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Sicarii Essenes
In a much overlooked
description of 'the Essenes', attributed to the Third-Century Early Church
theologian Hippolytus in Rome, there exists a completely original version of
Josephus' famous description of them. This probably goes back to a variant
version of the received Josephus, the one even he says he did in an earlier
work in Aramaic for his Mesopotamian brethren in the East. In this version of
Josephus, the originality of which identifies it as based probably on an
earlier source and not an original effort on the part of Hippolytus (if indeed
he was the author in question); Josephus identifies 'four' groups of 'Essenes'
- not four 'grades' as in The Jewish War or four 'sects of Jewish philosophy'
as in The Antiquities.
To be sure, the version
in Hippolytus has all the main points of the the received Jewish War, though at
times it is somewhat clearer (for instance, in the description of the progress
of the novitiate relative to the tasting of pure food, the resurrection of the
body along with the immortality of the soul, and the clear evocation of a 'Last
Judgement') and does include - aside from 'the four parties' of Essenes - the
additional two 'groups' of marrying and non-marrying ones.
On these aspects both
versions are virtually the same; but, whereas Josephus speaks of 'four grades'
in basically descending order of Holiness, Hippolytus rather speaks of a
'division into four parties' as time went on, that is, his version contains an
element of chronological development - a point nowhere mentioned in the
received Josephus. It is at this point too, having raised the issue of 'the
passage of time', he adds the new details connecting both the 'Sicarii' and
'Zealots' to 'the Essenes' that, in the writer's view, have particular relevance
to the documents at Qumran and the problem many commentators have encountered
in contemporary Scroll Research in trying to differentiate the 'Essene'
character of the Scrolls from the 'Zealot' one. This delineation will have
particular relevance to 'Early Christian' history in Palestine as well.
The first 'Party' of
Essenes, Hippolytus identifies, is the familiar one we know from descriptions
in Received Josephus which also seem to have found its way into descriptions of
the New Testament's 'Jesus', that is, 'they will not handle a current coin of
the country' because 'they ought not to carry, look upon, or fashion a graven
image'. The implication here is 'land' or countries in general, not a
particular 'country' or nation, since it is immediately followed up by another
familiar characteristic - that they will not enter into a city 'under a gate
containing statues as (they also) regard it as a violation of Law to pass
beneath (such) images' - itself a familiar variation on the Mosaic ban on
graven images having particular relevance to First-Century Palestinian History.
So much for the first
group of Essenes, the earliest one if one takes Hippolytus' note about
chronological sequentiality seriously. The second group is even more impressive
and gives us the distinct impression that those Josephus denotes - and this
pejoratively - as 'Sicarii' and from 68 CE onward as 'Zealots' grew out of 'the
Essene Movement' and not, as some might have thought - from an improper reading
of Josephus - the Pharisees, a point the present writer has always taken as
self-evident. As Hippolytus puts this:
"But the adherents
of another party (the Second 'Party' seemingly in the 'the course of time' or
chronologically speaking), if they happen to hear any one maintaining a
discussion concerning God and His Laws and, supposing such a one to be
uncircumcised, they will closely watch him (something Paul seems particularly
concerned about in Galatians 2:4-8 in his description of 'false brothers
stealing in by stealth and spying on the freedom we enjoy in Christ Jesus'-
sic!) and, when they meet a person of this description in any place alone, they
will threaten to slay him if he refuses to undergo the rite of circumcision (so
much for our picture of 'peace-loving Essenes'). Now, if the latter kind of
person does not wish to comply with this request, (a member of this Party of
Essenes) will not spare (him), but proceeds to kill (the offender). And it is
from this behavior that they have received their appellation being called (by
some)'Zealots', but by others 'Sicarii'."
Not only does this
resemble something of what happens to Paul in Acts 21:38, where in the first
place 'Sicarii' are for the only time specifically invoked and where others
take a Nazirite-style oath 'not to eat or drink till (they) have killed Paul'
(23:12-21); but it is nowhere to be found in the extant Greek of Josephus'
Jewish War. Nor, as we have said, is it something Hippolytus was likely to have
made up on his own. It also helps explain certain puzzling aspects of the
notation 'Zealot' or 'Sicarii' I shall presently explain.
As also just signaled,
these can certainly not be considered 'peace-loving' Essenes. On the contrary,
they are quite violent, exhibiting something of the ethos, the writer contends
one encounters at Qumran which is why in the early days of Qumran research
scholars such as G. R. Driver and Cecil Roth were inclined to identify the
group responsible for the manuscripts at Qumran as 'Zealots'. Nor can anyone
who reads the literature at Qumran fail to be impressed by the extreme 'zeal'
or 'zealotry' of a preponderance of its attitudes - particularly where 'the
Last Days', 'the Torah of Moses', and foreigners were concerned.
However this may be,
three things immediately emerge from this new material which the writer cannot
imagine as an invention of Hippolytus, but rather, a suppression of information
previously extant in alternate versions of Josephus: 1) That the 'Zealots' or
'Sicarii' were known for their insistence on circumcision - a new point we never
heard before, but which might have beensurmised. 2) They felt that one first
had to come into the Law, as delineated in the Torah of Moses, before one could
even discuss either God or the subject of the Law, to say nothing of its
promises - something Paul would have found extremely prohibitive, given his
so-constantly-expressed cntempt for it. 3) It was permissible to forcibly
circumcise individuals on pain of death (something like in Islam, i.e.,
'circumcision or death').
Put in another way,
like Paul - we shall reserve judgement about James - they too were interested
in non-Jewish converts but, for them, 'circumcision' was a sine qua non, not
only for conversion, but even to discuss questions pertaining to the Law. No
wonder certain 'Zealots' (in particular, those Acts 21:21 denotes as the
greater part of James' 'Jerusalem Church' adherents), 'Sicarii', or 'Nazirites'
wished to kill Paul.
Anyone who has read the
Letter to the Galatians in its entirety will realize that 'circumcision' was a
subject utterly obsessing Paul. In addition, however, if one has carefully read
it and the prelude to the well-known 'Jerusalem Council' in Acts 15:1-5 -
tendentious or otherwise - supposedly triggered by 'those who came down from
Judea and were teaching the brothers that unless you were circumcised, you
could not be saved'; then one will realize that what one has before us in this
version of Josephus' description of 'the Essenes', found in Hippolytus, is 'the
Party of the Circumcision' par excellence - what Galatians 2:12 calls as well
'the Some from James who came down from Judea' (to Antioch) or 'Those of the
Circumcision'.
