Book Excrept

[windsfury]

This is one of the most interesting Greek books I have read so I figured it would be nice to share. Now, I do believe there is an English version of this but since I could not find it I just translated the most interesting part as well as I could. Now be aware that this translation does NOT do it justice. I just hope that, however butchered, the gist of it can get across and you could perhaps tell me what you think about it? (Most of the BBCodes used are based on an online version of the Greek book. Not really trying to point out anything...I also took liberty to turn italic the parts that are passages from the Bible to make it look better) Aggelos Vlachos (Άγγελος Βλάχος) The last most peaceful (Oι τελευταίοι Γαληνότατοι) (1961) (maybe The Latter Serene? Not sure how to translate it) Spoiler for Book Excrept: “….One night, right after sunset I lit my lamp and with it a small incense boat to perfume a bit my small and warm cell. The previous night I had started carefully studying the first chapter of Genesis. My study, after the first few lines, had filled me with astonishment that quickly turned into confusion and questions were crowded posed in front of me. I decided to write, in the hope that, in this way, I would clear my thoughts a bit, but I didn’t suspect how far the quill I was holding in my hand would take me: “…The first chapter of Genesis had struck me with unimaginable surprise with its stark contradictions…and the inconsistencies it implies…And they were both naked: to wit, Adam and his wife: and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the lord God had made. And he said unto the woman. What if God said not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? God made man in His image and likeliness but he deprived him of conscience, forbidding him taste the tree of K n o w l e d g e that would give him the ability to distinguish good from evil. He cursed him such, in a neutral state, of unconscience, in which he would be able to act indifferently, to do good or evil and not understand it. The Devil, however wanted to perfect the holy work and so he advised Eve to taste the forbidden fruit. Is that notion correct though? It is noteworthy that the Devil took the form of a snake- the wisest of all animals- and entered Paradise under the vigilant guard of the glaive-bearing angels. I can accept that the servants of Paradise were not careful, but is it possible to assume The Evil One entered Paradise without the Creator knowing? God is omniscient and so it is certain that He was aware of Devil’s presence in Paradise and accepted silently the danger his “twin” creation that he made in His image and likeliness was in. This suggests that the Devil’s presence was necessary in Paradise and that the Creator admitted the imperfection of his work and not only admitted but gave the Cunning One the chance to perfect it, showing him the way to obtain conscience. Eve ate from the Wood and gave to Adam to eat too. And the eyes of them both were opened. And there! Because man was perfected and succeeded in being able to tell good from evil, he is the only one of God’s creatures that has to live with this unimaginable curse upon his shoulders, he will have to sweat to earn a living…the ground will be under a curse because of what you did. That’s inconceivable! It’s violently contradicting with the Omnipotence and benevolence of the Father! If man had not eaten from the wood of knowledge he would have remained in an animal state of unconscience. The Cunning One helped him – in Lord’s knowledge- to obtain conscience and rise into some post and to be able to make consciously good –and of course evil- deeds. And should both man and the Devil be cursed for that in eternity? But since the Lord knew about the Devil’s presence in Paradise, why didn’t he prevent him from succeeding? If I assume that God considered man having a conscience a mortal sin then he should have prevented Eve from falling into sin, by preventing the Devil from entering Paradise. The necessary response to the question is that man obtaining a conscience was not a sin, since a sin is a conscious act, namely distinction between good and evil and the ability of choice. Having a conscience was something that man would struggle with, possibly, but it would also give him the power to salvation. Isn’t that a priceless gift? And that gift was given to him by the Devil, the friend and benefactor of man Devil who was banished to eternal hellfire for this act! Ah! The Greek Mythology! How much more rational, more consistent, clearer! Prometheus disobeys Zeus and steals the vivifying and creator fire from Olympus. He gifts it to man who as to Zeus is a receiver of stolen goods and yet he is not punished. What for? He was made imperfect and he obtained a tool necessary for his survival. The one who is punished here is, again, the benefactor, but temporarily. Hercules frees him from Caucasus while for the Cunning One there is no hope for all eternity! In Genesis, man becomes cursed for obtaining, without even seeking for it, without knowing what he is doing, conscience. In Greek mythology, man is right from the start beyond judgement. Why does the Cunning One tempt us? To test us! To make us feel the value of the gift he has given us! And to tease us so often, it means he seeks our gratitude, our love, that he seeks something in return…And the only thing we can do is love the Maleficent and pray to the omnipotent God to forgive him and release him from Tartarus he is in. We must pray with all our heart for