VI
– When evil stops to make sense. Not that evil, in itself, makes sense, but in what comes to Scripture being fulfilled, in what comes to the Truth.
– As in?
– As in God doesn’t cheat.
– Please expand.
– When Jesus resurrected, that was it, game over. Angels might have start to appear all over the place and beginning to announce the Gospel, the Son of God, Who He was and what He had done and the effect on Reality of what He had done, or they might have just started to take the good to Heaven and the bad to Hell. I mean there was nothing more that could be done. But no, nothing of the sort happened, globally, at least, given that, when Jesus died, a number of saints resurrected and appeared to some. But instead of a global event of the kind, some sort of silence instead. The Son of God, having done what He had done and, apparently, to the world, to what mankind is concerned, nothing happened and all remained the same. Just some manifestations of that event, the resurrection of Jesus, to a hand full of people. Well, occasionally, it was more than to a hand full, when it says in the Bible that Jesus appeared to more than five hundred brothers, but being the Son of God, you know what I mean by just being for a hand full. So, instead of that decisive event on Reality having an immediate and global (or at least humanly visible) consequence on the world, no: that same event travels the world in a human manner, from person to person, taking or seeking human effort as a partner, like being told about the sun in the night. Thus the Truth travelling by human means, securing the Truth on that regard, could as it could, and without spoiling the integrity of its Nature in Reality, that is, could as it could, after the resurrection of Jesus, just make a global like manifestation, it still chose to travel throughout time, throughout the generations to all corners of the earth by human means. It’s in that sense I say that God doesn’t cheat.
– I understand. What led us here, anyway?
– Rivers.
– And patterns.
– Sure. But water, as it is source for survival, while enabling thirst quenching and crop irrigation. Right there you have water and food.
– And bathing and washing of clothes, one of the jobs you’d want to stay away from in Ancient Egypt.
– Why’s that?
– Well, you wouldn’t want to be washing some lady’s clothes on the river bank of the Nile while she might be in that time of the month…
– The what not?
– The blood on the clothes…? And the crocodiles in the river…? As in dinner is served…?
– … Okay.
– But the rivers, like the sun, also ended up being divinized or perceived as a god or held as in being a manifestation of what was understood to be in fact a personal deity, as, somehow, could also be envisioned of crops, while its blooming appearance was transferred into how Osiris was portrayed as, with green skin, that is. Ancient Egyptians also referred to the Nile as the Great Green or the Very Green – well, they used that expression mostly for the Mediterranean or the Red sea, but I think they also referred to the Nile as such. But, again, to what comes to Osiris being portrayed with green skin, it must have had to do mostly with crop blooming.
– As almost every deity having to do with crops or agriculture in religions other than the Egyptian.
– Sure. Nevertheless Osiris also being associated with resurrection, not because of any event in the past that would lead to understand him as such in a literal manner, but, here it is, because of crop cycles, which disappeared, as in, «died» after being harvested, so to reappear, as in, «resurrecting» in the following year, thus painting the landscape green with its blossoming. A complex theological system gradually developed around Osiris afterwards, as we can witness, for instance, in the description of the after-world in the enchantment-like writings in the Pyramid and Sarcophagus texts or the what came to be known as the Book of the Dead.
– And Plutarch.
– Sure. But, anyway, to what comes to Osiris, having now literally to do with the resurrection and life after death contexts, and nothing to do with crops anymore, literally or metaphorically.
– Isn’t Athena also depicted with green skin? Why would that be? Isn’t she the goddess of wisdom and war? What does she have to do with crops?
– You know, intercultural relationships affected religions as well, thus ending up trading different elements among them, taking attributes from different deities or of other religious features in general, implementing them in their own gods or theology, which could become, after some time, sects of a preexisting religion or new religions altogether, and also resulting in new gods even. I mean, it’s like it could be understood, broadly, for a branch of ancient literature, where you have, for instance, Homer’s Iliad; and then you have Virgil that picked up from there and wrote the Enid; onto Dante that used Virgil as a character in his Divine Comedy; broadly, onto Luís de Camões, for example, that used mythological imagery in his Lusíadas, etc., etc. Egyptian deities and theologies were brought from Egypt into Greece, and the other way around, suffering transformations and settling with a new name. You have, for instance, Ptha, a creator god in Egypt, who was also associated with metallurgical works, so, when intercultural events took place in between those two civilizations, that deity was either the inspiration for a similar god or blended with the already existing Greek god Hephaestus, also associated with metallurgical work. That god or idea of deity associated with that social task, when assimilated, afterwards, by the Romans, was, then, again, or inspiration or reason for enrichment for the roman god Vulcan.