Hippolytus rounds out
his description of the 'four groups', corresponding to the Greek Josephus'
'four grades', with a Third 'Party' who would 'call no man Lord except the
Deity, even though one should put them to torture or even kill them' which, of
course, not only overlaps Josephus' testimony in The Jewish War about the
Essene refusal 'to eat forbidden foods' or 'blaspheme the Law-Giver'; but also,
even more closely, 'the Fourth Sect of Jewish Philosophy' founded by Judas the
Galilean, in The Antiquities. In other words, there a slight shift even in the
normative Josephus in these two accounts from 'Essenes' to 'the Fourth
Philosophy' where, in fact, Josephus cuts a piece from the Essenes in the one
and adds it to Judas the Galilean's Fourth Philosophy in the other.
Normative Josephus
identifies this 'Fourth' Group (which for the moment he had declined to name),
as it proceeds, as 'Sicarii'; but he never actually employs the term 'Zealot'
(a point first called attention to by the late Morton Smith) until midway
through The Jewish War when, with those he calls 'Idumaeans', they slaughter
James' nemesis, Ananus ben Ananus, and Josephus' own close friend, 'Jesus ben
Gamala', throwing their naked bodies outside the city as food for jackals.
Josephus follows this
up in The War with a picture of 'the Zealots' that is so hysterical - including
dressing themselves up as women and wearing lipstick - that it verges on the
comical but, by this time, he is beside himself.
Be this as it may,
Hippolytus follows his picture of this Third Group 'who will call no man lord'
with a 'Fourth' Group who are basically schismatics and have 'declined so far
from the (ancient) discipline' that those 'continuing in the observance of the
Customs of the Ancestors (at Qumran 'the First') would not even touch them'. In
fact, should they (the Habakkuk Pesher's 'Torah-Doers') 'happen to come into
contact with them, they would immediately resort to water purification as if
they had come into contact with one belonging to a foreign people'.
This an incredible
piece of precision and one should note its resemblance to Acts 10:28's picture
of Peter's words - accurate or not - to 'Cornelius' (described not a little
sardonically as 'a pious' Roman 'Centurion' - 10:7 and 22 - whose name will
also have relevance to the whole complex of materials we are in the process of
developing) that it was 'unlawful for a Jewish person to keep company with or
come in contact with one of a foreign race'. Not only do these appear in the
context of Peter's 'table cloth' vision, declaring all foods lawful and where
he learns 'not to make distinctions between holy and profane' and his
subsequent visit, however preposterous, to 'the Righteous and God-fearing'
Roman Centurion, 'borne witness to by the whole nation of the Jews' (sic!);
but, as just alluded to, we shall see the significance of the name 'Cornelius'
- attached to this particular Roman Centurion in Caesarea - in the Roman legal
corpus, the 'Lex Cornelia de Sicarius et Veneficis' below.
This last in effect
banned circumcision, at least for those not originally born Jewish, and other
similar bodily mutilations - 'circumcision' being considered a bodily
mutilation equivalent to castration in Roman jurisprudence, and its application
became particularly more stringent after the fall of the Temple and the War
against Rome from 66-73 CE, itself ending in the suicide of 'The Sicarii' at
Masada.
Though this Fourth
'Grade' of so-called 'Essenes' does appear in the extant Jewish War, as already
alluded to, there it is the more innocuous matter of being in an inferior state
of preparation to those in a superior one and already advanced far beyond them
where purity is concerned. This is a significant disagreement between the two
accounts and, on the face of it, Hippolytus' account makes more sense since it
is hard to imagine such a horror of contact or 'touching' directed simply
against junior members in a more novitiate state. In fact, Hippolytus' 'Fourth
Group' very much resembles those new more-'Paulinized' Christians (of the kind
'Peter' learns to accept in Acts 10 above), who - in the writer's view - are
following a less-stringent, more extra-legal form of 'Essenism' - totally alien
to the forms preceding them. It is for this latter reason that it becomes
impossible either to keep company with or even 'to touch them'.
In any event,
Hippolytus now returns to his earlier description of the three forms of
Essenism or, at least, the two earlier ones, that is, 'the Zealot' or 'Sicarii
Essenes' - if in fact the two can be distinguished in any real way from the
third - those willing to undergo any form of torture rather than 'call any man
Lord' - because he now picks up the points paralleled in the normative Josephus
about the longevity of Essenes, their temperateness, and incapacity for anger.
Moreover, he now returns a second time to his previous description of how 'they
despised death' and the willingness they displayed to undergo torture, evincing
- or so it would seem - aspects from Josephus' 'Essenes' in the War and 'the
fourth philosophical sect' (later 'Sicarii' or 'Zealots') in the Antiquities.
In any event the reader
will immediately recognize the description in The Jewish War of the bravery
shown by the Essenes in 'our recent War with the Romans' - that, no matter how
much they were 'racked and twisted, burned and broken,' they could not be made
to 'blaspheme the Law-Giver (meaning Moses) or 'eat forbidden things'. This
last is the key point and for Hippolytus now refines the latter as well - in the
process bringing it to even closer agreement with what Paul is concerned about
in 1 Corinthians 8-11 where, the reader might recall, in the process of
attacking James' directives to Overseas Communities, as delineated in Acts
15:25, 15:29, and 21:26, Paul is calling persons like James or those who follow
him as 'those with weak consciences' ( 8:12 ) or whose 'conscience is so weak'
that they will not 'eat things sacrificed to idols' (8:4) considering it
'polluted' or 'defiled' (8:7).
As Hippolytus now expresses
this:
"If however anyone
would attempt even to torture such persons in order to induce them either to
blaspheme the Law (note the parallel to Josephus''blaspheme the Law-Giver' in
the War above and here occurs perhaps the most significant of all significant
departures ) or eat that which is sacrificed to an idol, he will not achieve
his end for (an Essene of this kind) submits to death and endures any torment
rather than violate his conscience" (here Paul's 'conscience' language
from 1 Corinthians 8:7-10 above and elsewhere, not to mention the combination
of the picture of either 'Essenes' or 'Zealots' being willing to undergo any
torture and martyrdom in both the War and Antiquities).