Devil’s salvation. He freed us from the paradisal state of unconscience, saved us from the darkness and brought us to light! That’s why he was name Lucifer! Hosanna to the Satan! Hosanna…” Just as I finished writing the page I was startled by hearing this deep whispering voice, like an echo of my thoughts, next to me: “Hosanna to the Satan!” He was sitting in a small stool at the other end of my elongated prison. He was sitting with his body posed, his arms folded in his wide sleeves and his yellow pointy shoes, barely visible between the deep green aspects of his courtier suit. I became pale from shame when I saw the stranger, but my shame became anger and I felt a strong burning on my face and a strong dizziness. I wanted to yell the stranger out of the cell, but I found it impossible to speak. I couldn’t do anything else but listen, still, as he started talking: “I came here to enrich your argument, Demetrius. What you have written, so far, have some value, but they are also somewhat shallow. Besides, why the reference and comparison to the Greek mythology? If you wanted to make such a comparison, you would have to admit that the Old Testament is a mythology too….of Christian origin. But what an anachronism! The Old Testament, Christian! I am sorry. At the beginning of your text you say that I entered Paradise. That’s an inaccuracy! I was in Paradise all along and that is a much stronger argument for your syllogisms because after all, as you say Archangels relax and lower their guard, and don’t think God isn’t careless some times. Then, maybe Paradise wasn’t really a Paradise since I, the Evil One, was in it...” I tried moving my body as to get up, but I found it impossible to move from my position. “You are hesitating….doesn’t it cross your mind that maybe the Omnipotent God had me whisper to Eve those tricky, as you call them, words?” His eyes flashed and two flames flickered on his eyes. “What a reversal! What a disruption in the universal order if you admitted that. But you almost did, there in those words. I can see your agony. You want me to make it clear to you, whether the Almighty asked me tempt Eve, if, in other words, God is my accomplice! But what does accomplice mean? What does Almighty means! But let’s go back to your thought because I see all these side-tracks tire you. “ The way he looked had now changed, or rather, I could see him more clearly, because, without a sound he had come closer and his face was better lit by my oil lamp. His hair was pitch-black, pitch-black and dense was his beard. He was pale and under his well-defined eyebrows, one brightly, with some rigor and a little melancholy, two green eyes. “Your thought was that I helped you elevate from your animal position to that of a human. That should be debatable too, but let’s let it be….You then say that I gave you conscience with which you can tell good from evil. But what is good and what is evil? Don’t be startled, I will talk about that later. But you missed something else too! That I gave you a priceless gift! To be able to be happy and sad, to be able to think. I gave you knowledge. I gave you’re your mind, without which there is no spirit. What can the soul do alone? Nothing! I gave you that divine spark that, perhaps due to forgetfulness or planning, the Creator had not added and so I made you equal to God. Remember what the psalm says: “ Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. “ Matt says it too: “Ye are the Light of the World.” Therefore, you are my representatives in Earth, since I brought you the light. What did Christ say to the Jews? “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” So you are my obedient servants. “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh…” How wise were the words of my….Opponent! You found strange that I hesitated to call him my opponent? But of course I did! He is not my opponent, no. How could he be! He is my equivalent, like an opposite projection, if you will. He is the projection to above, and I am the projection to below. I am expressing myself with your own conventional terms. We are, him and I, different facets of the same form, the same substance/ Your eyes grow rounder from surprise! But you are sluggish in thought! What does your everyday prayer say? “Our Father who art in heaven…” He stopped and looked at my disappointed. His eyes had a sad look of dismay. “You beg to be given your daily bread, that’s right, and then you say “… And lead us not into temptation…" You ask Him not to put you in temptation! You don’t ask him to protect you from something! You ask him not to change facets! What better proof do you need! God is one, but has two sides! He and I are co-essential! And notice this. This prayer is not made by humans like that “Apostles’ Creed” made by the Holy Fathers of Nicene and looks like a legal document, without any poetry, any flare, strict and boring like a monastery statute. This prayer was given to you by the lips of the Other when he talked to the crowed at the Mountain, as Matt, my favourite evangelist beautifully describes. It takes some time to get used to the idea, of course, since from your forefathers you have learned to believe that I am an enemy of God, that I fell into Tartarus and I torment the souls of sinners. You placed me in Tartarus in the crescent from the flames darkness, in the depths of some imaginary place. You put horns on me and while your intention was to humiliate me, by giving me this ornament your honoured me. Horns, for countless centuries have been a sign of power and wisdom. Remember Moses! Watch