in the west, called the Holy Roman Empire of the German People. It was Roman because the crown had been revived; it was holy because it came from the Pope; and it was the Roman Empire of the German People.
You see, people thought empire; people thought emperor. This was a restoration of that which had been lost; it was an attempt to go back and reproduce what the Romans once had. If the king of the Germans was not crowned he could not call himself Emperor; he was King of the Germans. If he was Emperor, and wanted to ensure the succession of his son, he had his son elected by the Electors and the title there used was King of the Romans. King of the Romans is Crown Prince Designate. He has already been elected. With the death of his father he would become King of the Germans; when crowned by the Pope he would become Emperor.
Napoleon witnessed the end of the Holy Roman Empire and I believe the date was 1806. That’s when the last Holy Roman Emperor abdicated that title and created – simply out of thin air, created the title – Emperor of Austria. The last Holy Roman Empire became the first Emperor of Austria. Napoleon tried to revive the empire idea. He crowned himself Emperor and he called his son King of the Romans in imitation of this old German custom. In Germany, until the Hapsburgs, the succession was by election and election was by the great princes including some of the Archbishops. There were about eight of nine electors. This is what it means when you read in history the “Elector of Brandenburg.” He was one of those who elected the Emperor. The Elector of Saxony in the general settlement of the debris created by Napoleon, these electors adopted the titles of “kings” so that as we see them at the beginning of World War I in 1914, we have a King of Saxony, a King of Bavaria, and so forth.
(Audience member: “Luther took advantage… by some of these squabbles?)
The Germans were very hostile to the Italians because the Italians controlled the church. All kings, all political sovereigns were jealous of the Pope because they had taxes being raised in their own country that went to Rome. And the thing that enabled Luther to win was each one of these Princes, Dukes, Electors, in Bohemia they became Kings, he had a chance to get a hold of the church in his territory. Lutheranism, I think, represents a retrogression in the evolution of religion. While the Roman church claimed sovereignty over nations, the Lutheran church accepts political sovereignty over the church. If one of them has to win I’d rather the church would win rather than the state.
(Audience member: “Why?)
You can have Hitler under Lutheranism much easier than you could under Roman Catholocism. The church acts as a check on Franco, but the fundamental dogma of the Lutheran Church is you support the civil authority, whatever it is. The church can criticize Franco, but the Lutheran Church as the church could not criticize any government it found itself under.
Let’s go back to when the Bishop of Rome wasn’t so big. Let’s go back to the turning point; I would like to examine these junctures in history. Where did we miss the boat; maybe we can learn.
At one time, the whole idea of the election of the Pope got out of hand. The Pope was originally elected by the Roman people. At the time of emperial supremacy and the empire got going before the Papacy did, the Emperor virtually appointed the Pope. Later on a group of ecclesiastical authorities were constituted the electors of the Pope and since these were the first men of the church, they received the title Cardinal, which means first and it carries the civil rank of Prince. A Cardinal is a prince of the Roman Catholic Church, as the Pope is the Emperor of Emperors. He wears three crowns; a king wears one; the Emperor wore a double crown; so the Pope adopted a triple crown.
Some Cardinals broke off at one point. There were two Popes. There was a Pope in France and there was a Pope in Rome. And everybody was excommunicating everybody. No matter which side you were on the other side was going to excommunicate you. At one time there were three Popes.
(Audience member: “What time period are we in?”)
We are along about 1200 AD.
(Audience member: “There was a time when there were six Popes at the same time; two abdicated, I think.”)
This thing finally got so bad that they called an ecumenical counsel of the church. Up until this time the one authority that could override a Pope was the Bishops in session. This means also the Abbots, the Archbishops, the Primates – everything. When all of the church authority assembled it constituted the supreme legislative body of Christendom. They cleaned things up. As I recall, this may have been the Counsel of Trent. They fired all of the Popes and they elected one. Now here is where I believe we could have made the grade without Protestantism because I regard Protestantism as a major disaster. Even the name is all wrong; it’s a negative name and considering what has happened to Protestantism – did they stop splintering, no, we’re still splintering. This world needs a new church just about like it needs a hole in the head.