The reader now has the
option of deciding which version of Josephus is more accurate in this regard -
theWar's vaguer and less specific 'refusal to eat forbidden things' ('not
blaspheming the Law-Giver' and the Antiquities' 'not calling any man Lord'
aside) or the more precise and, as we shall presently see, also more
'MMT'-oriented 'refusal to eat things sacrificed to idols', reflecting James'
directives to Overseas Communities at 'the Jerusalem Council' in Acts 15:20,
15:29, and 21:25 above - to say nothing of Paul's attack on same throughout the
whole of 1 Corinthian 8-11.
So now we approach a
conundrum. The sort of 'Essenes' described by Hippolytus - in particular, those
he is calling either 'Zealot' or 'Sicarii Essenes', or both, who also will not
tolerate any uncircumcised person talking about the Law and are prepared to
kill anyone doing so who declines to be circumcised (if not a direct certainly
a tangential attack on Paul and his so-called 'Gentile Mission' generally) -
are also prepared to undergo any sort of torture or martyrdom rather than 'eat
anything sacrificed to an idol'. This certainly does represent a refinement of
Josephus with particular relevance both to 'the Party of the Circumcision' and
those Paul calls the 'some from James' in Galatians 2:12 above.
However, as just
signaled, one should keep in mind that one section of the 'Letter' or 'Letters'
found at Qumran, now known by everyone - after a phrase found at their outset:
Miksat Ma'asei-Torah ('a Selection of the Works of the Law') - by the acronym
'MMT'(to say nothing of Columns 46-47 of the Temple Scroll having to do with
'pollution of the Temple' and the barring of various classes of unclean persons
and things from the Temple), also has to do with this complete and total ban on
'things sacrificed to idols'(Part B: Lines 8-9).
In addition, looked at
through another vocabulary, this can be seen as just a variation on the theme
of'pollution of the Temple' - what the version of James' directives, rephrased
in Acts 15:29, refers as 'the pollutions of the idols' and what Paul is being
accused of doing in Acts 21:28 above too - the third and perhaps pivotal part
of 'the Three Nets of Belial' accusations in the Damascus Document, that is, as
it is expressed there in Columns IV-VI, the same 'nets' with which Belial (The
Devil) seduces and subverts Israel.
Before pulling all
these seemingly disparate datum together, we should perhaps turn to one final
source relevant to discussing 'Sicarii Essenes' - their forcible circumcision
with the sica-like knife from which they were originally alleged by Josephus to
derive their name and the view, already called attention to above, of
circumcision as a kind of castration-like bodily mutilation in Roman
Jurisprudence (cf. the same sense in Acts 8:27-39's presentation of the
Ethiopian Queen's 'eunuch' - an episode we have identified in previous articles
as simply a parody of the circumcision of Queen Helen of Adiabene's two sons
Izates and Monobazus at the chronologically-parallel time in both the
Antiquities and the Talmud).
Before doing so too,
one should note that even in The Jewish War, forcible circumcision was to some
extent part of the program of those Revolutionaries, Josephus starts to call
'Zealots' and at other times 'Sicarii'. This is particularly the case in the
episode at the start of the War where the Commander of the Roman garrison in
Jerusalem is offered just such a choice by the insurgents and, in fact, agrees
to do so, while the rest of those under his command are butchered. There are
also other examples of this in The Jewish War.
Curiously, the first
clue one comes upon relating to the 'circumcision' aspect of the terminology is
the denotation by Origen - a 'Christian' theologian and Early Church Father of
the 3rd Century - of the terminology 'Sicarii' as those who have either circumcised
themselves or forcibly circumcised others in violation of the Roman'Lex
Cornelia de Sicarius et Veneficis', already called attention to above, that is,
the Roman Law against circumcision and mutilation of the flesh and/or
castration.
In his work Contra
Celsus 2.13, Origen specifically describes 'the Sicarii' as being called this
'on account of the practice of circumcision', which in their case he defines as
'mutilating themselves contrary to the established laws and customs' and as
being, therefore, inevitably 'put to death' on this account. Of course, this is
in Origen's time (i.e., in the Third Century as just noted above).
It does not necessarily
mean that such a total ban would have been in effect prior to the First Jewish
Revolt against Rome in 66-73 CE, when the problem would probably not have been
deemed sufficiently serious to merit it - in fact, probably not until the
aftermath of the Second Jewish Revolt when, it is clear, things were becoming
more and more repressive on this score. Nor, as he stressed, does one ever hear
- that is, in his own time - of a 'Sicarius' reprieved from such a 'punishment
even if he recants, the evidence of circumcision being sufficient to ensure the
death of him who has undergone it.'
This text is doubly ironic
for we know that Origen himself was just such a person, that is, 'a Sicarius'
(the singular of Sicarii) and had reportedly castrated himself presumably, not
because of his 'zeal' for the Law or circumcision, but rather because of his
'zeal' for celibacy and the statement, attributed to Jesus in the Gospels:
'make yourselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven' - Matthew 19:12).
Nevertheless, where non-Jews,anyhow, were concerned, castration of this kind
was clearly being seen as the equivalent of circumcision - or rather vice
versa, the Romans viewed 'circumcision' as just such a bodily mutilation of the
flesh and a variety of castration.
Jerome in the 4th-5th
Centuries confirms this in Letter 84 to Pammachus and Oceanus when, in claiming
that Origen 'castrated himself with a knife' (thus, clarifying the 'sica' part
of the 'Sicarius' formulation ) and ridiculing him by quoting Paul's own
critique of 'Zealotry' and 'Zealots' in Romans 10:2, saying he did this out of
'zeal for God but not according to Knowledge', both he as well as Paul showing
their awareness of 'Zealots' and, in particular, that such an act would have
been characteristic of them.
In fact, Paul goes on
in Romans 10:3-4, much like he does in 1 Corinthians 8:1-4 already alluded to
above when speaking about 'things sacrificed to idols', to ridicule the reputed
'Righteousness' - which anyone who knows anything about Qumran knows was a
basic concept there - of such persons saying:
"For being
ignorant of God's Righteousness (in 1 Corinthians 8:1-3, it is their alleged
'Kowledge' and 'loving God', i.e., their 'Piety', he is ridiculing) and seeking
to establish their own Righteousness, they do not submit to God's Righteousness
(more of Paul's strophe, antistrophe, epode rhetorical expertise, showing how
well-educated he was in this Hellenistic discipline), for Christ is the end of
the Law for Righteousness."
Here we leave out Acts
21:21's final denotation of the greater part of James' 'Jerusalem Church'
followers in his seeming final encounter with Paul as 'Zealots for the Law'.