carefully the mitres your metropolitans are wearing...your Patriarch….You gave me a tail, but the tail resembles the snake, the wisest of all animals. You depicted me with goat legs! I remind you that the goat is a symbol of power! You surround me with smoke and flames. Flame is life and power and smoke is spirit. You made this nice and easy shape. God is in Heaven, I m in Hell and you midway, on Earth, as the price of the struggle, valuable! What else haven’t you created with your so contradicting imagination! You made me a rebel that rises against his Lord,, ungratefully wanting to hit his benefactor and you didn’t think that since I too am, according to your reasoning, one of God’s creatures, I could not “rebel” against him and overthrow him. You with your negligible intelligence call him Almighty…And I? Wouldn’t I have conscience of him almightiness? Would I attempt this futile fight, cursed in advance in an eternal curse? You look at me stupidly again, but from what you started writing there you seem like a probably remarkable person. How could it have happened? How could have I been condemned to eternal punishment by the Benevolent God? He would give the worst example, to you, his believers if He didn’t love me. I will refer to Matt again. Don’t get up to consult him, I know him by heart, same with all of the Holy Scripture. You are surprised…me, a theologist…Well, what does the evangelist say? “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” Please tell me if you have ever heard anyone lit a candle to me in a church. If ever, like the Other said, any man on Earth has ever prayed to me, your persecutor. But what else would make more sense, since you are obliged to love me. You should in your every prayer, your every worship, pray for me as well and light on the Almighty’s icon – not just a saint’s! a candle for…Fine! Don’t be scared! I won’t say my name, but think that with your reasoning, you almost praised me… Again, I can see from the look on your face that I need to explain it to you. It is strange though that you overlook the most important parts of your faith. You believe that I rebelled against the Other, so you admit there was a chance that I would win, in which case you would pray in my name…Shuddering? You are about to tell me that I twaddle or that I am contradicting myself with what I told you earlier. But I am just analysing your own beliefs as your have formed them, stupidly and silly. Good and Evil, God and Devil, Paradise and Hell, Heaven and Tartarus and you, amidst of all that complacently proud, prize of this eternal battle! You are blinded by conceit, arrogance and hubris. You believe that the Universe, Heaven, Earth, the sea, animals, nature, all the glory, all this exquisite miracle were created solely to be your own track, in which you can exercise good and evil! You are pitiful narcissists that don’t even think that you too are creatures of this world, subservient to an internal function you don’t even suspect. The world is modelled such, structured such, that Good and Evil form a single encarpus, indivisible and inseparable. There is no Good and Evil. There are no good acts and bad acts. There are acts necessary and unnecessary. It is the only substantial distinction that should be made. You should read the Scriptures more carefully. There is a lot that the Other tried to explain who “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” He had come even closer and I could see him clearly. His speech had a great charm. He uttered the words distinctively and his voice, deep and warm, had beats that gently waved through the air and spread all over my body, like a warm caress. He was very calm. Only a couple of times had he liven. “I know, Demetrius, that I destroy your beliefs and trickle your soul with doubt, but I am not worried. When the Other rises his sun tomorrow morning, you will have forgotten the wisdom of this night and have returned back to the known and easy. What I am telling you can only be held by those of fine nature, that is well painted like damask steel. The others will always believe the same. Good on one side, Evil on the other and in the middle you, a small and meaningless thing…Then you will ask me, why did I appear to you if you are not special? But you called me. You have written there, Hossana to….Fine. I will keep on. I have appeared at times to some special ones, not just of your own church, but also of the Latin, and I tried to enlighten some of the highest clergy in hierarchy. Most disappointed me but I'm patient. I will keep coming back until the end of the world. You granted me that superiority over the Other. The Other only appeared once and because you didn’t understand, you crucified him. Yeah…I know…If you hadn’t crucified him, he would not have been resurrected and if he hadn’t been resurrected you wouldn’t have believed. This logic is square but do you realize or not that in that way you glorify your very meanness and confess and humble of your nature? You needed a miracle to believe in God and I had thought that by giving you conscience I had also given you conscience of the divine. No! A miracle was necessary and the Other gave it to you, but I am not sure at all if He did well. Surprised? The Crucifixion created for you the concept of redemption and the meaning of Love. I treat the word as used by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Corinthians. At the same time, the Crucifixion fosters hatred, contempt, resentment and arrogance, because it needed someone to blame. The Jews, the Pharisees, the