If they could have maintained legislative supremacy in Christendom I think the Christian church could have evolved and could have avoided the rigidity which it later developed. But they didn’t. When this counsel dissolved itself, the Pope went right back to his old fashioned ways and since the Cardinals never loused things up again and we never got more than one Pope, the legislature was never again in a position to challenge the executive authority in the Roman Catholic Church. And pretty soon the Turks were pounding at the gates of Vienna and the Pope could act as the rallior of Christendom which he did, rather ineffectually. And it’s been that way ever since. In the meantime we are stuck with how many different creeds and sects in Christendom.
The early Popes carried a good deal of weight. Everything collapsed in the west except Papal authority. Many of these Popes came from Patrician Roman families. They were very able bodied guys, like Ambrose in Milan. Ambrose was quite a big shot in the civil government and they elected him Archbishop of Milan over his protests. He was ordained a Deacon on Monday and something else on every day until he could make Archbishop by the next Sunday. He had to go through the hierarchy but he did it in one week.
The church attracted the best men in these days. Everything was crumbling; everything was going to pieces. In these earliest days the best justice was available in the court of a Bishop, not in a corrupt Roman civil court. We’re way back with the Romans in 400 or 500 AD. Some of the very finest brains in Europe were attracted to the early church and they built it. It was the most vital thing that carried on after the collapse of ancient civilization and it carried the seeds of civilization with it.
We ought to go back and touch on the Greek Orthodox Church. Oh there were lots of heresies; there was Aryanism, they believed that, well Jesus was lower than the Father. There was Gnosticism, there was Nastorianism (sp?), there was the Coptic division, there was Monofastidism (sp?) and all manner of things. The biggest split was between the two powerful patriarchs. We can forget Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem because after the Mohammedan tide had passed over that area, there were only two potent patriarchs left. These other guys were submerged. The offices are still there but I don’t think they have ever meant much since. The big battle was between Constantinople and Rome. The Bishop of Constantinople would not admit the primacy of the Bishop of Rome whose full title is what? His correct title is Metropolitan of Rome, Primate of Italy, Patriarch of the West. Those are the original titles of the Bishop of Rome who styles himself the Pope. Pope means father. In the Greek Orthodox Church I think the Parish Priest’s are called Popes – just to get even.
At this time, the Patriarch in Constantinople styled himself the ecumenical patriarch or the universal patriarch. The two churches gradually drifted apart as western civilization drifted away from Byzantia. In the east the church has always remained a department of the state. It was an instrument of imperialism in the Byzantine government. It made it impossible for this church to spread in the Balkans without getting involved with the Greeks. That’s why the Bulgarians insisted on have their own Patriarch; they could not admit the primacy of the Patriarch in Constantinople or they would come under the political thumb of the Byzantine government.
This is the church which brought religion to Russia and at one time there was a Patriarch in Moscow; he made too much trouble. I think it was Peter who got him out of the way and now they have only a Metropolitan in Moscow and the supreme authority is accomplished by a Senate of the Russian Orthodox Church. This Church is, I think, a pretty good hunting ground for us because it’s teachings are somewhat on the rigid side, but at the same time it is not as rigid as the Roman Catholic Church. I think we can get blue books into the hands of Greek Orthodox people – well they are all Greeks – Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox. I believe we have a market here.
(Audience member: “Don’t they teach the “atonement doctrine just as rigidly”?)
Yes, they teach about everything that the Romans do except their ecclesiastical authority isn’t quite as tight as the Roman authority. Their organization isn’t quite as tight. There is one difference in the theology. In the Roman church they teach that the spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son; the Greeks teach an independent processional of the Spirit.
I want to talk to you about the thirteen apostles of Jesus. No, we’ll talk about John too, that will make fourteen. But there is one in there that I always meant a lot to me – that was David Zebedee. As I understand David Zebedee, you will recall that Jesus had the experience of working with the three Zebedee brothers – James, John, and David. James and John were very interested in his teachings, his religious theorizing when he worked in Zebedee’s boat shop in Capernaum. David wasn’t too interested in Jesus’ teachings although he thought he was a real guy as a mechanic. He was a good boat builder.