This Roman Law, which
seems actually to have been attributed to Scipio - therefore the 'Cornelia'
part of the designation - and which Origen attests the judges in his time were
so zealously enforcing - according to Dio Cassius (2nd-3rd c. CE), seems to
have first come into real effect in Nerva's time (96-98 CE), that is, in the
aftermath of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome. But the sudden interest in
it and its connection, in particular, to 'circumcision', in fact appears to be
both linked to the 'Sicarii' and the whole issue of the First Revolt.
Certainly, by Hadrian's time and his actual prohibition of circumcision, it is
reflected in a law - 'the Ius Sikarikon' - relating to the confiscation of
enemy property, primarily it would seem in Palestine, connected to those
defying his decree on the subject who at the same time appear to have
participated - as in the First Jewish Revolt - in the War against Rome (132-36
CE).
The repression of
circumcision, particularly in relation to those Jews being called 'Sicarii' -
now seemingly because of their insistence on 'circumcision' and not, as
Josephus previously presented it, their propensity for assassination, by
Hadrian's time had become extraordinarily severe; and this had to mean, once
again, where non-Jews were concerned. In Tanaitic literature, the term
'Sikarikon' actually describes the property - including land and slaves - which
was expropriated from Jews by the Roman Authorities in the aftermath of the
Second Jewish Revolt against Rome because of the perception of their
participation in this War.
Against this
background, it seems clear that 'Sicarii' at this point in time was being used
both to characterize the most extreme partisans of revolt against Rome as well
as those 'insisting on circumcision' as asine qua non for conversion (as it is
today) - in particular 'the Party of the Circumcision' (as Paul describes the
'Some from James' in Galatians 2:11-21, who come down from Jerusalem to Antioch
with James directives, inter alia, not to eat things sacrificed to idols' and
then proceeding to go off in the rest of the Letter on a venomous rant against
'circumcision', 'the Law', and 'Zealotry', to say nothing of calling both Peter
and Barnabas 'hypocrites' - sic!) - now in the wake of all the unrest being
expressly prohibited in an official manner by Rome.
In this regard one
should pay particular attention to the designation of 'Judas Iscariot' or 'the
Iscariot' in the Gospels as having some relationship to or in some manner
parodying or holding these practices up to ridicule, that is, 'Judas the
Circumciser' - a matter much under-emphasized in New Testament research until
the recent discovery of an apocryphal Gospel in his name, a fuller discussion
of which I have already made on this blog line.
There is no doubt that
Qumran was extremely 'zealous for circumcision' too. This position is perhaps
most forcibly put forth in Column XVI of the Damascus Document (Cairo recension
- re-ordered by contemporary scholars as Column X) at the beginning of the more
Statutory part of the Document where 'the Oath of the Covenant,which Moses made
with Israel...to return to the Torah of Moses with a whole heart and soul' is
the principal proposition. One should perhaps compare this with Paul in Romans
10:5 above, where he too speaks of how 'Moses writes of the Righteousness which
is of the Law, that the man who has done these things shall live by them',
before going on to trump it in 10:6 with what he says 'the Righteousness of
Faith speaks'.
On the contrary,
however, the Damascus Document emphasizes the binding nature of oaths sworn 'to
return to' and 'keep the commandments of the Torah' at 'the price even of
death' - again a particularly important emphasis for those prepared, as per
Hippolytus and Josephus above, to undergo any torture rather than disavow the
Law. This is repeated with the words: 'even at the price of death, a man shall
fulfill the vow, he might have sworn, not to depart from the Law', which in
turn evokes both Deuteronomy 23:24 and 27:26 and the curses of the Covenant
attached thereto. It is in this same Column and in this context that Abraham's
circumcision is also evoked and the most fearsome oaths of retribution attached
to it!
In other words, once
again, we are not really in an environment of 'peaceful Essenes' and certainly
not of Paulinism, but rather one of absolute and violent vengeance and
a-life-and-death attachment to the Torah of Moses whether acquired by birth or
entered into by conversion. As this is put at this point in the Damascus
Document:
"And on the day
upon which the man swears upon his soul (meaning, 'on pain of death') to return
to the Torah of Moses, the Angel of Divine Vengeance (here expressed as'the
Angel of the Mastema' - in other vocabularies 'Satan') will turn aside (or
'cease') from pursuing him, provided that he fulfills his word. It is for this
reason Abraham circumcised himself on the very day of his being informed (i.e.,
of all these things)."
The reference is to
Genesis 17:9-27, in particular Abraham's obligation to 'circumcise the flesh of
his foreskin' and that of all those of his household - the addition of this
last being an important addendum - as 'a sign of the Covenant' which, the text
observes, he accomplished - just as in Column 16, Line 6 above - 'on that very
day', though he was ninety-nine years old!
Nor is it coincidental
either that this is the very same passage that the Talmud insists Queen Helen
of Adiabene's two sons, Izates and Monobazus, were reading when the more
'Zealot' teacher (identified by Josephus inThe Antiquities as 'Eliezer from
Galilee') asked them whether they 'understood the meaning of what' they were
reading? ). It is at this point, too, having understood the true nature of the
conversion they were undertaking, in both Josephus and the Talmud, 'on that
very day', they too immediately went out and circumcised themselves.
But the parallels don't
end here. This is the very same question that, in Acts 8:26-39's rather scurrilous
parody of this episode in its story of the conversion of 'the Ethiopian Queen's
eunuch' ('one in power over all her Treasure') - but this time of 'the
Ethiopian Queen's eunuch' has just left Jerusalem and in on the Road to Gaza
and Egypt, though 'Philip' (who asks the question in in Acts 8:30, attributed
in Josephus and theTalmud to Eliezer of Galilee, i.e. 'a Galilean') is
supposedly on his way to Caesarea.
Here the caricature of
'circumcision' as castration has to be seen as malignantly purposeful as is
that of 'the Queen' being an 'African' and presumably, therefore, 'black'
(Queen Helen most certainly was not and it was she, along with numerous other
works of charity, who gave the Golden Candelabra, pictured in Rome on Titus'
Arch of Triumph which was probably ultimately melted down to help build the
Temple of 'blood sports' and Death, we now all call 'The Colosseum').