Anna and Caiaphas, Pilate and above all, that poor Judas. This whole side of the Great Event fosters bad feelings, and there you never think, of course, that all this was done to help you, the unbelievers, acquire faith. And you foster complacently among you a feeling of superiority over the others who crucified Him for your salvation, but it never crosses your mind that you, yes you, were the ringleaders of the martyrdom of the Other. You are accomplices of Anna and Caiaphas, accomplices of Longinus. Only he, the obnoxious Pilate, was able to stay immaculate for future generations, because, of course, someone had to come clean from this whole tragedy. That’s how you have considered him, without even thinking that maybe he is more guilty than anyone, the real culprit because he was judge and refused to ruel, was lord and refused to exercise his authority, was the Roman ruler, the absolute master that was influenced by his wife’s dream. I know how you all feel a bottomless envy for Pilate, him and his achievement. A! If only you could also conveniently convenient to wash your hands in a basin ...And Judas? Why did not you dedicate churches and chapels, all over the world? If there is someone worthy of your gratitude then that is Judas Iscariot, who has done the most tragic work man ever defrayed, without whom there would have been no Crucifixion and without the Crucifixion there would have been no Resurrection and you would have never believed. You are upset again and your face is about to be purple! Be a little patient.” His style has become slightly tight and his voice was even deeper. “Judas is one of the Twelve. Note that he is one of the first who followed the Other. Judas, he along with the eleven, preached the Word, healed the sick and paralyzed, the blind and the deaf, and cast out demons. Not only that, but had a great position in the company ... sorry, escort of the Other. He was the treasurer! He kept the pot and even was a good manager, since he was discomforted when Magdalene broke the crystal with the precious myrrh to smear the feet of the Other. You see how Judas is one of our valued and loved. And when the time came, that dim, spring night when the torches showed and Judas walked in the garden of Gethsemane, the Other turned and said: unto him: “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” F r i e n d! He says Friend! And you think Good and Evil are the enemies! The Iscariot kissed the Other and that is the most tragic moment. The Other accepted the kiss of Evil, because no one can avoid a completion.” His eyes sparkled in the dark and a slight agitation manifested in his voice. "Before I leave, let me reiterate a few things. There is none of these anxious constructs of your imagination, the amazing things that keep you awake at night and stultify your reflection. You have that stress because you're trying to explain the inexplicable. You ask. Then? What comes after? And you give the answer. Heaven or Hell, reward or punishment. Listen. Nothing comes after. You made all these formats because you can not do good without the hope of a reward and cannot try not to do evil except by the fear of punishment. But you also invested in the pursuit of another trickery. Why would I need to come to you whispering tips in your ear, when you are far more cunning! Your invention is the Repentance ... Convenient repentance that covers everything, the easy drug, the cure for any evil, any wickedness, any cunning act that you do-by your own standards- and that repentance nestles in your mind from the beginning. Repentance is also the result of your fear for what happens AfterDo not sigh! Nothing comes after. I am a friend of man. I've shown you that and that is why I am with you tonight, to save you from that delusion. Do not hope for a paradise nor fear hell. They do not exist. There is Life and Death and when you ate from the Wood of Knowledge, you alone from all the creatures of this world, learned that there is also death. You are the only creatures that know that the day of the End will come. And this is the greatest gift that I gave you, showing you how to appreciate the value of life. " A melancholy smile just outlined his livid face and then he began very slowly, almost in a whisper, to chant the exorcism: “O God of gods and Lord of lords, Creator of the fiery spirits and Artificer of the invisible powers, of all things heavenly and earthly: Thou Who no man has seen -- nor is able to see; Thou Whom all creation fears and before Whom it trembles; Thou Who didst cast into the darkness of the abyss of Tartars the angels who did fall away with him who once was commander of the angelic host, who disobeyed Thee and haughtily refused to serve Thee. expel you, primal source of blasphemy, prince of the rebel host, originator of evil. I expel you, Lucifer, who was cast from the brilliance on high into the darkness of the abyss on account of your arrogance: I expel you and all the fallen hosts which followed your will: I expel you, spirit of uncleanness, who revolted against Adonai, Elohim, the omnipotent God of Sabaoth and the army of His angels. Be gone and depart from this cell…” As the chanting went on, his image became blurred and he became transparent, so that the wall behind him became visible as if his form was flushed in the masonry. Only his eyes were still visible, as brilliant and distinct as two burning coals in the darkness until they too slowly faded . I don't know if you will read it or not, or if the message can get across properly but I personally found it pretty amazing.