And you will recall that James and John really should have been the first chosen apostles. The first disappointment that any of the twelve had in their dealings with Jesus came to these, some of his oldest friends. Because they were out looking for him when he was meditating his problems which laid ahead for forty days out in the wilderness. They were out searching for him when Andrew came to Jesus and asked to be chosen as an apostle. Andrew is the only one who took the initiative and Jesus accepted him. And then you will recall that Andrew was the first missionary because he went and got his brother Peter and brought him to Jesus and asked that he be accepted. And this was the beginning of this group of twelve.
When James and John came down from the hills they were quite disappointed to discover when the first and second seats at the table had been already preempted by these former disciples of John the Baptist. And Jesus told them, “You know full well you are first in my heart, but you also could have been first in the eyes of men if you had not been away on a self-imposed task which nobody asked you to do, namely, looking for a person who wasn’t lost, up in the hills.”
And they were good sports about it and they accepted his offer. These were the first four. In many respects, these four men were the most effective of the twelve. Later on when Jesus organized the twelve he did so by appointing Andrew as Chief. That’s interesting; they called Jesus Master, they called Andrew, Chief. And when he asked Andrew to set up the Apostolic organization he requested that he detail some of the twelve to be his companions, simply to be with. And Andrew picked Peter, James, and John.
Andrew was an introvert, more than an extrovert. He was in many ways the antithesis of Peter. He suffered greatly from a reticence to complement and this fear of complementation was due to his abhorrence of flattery. And it hurt Andrew, I think, in his effectiveness in dealing with groups of people. Andrew was a poor preacher but an excellent personal worker. His greatest talent was his ability to discover, to see, to discern what a person could do and to get that person on the right job and convince him that he could do it. Andrew was a good picker of men. He was a good chief, a good organizer.
I think of Andrew as being something like a Vorondadek, not real versatile like a Melchizedek, but stable like the Rock of Gibralter. Andrew didn’t make very many mistakes. Andrew was seldom at a loss when it came to making an administrative decision. If you will stop and consider, most of the administrative decisions in the apostolic group were made by Andrew. A good example is when the Greeks showed up. Philip didn’t know what to do. Here were a bunch of unorthodox people, asking to see Jesus. So he took the problem to Andrew and Andrew handled the problem.
Peter I think is one of the most fascinating characters among the twelve. I met a duplicate of Simon Peter down in Oklahoma City. His name is Alexander. He’s Pastor of the First Christian Church; he’s quite a guy. I went to his services last Easter. Bill Alexander wears a weskit and he wears it well. He’s a great big football player type with red hair. His sermon has got every trick of showmanship in the world in it and it’s a darn good sermon besides. I can see the showmanship but I also appreciated the sermon. It was a good sermon. If we can ever interest Bill Alexander we’ve got Peter. We haven’t got a Peter in the group so far. We don’t have a real orator, a real preacher. This guy might preach and we might get 2000 souls interested in the blue book just like Pentecost. Maybe he won’t be interested but I think he is.
Peter was aggressive, creative, and impulsive. I have tested men just like Simon Peter. I could draw you Peter’s temperament chart. In the aggressive area, Peter would be very high; in the self-control area, very low. And like most darn good salesmen. Peter had a quality we call low social independence. Peter wanted to go along with the group; Peter hated to say no; Peter was very vulnerable to ridicule. This is typical of a really fine typical sales type. This vulnerability to ridicule, I think, made it very necessary for Jesus to see to it that Peter went through something which was going to act as a permanent bit of education. I think this whole episode in Caiaphas’ courtyard was Jesus’ technique of administering cowpox to Peter because he saw he was vulnerable to smallpox, and all of the agony of cowpox was much better than the lethal effects of smallpox.
Like most creative people of this type, Peter moved fast. When Jesus wanted to wash his feet at the last supper, Peter said no, he would not let Jesus humiliate himself. When Jesus explained why he wanted to wash Peter’s feet, Peter then asked to be washed all over. After the crucifixion when they are up in the Sea of Galilee, and they realized it was Jesus standing on the shore, there were ten of them in the boat – nine rowed but Peter jumped overboard and swam.