– That’s why he ended up being identified with the devil, for living in cave-like places or volcano sites, smell of sulfur, having a limp, something like that?
–
That’s a different. But it’s understandable of being associated with that sort of figure, as in, prison-like underworld places, as Hell is associated with, being conceived as in having a limp due to the crash after the fall from the heavens, that sort of thing. But, again, in Christianity, intercultural exchange should be envisioned differently. Not that it didn’t happen, but it happen on different levels, that is, not so much on levels, as it occurred with other religions, where specific and general understandings or doctrinal beliefs about this or that god could be understood as in being flexible when far from their land of origin, so to adapt to this or that particular culture, as in trying to establish that deity regardless of any doctrinal purity scrupulous, but in what Christianity is concerned, such elements, such as the Divinity of Christ and His Resurrection, couldn’t ever be compromised so that His Name could be accepted by this or that culture or population. Certain elements, as far as concept translation to the native language might be concerned, when a new word wasn’t made up so to designate a new reality, sometimes it was used the closest synonym available, then explained as in being like what that word signified, but not exactly, such as, for instance, for the word angel. Etymologically, the word has its origin in the Greek word άγγελος3, which translates the Hebrew term כלאמ4, which means messenger, envoy. The Latin authors, instead of translating άγγελος with nuntio, they invented a neologism, transliterating the «Greek angel» into Latin, so to safe keep in its semantics a special feature when of the use of this new synonym of nuntio, namely the intrinsically understood supernatural characteristic of that special messenger or envoy, being transliterate, then, as angelos, that is, a supernatural nuntio, of God.
– But the image of the Virgin holding the Child Jesus could very well be understood as in being inspired or at least similar to Isis holding young Horus, couldn’t it?
– A mother with her child is always a mother with her child. I know that this sentence appears or is in fact redundant and could be simply understood as in meaning nothing. But what do you want me to say? You have two female figures, both comprehended as in being queens and her sons as in being gods. So, is it all that surprising and unexpected that a similar imagery could have emerged with depictionary likeness’? I don’t mean you exactly, but those sort of arguments usually come from those that, regarding ancient figures, whomever they might be, accept whatever it might be said about them as in having done or said without any difficulty whatsoever, but when it comes to Christ, far more close to us, as time proximity is concerned, everything is questioned, from words to deeds to existence even. Like I’ve said, and I know I don’t have to tell you this, just for myself being a Christian, that is, but that sort of understanding of intercultural exchange, ancient religion wise, is inapplicable to Christianity, or at least the same should be understood appropriately, because that strange subtle but also overwhelming force emanating not only from Christ but from His early followers as well, such as His Apostles and the first generations of their disciples and communities, not to mention Saint Paul, but that tremendous Light, although overshadowed by indescribable modesty – that, one should admit, not only enhances the implicates but providentially and/or consequently also ends up putting off the proud and stuck-up ones –, but that paradoxically outshining Light cannot be compared to any text or story about whatever it might be the conception about god or divinity in general made until the appearance of Christ. It’s not just the what could be considered as the appealing nature of a suffering God, thus identifying not only with the misfortunate ones but with the human condition altogether, as in being overall permeable to the effects of evil, whatever their context might be in this world, but because in Christ unarguably sounded a Voice and shone a Light that, in the honest eyes of our lonesome miserable selves, instructed and educated as one may be, seems that, in the end, by comparison, He can and should always be described as of just being Someone entirely different. It’s like, by comparison, sometimes is said that this doctrinal faith in Him as such wonderful things about it… What does that mean? What is that, wonderful things about faith in Jesus Christ? Here we’re addressing and take interest in the Truth alone, not an illusion, no matter how beautiful it could be presented; and we do what we do and believe in Whom we believe not to please or displease anyone. Again, it’s about the Truth. Because the Truth is not only, as it is, anyway, the source of all beauty, but because of indeed being the Light that is leading us out of darkness and showing us the only way home, not by a beautiful fabrication or other seduction, but by Revelation of Truth.
– I thought that Osiris was portrayed with a green skin because of the color that human corpses come to be after some time, being him a god associated with the dead and everything.
– It makes sense.