Now, too, the 'eunuch'
is reading Isaiah 53:7-8, basically part of the fundamental 'Christian'
proof-text, while the heroic Monobazus and Kenedaeus, whose offspring sacrifice
themselves on the Road to Beit Horon at the start of the Uprising against Rome
in 66 CE, are reading Genesis 17:10-14 about Abraham's circumcision and that of
all his household and all those traveling with him. Like they, 'the Ethiopian
Queen's eunuch' immediately proceeds to be baptized ( 8:38 ), not circumcised.
In fact, it should be obvious that the creation of this canny caricature can be
dated within the complex of the various notices being discussed in this blog
and whoever did so was an individual both of some talent and not a little
knowledge.
To go back to Column
XVI.1-8 of the Damascus Document above, there can be little doubt, as we have
said, of the aggressive and uncompromising ferocity of this passage and others
like it in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where even 'the avenging fury of the Angel of
Mastema' and 'a person vowing another to death by the laws of the Gentiles,
himself being put to death' (IX.1) are evoked. The aggressive ferocity in question
is more in keeping with Hippolytus' description - tendentious or otherwise - of
'the Sicarii Essenes' who would either threaten to kill a man or forcibly
circumcise him if they heard him discussing 'God and His Laws' while at the
same time 'submit to any death or endure any torture rather than violate (
their ) conscience' ( i.e., 'blaspheme the Law') or 'eat that which was
sacrificed to an idol.'
As already remarked,
this issue of 'abstaining from things sacrificed to idols' is the backbone of
James' directives to overseas communities at the close of the Jerusalem Council
in Acts 15:25 and 15:29. It is reiterated in Acts 21:26 when Paul is sent into
the Temple by James for a Nazirite-style penance because the majority of James'
supporters are - even in the language of Acts 21:21 - 'Zealots for the Law.'
Not only does the
subject preoccupy Paul, as we have seen, from 1 Corinthians 8-11, where he uses
it as a springboard to introduce his idea of 'Communion with the body' and
'blood of Christ' (10:16); but also to affirm that 'an idol is nothing in the
world' (8:4), nor is 'that which is sacrificed to an idol anything' (10:19 -
the exact opposite of James' ruling), and to insist that one should 'not
inquire on account of conscience' (10:25, Paul's 'conscience' language again,
used as a euphemism for 'the Law' as in 8:7-11); and, growing not a little
violent himself, 'whoever eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks Judgement
to himself - not seeing through to the body of the Lord' (11:29).
The subject forms the
background to the whole section in MMT on bringing gifts and sacrifices on
behalf of Gentiles into the Temple - a ban according to Josephus of which 'our
ancestors were previously unaware' and the issue, according to him, that
triggered the 66 CE War against Rome - 'sacrifices by Gentiles' in the Temple,
in particular, being treated under the phrases that 'we consider they sacrifice
to an idol' or 'they are sacrifices to an idol' generally. Though the exemplars
are a little fragmentary here, the meaning is clear and the words 'sacrifice to
an idol' shine through clearly in MMT B.8-9.
My conclusion is that
the picture of 'the Sicarii' in Josephus as descending from the teaching of
'Judas and Sadduk' in the unrest of 4BC-7CE - not coincidentally, coincident
with the timeframe of 'Jesus'' birth in Matthew and Luke - and at the forefront
of the unrest in the 50's-early 60's, when Josephus is finally willing to
tendentiously explain their name, is only partly correct. As the events
transpire, 'the Sicarii' are also involved in the mass suicide at Masada, while
others flee down to Egypt which results in the destruction of the additional
Temple at Leontopolis there, and finally into Cyrenaica in North Africa where
similar unrest continues well into the 90's and beyond which finally results in
the almost total elimination of the Jewish community in Egypt.
But Josephus is perhaps
only being superficially forthcoming when he tells us that 'the Sicarii'
derived their name from the beduin-like dagger, which resembled the Roman
'sica' and which they carried beneath their garments to dispatch their enemies
- thus giving the impression that they were simply cut-throats or violent
assassins. Moreover, this picture is even picked up in Acts 21:38 too -
probably also somewhat tendentiously - where Paul, after disturbances provoked
by the perception of his bringing Gentiles and presumably, therefore, their
gifts into the Temple (cf. the cry in Acts 21:28 that 'he has brought Greeks
into the Temple and polluted this Holy Place' ), is queried by the Roman Chief
Captain who rescues him from the Jewish mob 'seeking to kill him':
"Are you not the
Egyptian who recently caused a disturbance and led four thousand Sicarii out
into the desert?"
As I see it, this is
true only as far as it goes. In the light of the materials from Hippolytus,
Origen, Dio Cassius, and Jerome, highlighted above and designating those who
circumcise or forcibly circumcise others as also being 'Sicarii'; we can
perhaps go further. As we explained, this designation was based on the
proverbial body of Roman Law, attributed to Publius Cornelius Scipio,
forbidding castration and other similar bodily mutilations - particularly of
the genitalia - the Lex Cornelia de Sicarius et Veneficis, which grew ever more
onerous from the Nerva's time to Hadrian's, so that by the time of Origen's in
the Third Century, Roman magistrates were applying it as a matter of course.
This law evidently
bounced back on the Revolutionaries of the Bar Kochba Period - since they were
obviously also being perceived as 'Sicarii' - to the extent that a law - known
in the Talmud as 'the Sicaricon' - was applied to them too, allowing the Government
to confiscate their property in the aftermath of the Uprising.
I would conclude,
therefore, that what 'the Sicarii', we all talk about so confidently, were also
known for was forcible circumcision - or rather, somewhat like Islam in a later
incarnation, they offered those having the temerity to discuss the pros and
cons of Mosaic Law, the choice of 'circumcision or death'. Judging by the
efforts expended against them in this Period, this policy does not seem to have
sat very well with their Roman overlords,who abrogated all the privileges the
Jews had previously enjoyed regarding this practice, at least where those
perceived of as 'Sicarii' Revolutionaries - 'Sicarii' or 'Zealot Essenes'(with
a distinctly 'Jamesian' cast) as Hippolytus calls them - were concerned.
The Romans, as several
times now explained, looked upon 'circumcision' as little more than a variety
of bodily mutilation of the sexual parts or castration and this, as suggested
as well, is something of the private joke shining through Acts' distorted
picture of the convert, it characterizes as 'the Ethiopian Queen's eunuch'.