Peter is the sort of person who could get me real mad and then like him real well. Peter wasn’t interested in theology at all. Peter was just interested in the immediate and practical application of this to people. That’s Bill Alexander’s reaction. Bill Alexander could care less about most of this book but will it help people, that’s all he wants to know?
Much of The Urantia Book would not appeal to Simon Peter, but all of it would have appealed to John Zebedee, because John Zebedee had the theological mind among the twelve. John was twenty-three years of age when he started to follow after Jesus. I can remember that date very well because I was exactly twenty-three years of age when I first read the Jesus papers and naturally, chronology-wise, I identified with John. John was the youngest of the apostles. Most of them were around thirty. Jesus was one of the older ones; he was thirty-two and I think the oldest save Andrew, was thirty-three when they started out.
I wish you would stop and think about that age spread – from twenty-three to thirty-three. When they were through, John was twenty-seven and Andrew was thirty-seven and they had finished Jesus’ public ministry. Jesus was thirty-two when he took off; every one would think he was too young to do anything today. But most of the twelve were younger than Jesus.
Speaking of age, it tickles me. Down east, we had some years ago, we had to remove a vice president because he was wrecking the operation of a flat steel factory. And there was only one chap who could step in and run this product division. I am sorry that this guy was twenty-nine years of age, but that’s how long he had lived. I went back to the corporation with my recommendation and I got terrible opposition from the brass; in fact he just wasn’t going to get the job. I turned to the old Chairman of the Board who was then well into his sixties and I said to him, we’ll call him Joe, and I happened to know the history of this company. I said, “Joe, how old were you when you became Vice President and General Manager of this company when this whole company was about the size of this division?” And my pal Joe looked at me, blushed and stopped talking because he was twenty-eight, a year younger than this guy.
(Audience member: “Did you know this?”)
Yes, I knew this; it was a mean trick. But it was high time that Joe remembered his past.
I think Jesus got these men at the peak of their creativity. When I was in my twenties and early thirties, I was pretty sure that I was more greedy than most of my elders. Looking back and from my present vantage point, I know now that I was then right. I have the thread-bare remnants of a once creative mind to work with. But it used to be real creative. I think it is a good thing to remember the age group here. We are prone to forget.
John had an overblown ego. Of all of the twelve, he had the best opinion of himself. Contact with Jesus reasonably cured him of his ego. But when he was an old, old man, and he mustn’t be held to blame of this, the old boy was nearing senility, he was almost 100 years old, when he dictated the fourth gospel to a Greek, Immanuences. And the ego had come back on him at that time and he did not hesitate to refer to himself as “the apostle whom Jesus loved.” Well, if he had said “an apostle whom Jesus loved” it would have been all right because he loved them all.
As the papers point out, John was the apostle whom Jesus trusted. Jesus trusted John with such affairs of his private life as he could not personally attend to. When he left for Rome, it was with John that he left his money. It was John who purchased the home that Mary and Jesus’ sister Ruth lived in at Capernaum. It was to John that he committed the care of his mother, when he was dying. If John had an ego, John also had another quality, which was courage. The only other one of the twelve who had a courage that equaled John’s was Thomas. John had a chill steel courage; he was unafraid to take a chance. He was the only one of the twelve who was with Jesus; of course he was there by invitation. He went right through everything. The only thing Jesus didn’t trust him to see was the indignation which he suffered at the hands of the servants of the high priest. He sent John out of the room; he feared for John’s life.
James is an interesting character. It’s too bad he didn’t live because he was, with Matthew, runner up to Peter in terms of the ability to handle a crowd. James had a real grasp of Jesus’ teachings. He and John both had a temper, you recall? Some Samaritan’s were disrespectful and they wanted Jesus to really invoke his powers and blast these beatniks; let’s call down fire and thunder on their impious heads.
James lacked discretion, not courage. Jesus never commissioned any of the twelve to make private investigations of the life of Herod Antipas, the sex relations, and so forth. This was not a part of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. But James let his indignation carry him away, diverting from teaching the gospel into taking off after Herod; and Herod had him arrested, tried and beheaded. But he died in such a courageous manner that the person who informed on him, joined the followers of Jesus.
All of these people died bravely. Peter was crucified; Andrew was crucified; James was beheaded. Only John died of old age. You will recall it is a sweet picture they paint of the old Bishop of Ephesus, when he was too old and feeble to walk, and they carry him out in a chair. For a long, long time, in his last years, all he would say the congregation was “my little children, love one another.” That’s quite a long ways from calling down thunder and lightening.
These four men, I think, did the most for the early gospel. These were the four men that were closest to Jesus, whom he personally picked. They were all, save James, effective. If James had been more discreet he would have been more effective. These were men of considerable ability.
Philip and Nathaniel they encountered on the way up from the encampment of John the Baptist. Philip is the type of person who is a very intriguing person. Philip was an excellent administrator. Philip, you will recall was steward of the twelve. He was the quarter-master department of the twelve. Philip would draw upon Judas, and would purchase supplies and keep things in order. Very few times did he ever fall down. Remember, just before the feeding of the five thousand, Philip was really on pins and needles because he just didn’t see where the food was coming from and that worried him.
Philip had no ability to visualize. He was not unintelligent but he was completely prosaic in terms of creative imagination. Philip could not project; he always wanted to be shown. His was not the questioning mind which Thomas had; his was a mind which simply couldn’t put two and two together in the abstract and deduce four. You will recall a rather touching remark after the resurrection that he went home and baptized his whole family. He had been shown. Philip had a real courage though. When he met his end they nailed him to a cross and he wouldn’t stop preaching. When he died, his wife took it up and when they killed her, their daughter went up.
Philip was traveling with Nathaniel and after he had responded to Jesus’ suggestion that he follow him, he too was a missionary and he went to spoke to Nathaniel. I like Nathaniel. Nathaniel replied with a wisecrack: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” And I think there will be a perfect parallel as this book spreads around: “Can any good thing come out of Chicago?” Nazareth was a town with not too high a reputation; it was a communication center, just like Chicago.
Nathaniel, I feel the closest to of anyone of the twelve. The questions Nathaniel asked are questions which I might have asked. Nathaniel was a philosopher; he was no Simon Peter. Nathaniel was a teacher, not a preacher. I think he had perhaps the highest intellectual grasp of Jesus’ teachings. There are things which Jesus told him and admonished him to tell no man. Jesus trusted Nathaniel with the truth about the scriptures. Nathaniel had, I think, along with the asset of his humor, Nathaniel had a great fault: he was a poor organization man. The story of Nathaniel’s wasted mission has been a great help to me because, this may surprise you, I pitch for the Urantia Brotherhood, it’s very difficult for me to work with an organization. And I think except for knowing about Nathaniel, I too could drift off to India, because that would be my nature, this is what I would like to do if I were simply left alone to my own devices. But I don’t choose my efforts and I think Nathaniel wasted his efforts. I think when Nathaniel left there was no one left to check Simon Peter. Nathaniel, I think, was the last hope of retaining the Gospel of Jesus without the rigidity which Abner put into it. I can just imagine how the seraphim of religious life felt. I’m sure they loved Abner, but I know they worked with Paul, because Paul was effective and Abner wasn’t.
I’ve always been sorry that Nathaniel went to India because I think if he had stayed in Jerusalem he could have done some steering. I think Nathaniel could have bridled Peter’s enthusiasm and kept something of the original gospel in tact.
I like Matthew; Matthew was a businessman. I’ve always been glad there was one businessman among the twelve. Matthew was a tax collector and if you will recall in those days, taxes were farmed out as a concession. You paid the government so much for the right to collect taxes, the government had its revenue and it was up to you to recoup what you had paid. And human nature being what it is, the tax collector really put a squeeze on the people. Being a tax collector in those days gave one a social position somewhere, I would say, intermediate between a saloon keeper and a white slaver in American society. This was a very lowdown occupation and the other’s among the twelve weren’t too keen about Matthew. Matthew was the only man with any financial means among the twelve. It was his job to go out and raise money. It was his job to see to it that Judas’ bag was kept full. Many times he wanted to hear what Jesus was teaching so he would liquidate some of his property and make up for his deficiency in going out to raise funds. This was hard on Matthew. When he would sense that they disdained him as a person of lower social status, he did so badly want to tell them that many times it was hard cash that bought the bread they ate that day. But he restrained himself, and as the papers say, he did so wish that Jesus knew; and of course Jesus knew all about it.