Based on the incomplete and somewhat dissembling picture in Josephus, who
certainly seems to have known more about the subject of Sicarii, as his furious
remonstrances and self-justifications in the Vita on the subject of Sicarii
unrest in Cyrenaica at the end of the First Century clearly demonstrate,
readers have concluded that 'the knife' from which they derived the Greek
version of their name (certainly this was not what they called themselves, but
what their enemies called them and this was hardly the Hebrew or Aramaic
version of their name) was simply the assassin's.
In the light, however,
of the picture in the new material we have gathered above, there is no justification
whatsoever for this conclusion. So great was the attachment of 'the Sicarii' to
and their insistence on 'circumcision' that they probably were far better known
as 'the Party of the Circumcision'. Not only is this the name Paul seems to
give to the 'Party' led by James - as we have several times now remarked - it
is the issue with which he wrestles, as we have also seen, with such great
emotion and anger throughout Galatians, including even his final contemptuous
jibe at those he claims 'are disturbing' his communities - presumably with
'circumcision' in 5:12 - saying with such self-evident crudity: 'Would they
would themselves cut off'.
There is no doubting
the obscenity of his meaning here, nor the play on what he considers to be his
opponent's key doctrine and/or even what happened to him. In this context, this
expression 'cut off' is clearly but a lightly-disguised play on Essene and
Qumran excommunication practices and an expression in wide use in the Damascus
Document, particularly where backsliders from the Law and persons with the
attitude of a Paul were concerned. Therefore, the 'knife' some saw as that of
the assassin's probably doubled as that of the circumciser's.
In fact the emphasis
should probably be reversed. The 'knife' Sicarii Essenes were using 'to
circumcise' or 'forcibly circumcise' probably doubled as the one they used to
assassinate and, just as Origen who had himself mutilated his own sexual parts
reports, this is how such 'Mutilators' or 'Circumcisers' were known in the Greco-Roman
World. In my view, this is a much more penetrating way to understand the
literature one has before one whether at Qumran, in the Talmud, the New
Testament, Josephus, Roman Historians, or the Early Church Fathers.
As I have argued in my
previous works - including both James the Brother of Jesus (Penguin, 1997-98)
andThe New Testament Code (2006), the Community represented by the literature
found at Qumran, in fact did actually contain a contingent of associated
Gentile believers. These were referred to in the Damascus Document, for
instance, as 'the Nilvim' (or 'Joiners') - even 'God-Fearers', for whom, Line
19 of Column XX, actually insists 'a Book of Remembrance would be written
out'(thus! Cf. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:26, echoed in Jesus' purported words at
the proverbial 'Last Supper' in Luke 22:19 and pars.: 'Do this in remembrance
of Me').
Early commentators had
difficulty reconciling the obvious militancy, intolerance, and aggressiveness
that run through almost all the Qumran documents with their other seemingly
'Essene'-like characteristics. This conundrum is pretty well resolved if we
take Hippolytus' additions to Josephus at face value - additions, I submit,
Hippolytus would have been incapable himself of inventing in the Third Century,
but which were either suppressed or diffused in alternate versions of The
Jewish War either by Josephus himself or others as the true 'Apocalyptic
Messianism' of 'the Essenes', represented by the documents at Qumran, came to
be more fully realized.
Therefore, I submit
that what we have before us here are the documents of the 'Sicarii Essene' or
'Zealot Essene' Movement (for Hippolytus there was no difference) - a Movement
which, as the First Century progressed, became indistinguishable from those
Paul is identifying as 'the Some' or 'Representatives of James' in Galatians
2:12 above; or those who were insisting - to use the language of Acts 15:1's
prelude to the celebrated 'Jerusalem Council' - that 'unless you were
circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you could not be saved'; or, as
Paul himself characterizes them or to put it in his own words too,'the Party of
the Circumcision.'
When one takes Origen
and Dio Cassius at face value, understanding 'the Sicarii' in this light, not
as 'Assassins' - as their enemies wished us to see them - but as 'Circumcisers'
utilizing the circumciser's knife, even sometimes when they heard someone
improperly discussing the Law, 'Forcible Circumcisers' - then it should be
clear that most of the difficulties hitherto surrounding a good many of these
issues in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, Josephus, the Talmud, and
among the Early Church Fathers simply melt away.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Friday, July 17, 2015
The Sun loved The Moon So Much - Poem
“Tell me the story
about how the sun loved the moon so much he died every night to let her
breathe.”
“ there once was a
moon, as beautiful as can be, only the stars could fathom, but the sun could
not see. The sun so radiant, he burns so bright. The moon so luminous, but only
shows her face during the night. Wounded and raged, the sun cries and cries, so
sad he hides from the skies hoping to see her. The days become dark, because
the sun will not shine. The waves crash so harsh on the shoreline because there
is a storm breaching on the inside. If the sun couldn’t see the moon, he would
find another way to display his love. While the sun was thinking, the moon was
astray. You see..the moon loves the sun so much, that when he is away, she
chooses not to take a single breath, because not seeing him today, is a pain
worse than death. the sun can not see but he can hear, he can feel her soul and
it soon became clear. The sun would die each and every night to let his true
love breathe, for it would put an end to all her misery. ” “ a tale like this
should be heard and seen.” “And no one will know it is the story of you and
me.”
Medical Apartheid
Medical scholar Harriet
Washington joins us to talk about her new book, "Medical Apartheid: The
Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times
to the Present." The book reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific
research and the roots of the African American health deficit. It also examines
less well-known abuses and looks at unethical practices and mistreatment of
blacks that are still taking place in the medical establishment today.
[includes rush transcript]
A new report by the
American Cancer society shows that African-Americans are still more likely than
any other group to develop and die of cancer. The study states that
socio-economic factors play the largest role in this disparity–African
Americans have less access to health care and information, and are less likely
to get screening and medical treatment. Well, a new book offers one answer into
why black Americans deeply mistrust American medicine.
"Medical
Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from
Colonial Times to the Present" is the first and only comprehensive history
of medical experimentation, abuse and neglect of African Americans. The book
reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and the roots of the
African American health deficit. It begins with the earliest encounters of
blacks and the medical establishment during slavery, looks at how eugenics and
social Darwinism was used to justify medical experiments conducted by the
government and the military–and offers new details about the infamous Tuskegee
Experiments that began in the 1930’s.
"Medical
Apartheid" also examines less well-known abuses and looks at unethical
practices and mistreatment of blacks that are still taking place in the medical
establishment today. With us now is the Author of the book–Harriet Washington.