Matthew was efficient; he was dedicated. He was of a type that we would understand as a good, honest politician, but an intensely practical man; a man who could maneuver; a man who could wheel and deal in Texas terminology.
As I recall, Matthew also was put to death, wasn’t he? (Audience comment, unintelligible) No, Simon Zealotes. I forgot, let’s see what happened to Matthew. He died in Thrace.
Thomas was chosen by Philip. Thomas was an interesting person. It is interesting to me to note that it was Thomas that Jesus paired with Nathaniel when he wanted two of the twelve to talk to Rodan. He picked the philosopher, that’s understandable, but he backed him up with a scientist. Thomas was moody. Thomas had a fairly unpleasant disposition. I think it is so human that Thomas’ wife was glad when he joined the twelve because he would be away from home more and this would make life easier on her. Thomas didn’t fit into the twelve too well, not for the reasons that Matthew had trouble, but just because Thomas could be surly and moody. Peter complained to Jesus about Thomas on at least one occasion.
Thomas thought precisely. He had the only scientific mind among the twelve. He and John, I think, had the largest measure of courage because if you will recall whenever Jesus’ conduct would appear to border on danger, Thomas would argue right to the end that they shouldn’t do this. When Jesus would say that they were going to do it anyway because this hour had come, it was always Thomas who said “all right, let’s go and die with him.”
Philip doubted, but Thomas wanted logic. Philip’s questions indicated the inability to adjust to an idea. Thomas’ questions indicated the desire for a logical comprehension of what this was all about. Philip’s questions were the earmarks of a lack of imagination. In the case of Thomas it was a scientist approaching the gospel of the kingdom. You will recall Thomas stayed with him, he made the grade, he died in Malta, just as he was about to begin the writing of the Gospel according to Thomas, which never got written.
Simon Zelotes, the patriot among the twelve. This man was a real patriot and I think it is a tribute to Jesus that he held him as well as he did. He was the one that was always hoping that Jesus would sit on David’ thrown. I’ve forgotten who it was that got the swords at the tail end, was it Simon Zalotes?
(Audience member: “What, to defend Jesus? It was Peter and Simon.”)
On Palm Sunday, Simon Zelotes was intoxicated because they were going in to take the city over. I can see Simon Zelotes figured Jesus is going to sit on David’s thrown and I’m going to be Secretary of Defense in the Commonwealth of Israel. That’s exactly the way he had it figured. There isn’t anything wrong with Simon’s patriotism. We had thought Americans would feel that way and if we had an army of occupation in the United States and the Christ would have come here, it would have been very difficult for an American to have said, “It’s not important about these foreign soldiers, you just follow me, don’t worry about the fact that our country is occupied.”
Simon came awful close to not making it, I think. When Jesus was crucified and the whole thing was over and Simon’s dream finally crashed, he simply took to his bed. He was not with the ten in Galilee. And then Simon drew new hope. Jesus had said to Peter, pointing to John, “suppose I should tell this man to tarry until I return, what is that to you.” And since John didn’t die for a long time, this statement came to be interpreted that Jesus would return in the life time of John Zebedee. And if he returned this meant that the kingdom would come as they had hoped it would come. Simon believed in myth. Simon Zelotes believed that Jesus’ return was imminent and Simon resurrected his fallen dream and put it back together again and lived a very useful life ministering to his fellow men all the time believing in the fiction that Jesus would return and that the kingdom would be restored and that someone was going to sit on David’s thrown and run the Romans into the Mediterranean.
We decry evil and error, but if Simon Zelotes had not believed that error, maybe he never would have lived a useful life. This is a real mixture of good and evil, isn’t it?
The Alpheus Twins were so much alike, they were not sib-twins they were identical twins. I remember when I first read about these twins it shook a little of my faith in Jesus. I just didn’t see how he could have accepted those Alpheus twins. This is not how you build an organization. It’s true; this is not how you build a business organization and believe me occasionally I find an Alpheus twin sitting in the seat of authority and underneath him I find chaos – real chaos, real unhappiness, real compression, real claustrophobia among his lieutenants, because he is domineering.
But Jesus wasn’t building a kingdom of this world he was building the kingdom of heaven. And these twelve apostles had a function to perform. As we deduce their reaction to Jesus, we can get twelve different facets of Jesus and each of these men gave Jesus an opportunity to show something of what God’s love was like. And if he is really going to show how God loves all men, he needed at least one real stupid apostle, and he got two. And I think it was maybe better to have two because if there had only been one he would have been so lonesome; but the twins could talk to each other.
These twins, as the papers call them, may have one talent I have grown to love and I have thought about them. From my state of initial shock when I realized that two of these twelve apostles have flunked the mental Wasserman test, I got to thinking about it and you know they did so much better than so many of the twelve. When David Zebedee learned about the reports that Jesus was risen and came up to talk to the twelve, the twins were the only two who supported him. All the rest, the smart guys, didn’t believe. When the multitude looked at the twins and then heard that Jesus had rejected Matadormus as a member of the seventy evangelists – here’s that smart guy with a lot money – then they knew that Jesus was no respector of persons.
The twins were effective in handling the crowds because they were like so many of the people that were there – they fit. The twins had one quality which gave them charm, real charm. They knew they weren’t very much and they felt cheerful about it. If a person is limited and knows it it’s a charming trait because he doesn’t try to do too much. If he doesn’t know it or pretends, how would we say, ‘affectation is the ridiculous attempt of the ignorant to appear wise or the barren soul to appear rich.’ These twins were wholly free from affectation.
These twins teach me something in and of themselves but their presence enables Jesus to teach us all something about people like this. I hope somebody paints the scene in Celsus’ garden: when each one of the apostles, save the twins, had talked alone with Jesus, where Peter was the lead man; you will recall he said, “Master, it is not that I want to have secrets from my comrades but, we may get into a heated discussion and you may rebuke me harshly, and if there is no one there I’ll take it so much better.” And Jesus said come on Peter, and they went to the far end of the garden where it was private and they talked. And one by one through the long night they talked with Jesus and finally all save the twins had had this experience. Then Andrew went over to Jesus and pointed to the twins sleeping by the fire in their clothes. And he said, “Master shall I wake them up?” And Jesus looked down and he smiled and he said “No Andrew, trouble them not, for they do well.”
You remember they asked Jesus very few questions. One time they asked him a pretty profound question and they were quite proud when they could tell by the expression on Andrew’s face that their question had been well answered. They could not understand the answer. That’s one of the sweetest statements in all of these papers.
The story of Judas is a darn tragic story. Judas was the only Judean among the twelve. I don’t think that is a factor. Matthew is the only publican among the twelve. Judas was one of the two well-educated men among the twelve. But the fact that Nathaniel didn’t betray Jesus proves that it is not education. Judas had an ego but so did John. Judas could get his feelings hurt but so could Peter. Judas was not the only one getting swords or conspiring to make Jesus king or this or that. He always had one or more the twelve as an ally. Judas had a pretty good intellectual grasp of Jesus’ teachings. I can see only one difference between Judas and all of the other eleven. These eleven men came to love Jesus and Judas never did. Judas had been spoiled; he grew up thinking in curves instead of trying to think in straight lines. Judas was a rationalizer. Judas was also a great executive; he was a stickler for procedure. He was a good treasurer; very honest. Judas wanted to be great in the kingdom, but he didn’t understand that greatness is a function of goodness, not a position. Judas wanted status. When he saw that he couldn’t get status, the kind of status that he wanted in the new kingdom, he decided to maneuver for status in the old kingdom, the Commonwealth. And so he went to the Jewish Senate, the Sanhedrin. They were a cross between a Senate, the Alderman of Jerusalem and the College of Cardinals. It was an odd mixture, it was a theocracy, you know. And he sold Jesus down the river. He expected to be honored with a seat in the Sanhedrin. And we all know what he did when they gave him the price of a good healthy slave for his betrayal of Jesus. He took is own life.