She is a medical writer and editor — and a visiting Scholar at DePaul University
School of Law.
Harriet Washington.
Medical writer and editor. She is a visiting Scholar at DePaul University
School of Law. Previously she was a Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical
School and at Stanford University. She is the author of the new book,
"Medical Apartheid."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush
transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re
joined now by the author of the book, Harriet Washington, a medical writer and
editor, a visiting scholar at DePaul University School of Law. We welcome you
to Democracy Now!
HARRIET WASHINGTON:
Thank you. I’m very happy to be here.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Prison Is Big Business
Human rights
organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they
are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where
they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic –
are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have
invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They
don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations
or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are
absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25
cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.
There are approximately
2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country.
According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has
imprisoned so many of its own citizens.” The figures show that the United
States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more
than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics
reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but
only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail
population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten
years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a
population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is
expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to
reports.
What has happened over
the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?
“The private
contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons
depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’
work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system
feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the
prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced
slave labor and concentration camps.”
The prison industry
complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its
investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own
trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It
also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction
companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food
supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of
colors.”
According to the Left
Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military
helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents,
bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the
entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes;
92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of
headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts,
medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for
blind people.
CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION
GOES UP
According to reports by
human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit
potential for those who invest in the prison industry complex:
. Jailing persons
convicted of non-violent crimes, and long prison sentences for possession of
microscopic quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years’
imprisonment without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack
or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of rock-cocaine
or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500
grams – 100 times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence.
Most of those who use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people,
while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may be
sentenced for up to two years’ imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of
marijuana. Here in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides
for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces
of any illegal drug.
. The passage in 13
states of the “three strikes” laws (life in prison after being convicted of
three felonies), made it necessary to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the
most disturbing cases resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who
for stealing a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences.
. Longer sentences.
. The passage of laws
that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances.
. A large expansion of
work by prisoners creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more
people for longer periods of time.
. More punishment of
prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences.
HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR
IN THE UNITED STATES
Prison labor has its
roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of “hiring out
prisoners” was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed
slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments
(cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty
thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then “hired out” for
cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910
in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93%
of “hired-out” miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to
the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The
notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.
During the post-Civil
War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with
legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of
daily life. “Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and
sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry
complex,” comments the Left Business Observer.
Who is investing? At
least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private
corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such
companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola,
Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell,
Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom,
TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more.
All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by
prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to
$1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum
wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well
under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17
cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per
month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners
receive 50 cents per hour for what they call “highly skilled positions.” At
those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to
be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a
day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.
Thanks to prison labor,
the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work
that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a
maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its
operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In
Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of
prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards
are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.
Oregon State
Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in
Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that “there
won’t be any transportation costs; we’re offering you competitive prison labor
(here).”
PRIVATE PRISONS
The prison
privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan
and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall
Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton’s program for cutting the
federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private
prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and
high-security inmates.
Private prisons are the
biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard
10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of
America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons
receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it
costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison
administrator in Virginia, “the secret to low operating costs is having a
minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners.” The CCA has an
ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift
and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get
their sentences reduced for “good behavior,” but for any infraction, they get
30 days added – which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New
Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost “good behavior time” at a
rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.
IMPORTING AND EXPORTING
INMATES
Profits are so good
that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences,
meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in
Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with
sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits.
According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program
was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express
and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That
state’s governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York
and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into
private prison profits.
After a law signed by
Clinton in 1996 – ending court supervision and decisions – caused overcrowding
and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations
in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering
“rent-a-cell” services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The
commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The
county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.
STATISTICS
Ninety-seven percent of
125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is
believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county
jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority
are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have
committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country’s 2 million
prisoners suffer from mental illness.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Alcohol Distillation and its Origins
Many races assert that
they was the first to distil alcohol as a beverage, but it would appear that
there is insufficient historical documentation to bestow the honour
definitively on any one group. Distillation was neither a Greek nor a Roman
invention and there is absolutely no evidence of any distillation in France
before the 14th century.
Alcohol Distillation
and the Moors
The Moors and
distillation are almost synonymous with many believing that the Moors
discovered its secrets around 900 AD, although they used the resultant alcohol
for antiseptic and medicinal purposes rather than for imbibing. The Moors
legacy lives on in today’s nomenclature: al-kohl whence alcohol and al-ambiqs
anglicised to alembic.
Distillation Apparatus
Distillation Apparatus
Alcohol Distillation
and European Monks
On the other hand,
monasteries in Ireland, oases of wisdom during the stagnation of the Dark ages,
may also have a claim concerning alcohol distillation. Legend has it that King
Henry II of England found spirits produced in Ireland, which would date their
spirit production from the 12th century. Monks in Salerno were also involved in
distillation around this time although in all likelihood they learnt the art
from the Moors.
Alcohol Distillation,
Possible Other Origins
Another legend gives
the honour of the invention of distillation to the Chinese with travelers
bringing news of the methodology to Egypt, which subsequently spread as
alchemy, derived from al-Khem.
The distillate became
known generically as water of immortality because of the preservative effect it
had on anything of an organic nature. this translated into many different
languages and eventually evolved into names with which we are familiar today
including uisge beatha from the Gaelic, whence whisky; eau de vie from French;
aqua vitae from the Latin and interestingly el ixr from Old Roman. In English
the expression became spiritual water and subsequently what we now refer to as
spirits.
Alcohol Distillation:
the Process
The alcoholic
distillation apparatus, used to separate and concentrate the ethyl alcohol from
a fermented liquid, works on the basis that ethyl alcohol, which possesses a
boiling point of 78.3°C, is more volatile than water and so when a fermented
wash is heated, the alcohol vapourises before the water. Through condensation,
these alcoholic vapors are collected, while other vapours and solids are
rejected.
There exist several
different distillation techniques, such as simple distillation, fractional
distillation, steam distillation, etc.
Kenneth Grant - Writer And Occultist
When Aleister Crowley
died in 1947 Kenneth Grant became heir apparent of the esoteric magical order
Ordo Templis Orientis (OTO). Alongside his artist wife Steffi, Grant was one of
few to attend Crowley's funeral service, becoming the last living link with
"the Beast", whose work he championed, nurtured and refined for over
six decades. From his New Isis Lodge, established in London in 1955, through to
his final organizational vehicle, the Typhonian Order, Grant's occult
credentials are without parallel.