Judas’ maneuverings were well known to the chief of the intelligence corps who is one of my very favorite citizens, David Zebedee. I’m so glad these papers resurrected him from oblivion. No one told David to set up a messenger service, but he did. David’s corps of runners could reach from Damascus to Alexandria. He had relay runners. Now this man was a real organizer. Just stop and think how many men it took in relays to cover that distance. This was the first social repercussion of Jesus’ gospel; the organization of David’s corps of communication. He was so level headed, I always think of him when Jesus and the twelve fled a little prematurely from Capernaum thinking that the agents of Philip Triconatus were on their heels. You know Philip was Herods brother; he ruled in Perea. They are in a boat; another picture that should be painted. Jesus and the twelve in the boat with David out there up to his waist, shaking hands with Jesus saying goodbye. And remember what he said? “Goodbye Master, don’t let the bigots catch you.” “Don’t worry about us, with the relay runners, we will keep in touch with you.” “Don’t worry about me, if they get me, I’ve got a second in command, even a third in command.”
The last week in Jerusalem, David used his runner corps as an espionage system. He had a tail watching every move that Judas made. He knew exactly the plot that was unfolding. He and John Mark had appointed themselves to watch over Jesus. John the young boy strayed a little from his station because he wanted to hear everything that was going on. John almost got caught that night. David was watching the bookkeeper in there. David Zebedee was the only human being who said goodbye to Jesus. He was the only one who really believed that Jesus was going to die on this trip to Jerusalem. I think the attitude of the other apostles is well, summarized by the comment which either Nathaniel or Thomas said to Rodan when one said: “He even now speaks of his death, some mystical reference to his future glorification.” They knew Jesus couldn’t die but David listened and he took Jesus literally. David sought Jesus out that night just before he was arrested and bid him goodbye. And he said “Master, I will always remember you and I will always enjoy having worked with you.” And Jesus said, “David, others have done that which they were told to do; but all these things you have done on your own initiative.”
That episode was followed when he asked David “have you got a good runner?” David said yes, and I believe the name of the runner was Jacob. And Jesus sent him out on his way to Philadelphia with a message for Abner to the effect that he, Jesus, was about to be put to death but not to worry for he would soon see Abner. Here is a man about to submit himself to a few temple guards and a few Roman soldiers and the tremendous physical power which he could command is just suggested by his promise to Jacob. He said to Jacob “You’re going up the bloody way of night, but he said tonight, do not worry, an unseen runner goes by your side.
David’s intelligence corps wasn’t idle. Jesus hadn’t appeared to many people before David knew all about it. He went to visit the twelve. I guess they were in hiding in the upper chamber in the home of Elijah and Mary Mark in Jerusalem. And I can imagine his surprise, or maybe he wasn’t too surprised, when he discovered that none of the twelve, save the twins, believed that Jesus had risen. He talked to them, including his two brothers, and then he made that memorable statement in which he said, “All right, you boys are the ambassadors of the kingdom, and you ought to understand these things. I am just the chief of the messenger corps, but I can tell you want I am going to do. I am going to assemble this corps and send them out with the last message they will ever carry. And the message which they are going to carry to all the believers is this: Jesus is risen, the tomb is empty, and I am disbanding the corps.
I’d like to see a picture painted of this too. I’d like to see David, I guess it was in the home of Joseph of Arimethea, Nicodemus was there, many of the women believers were there. And I’d like to see David with a bunch of his runners lined up as he gives them this last message and sends them out on their final trek. This to me was the thirteenth apostle and I’ve always been sorry they didn’t pick him in Judas’ place. I have always been glad to know how he ended. There was one member of Jesus’ family who would have nothing to do with the family conspiracy to muffle Jesus and that was the youngest member Ruth. And to me it is singularly appropriate that David married her. Remember: they moved to Philadelphia and were joined there by Lazarus. Nathaniel stopped there on his way to India.