Typhon, the Greek god
of chaos and destruction, was Grant's chosen deity, and he wrote a series of
trilogies in the 1970s including The Magical Revival, Cults of the Shadow and
Nightside of Eden, that fashioned his own brand of occultism. With a fusion of
science, fantasy and metaphysics he offered a radical decoding of Crowley, the
artist Austin Osman Spare and the author HP Lovecraft, alongside healthy doses
of astral projection. An integral part of the emergent occulture, his work was
consumed by a new generation of cultural provocateurs and occultniks searching
for a more esoteric identity. For the artist Alan Moore, in his essay "Our
Ken", he was a "paranormal pit-canary and point-man" who was
"prepared to roll his sleeves up and plunge elbow deep in the 'Qlipothic
slime' of his imagination."
In fact Crowley
chastised Grant for this trait. "You cannot be content with the simplicity
of reality and fact," the cantankeous master wrote to his pupil in 1945.
"You have to go off into a pipedream." Grant continued to map this
spiritual topography, however, penning Typhonian travelogues Moore describes as
"an information soup, an overwhelming and hallucinatory bouillon of arcane
fact, mystic speculation and apparent outright fantasy."
He nurtured a deep
appreciation for occult art and with Steffi was the first to introduce the work
of Austin Spare to modern occultists. As a contributor to the best-selling Man,
Myth and Magic magazine series Grant championed and popularised the work of
Crowley and Spare for a new generation, making them key cultural figures in the
magical revival of the 1970s. "The key to the principal occult mysteries
of the present age," wrote Grant, lay in Crowley's philosophy of Thelema –
a synthesis of Nietzschean and Buddhist ideas that sought to harnass willpower
for magical ends – in particular his The Book of the Law written in 1904.
Grant was born in
Ilford, Essex, the son of a Welsh clergyman. He first encountered Crowley at
the age of 15 in a Charing Cross Road bookshop via a copy of his book Magick in
Theory and Practice. Grant craved more Crowley and devoted himself to the
pursuit of oriental mysticism.
Hoping to be posted to
India, where he could find a guru, Grant volunteered for the army aged 18. A
health breakdown 18 months later, though, saw him discharged and the
convalescent sought enlightenment closer to home, entering into correspondence
with the 68-year-old Crowley, who was then living in Buckinghamshire lodgings.
A short stint as personal secretary to the demanding master saw Grant running
errands between London and Hastings, fetching Turkish cigarettes and whiskey
and in return snatching pearls of wisdom from a Crowley who was, he said,
"almost, but not quite, at the end of the road".
In 1944-45, by his own
account, Grant wrote many magical papers at Crowley's suggestion. Apparently
the acolyte sufficiently impressed the master, who initiated him into his
magical fraternity Argentum Astrum in 1946 and confirmed him as an IX° in the
OTO.
Crowley died in 1947
without nominating a clear heir or successor but in 1946 had written a memo:
"Value of Grant: if I die or go to USA, there must be a trained man to
take care of the English OTO." This memo became the key building block
supporting Grant's succession to the leadership, and thus began his rise to
prominence.
In 1951 Grant was
authorised by Crowley's successor Karl Germer and received permission to form
an English branch of the OTO, which he called the New Isis Lodge, formed as a
conduit and magical cell in 1954 "for the influx of cosmic energy from a
transplutonic power-zone known to Initiates as Nu-Isis". The lodge aligned
the sexual magic of the OTO with Indian Tantric principles and aimed to
reorganise the entire system of the old order.
A displeased Germer
grew more infuriated when a German Thelemite group published an excerpt of the
Lodge's manifesto announcing Grant's discovery and promotion of a new
"Sirius/Set current" in Crowley's work. Grant's obsession with this
extra-terrestrial dimension was heresy to Germer, who excommunicated him from
the OTO. Despite his expulsion Grant assumed leadership of the Order, and the
New Isis Lodge operated until 1962 on the basis of what Grant claimed were
"inner Plane" powers.
A key figure in Grant's
development was David Curwen, a member of the OTO Sovereign Sanctuary. Grant
met Curwen shortly after Crowley's death and his influence left a deep
impression on Grant, who proceeded to immerse himself in eastern mysticism. His
work with the Advaita Vedanta, the most influential sub-school of the Vedanta
school of Hindu philosophy is detailed in a number of essays for Indian
journals in the 1950s and 1960s.
Accounts of temple
meetings suggest salons of sorts taking place in Curwen's fur shop in London,
with Kenneth, Steffi and one or two others. Other meetings were essentially
tantric rituals performed by the Grants, but an oath of silence lends an air of
mystery to the meetings.
In 1969 Germer died
without naming a successor and Grant declared himself Outer Head of the order
inside the book jacket of The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. In the same year
an American, Grady McMurty, initiated a claim to the deeds and title of the OTO,
declaring himself Frater Superior. The self-styled "Caliphate" branch
of the organisation attained tax emeption as a religious entity under
Californian State Law in 1982.
Grant's scene revolved
around his suburban semi in Golder's Green, where the reclusive wizard avoided
litigation and the legal registration of his Order, confident that he
represented the real OTO. Using Crowley's basic system, the Typhonians
discarded rituals of initiation, instead conferring degrees on members on the
basis of personal development. Perceived to be more occult and autonomous,
Grant's group exerts a tremendous influence that far outweighs that of other
OTO groups.
In his later years
Grant produced more works of fiction and poetry such as Beyond the Mauve Zone
and Snakewand. The closest we have to an autobiography is the beautifully
crafted Zos Speaks!, which provides a rare glimpse of the Grants' more earthly
correspondence through their eight-year friendship with Austin Spare.
Sumptuously illustrated with many of the artist's most significant work, from
the Grant's personal collection, Zos Speaks! re-introduces the London artist
for contemporary appreciation.
No matter the changes
of nomenclature, Grant served his time as sorcerers' apprentice to both Crowley
and Spare, and as editor and interpreter of their work his magical provenance,
authority and pedigree is without equal. Grant's take on Thelema transformed
him into a guru of sorts, and to his countless followers and friends he will be
best remembered as a man of much warmth and wit, a life summed up in the words
of the occult historian PR Koenig as "a metaphor for the continuity of the
strategies of illumination."
Declan O'Neill
Kenneth Grant, writer
and occultist: born Ilford, Essex 23 May 1924, married 1946 (one son); died 15
January 2011.
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