The Patriarch

Posted: June 1, 2024 | Author: David | Filed under: consciousness, What is an Art Farm | Tags: consciousness, spirituality |1 Comment

It is generally considered there were six cradles of civilization on Planet Earth: Mesopotamia; ancient Egypt, India and China; the Caral-Supe of coastal Peru, and the Olmec of Mexico.  

Mesopotamia, known as the Fertile Crescent, is significant as the location of the Neolithic Revolution circa 10,000 BCE, from which arose the invention of the wheel, the planting of cereal crops, the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy and agriculture.    

The Kingdom of Sumer, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is known for its innovations in language, governance, and architecture; the Sumerians are considered the creators of civilization as modern humans understand it.  

The Akkadian Empire followed, reaching its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BCE and generally regarded as the first empire in history.  

The Babylonian empire arose circa 1894 BCE and became the dominant power under Hammurabi, an extraordinary leader who gave himself the title “King of Babylon, Sumer and Akkad and of the four quarters of the world.”  Most well known for his detailed legal code, part of which remains on display in the Louvre, Hammurabai ranks highly among the great lawgivers of history.  But he is not among the Patriarchs.  

In southern Mesopotamia, maybe in the city of Camarina, or likely in the city of Ur, although most commonly believed to have been Ur of the Chaldeans was born, circa 1951 BCE, a male named Abraham, who once grown, heard the divine voice command, “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shall be a blessing.”  In an empire of polytheism, Abraham followed a singular voice and became the Patriarch of monotheism.  

Abba Solomon Eban, the author of “My People: The Story of the Jews” tells the story of the Jewish odyssey as “…not a chronicle of remote, superhuman warriors.  It does not resemble the vision a resplendent heroic world such as the Greeks and other ancient peoples saw as their original state.  …In subsequent literature and memory the Hebrew nation looked back to its first ancestor as the prototype of two virtues: goodness and warmth in human relations and utter resignation, beyond mere humility, to the divine will.  Both Christian and Muslim traditions accept the historic authenticity of Abraham and admit him as their spiritual ancestor.  But to the Jews he is the first and unique Patriarch, the model of Hebrew excellence.  Inspired by his covenant and welded together by the memories of three generations descended from his loins, the Children of Israel, precariously settled in Egypt, cross the frontier into established history in the middle of the second millennium B.C.E.”

Ancestry is important, and the loins of Abraham are central both to Judaism and to the Christian faith.  Biblical tradition holds that the Twelve Tribes of Israel are the descendants of Jacob, descended from Abraham.  Chartres Cathedral, considered the high point of French Gothic art, has stained glass windows on the west wall showing the genealogy of the Royal House of David, in the form of a tree which springs from the loins of Jesse – he, a descendant of Jacob, and thus of Abraham – to reach its flowering in the carpenter’s son from Nazareth.

There is neither historical nor archeological evidence of Abraham.  More than one-hundred years of searching in the desert have produced no evidence of this man considered the founding father of the relationship between the Jews and God, the spiritual progenitor of all Christians and Eastern Orthodox, and in Islam, a link in the chain of prophets beginning with Adam and culminating in Muhammad.  

With more than 2.6 billion Christians and Eastern Orthodox plus 1.9 billion Muslims plus approximately 15.2 million Jews, more than half of the world’s population regard Abraham as a central pillar of their faith.  And Abraham’s heirs – whether biological or spiritual – have often been at war, among themselves.

War is of this world, not of the divine.  Constantine, of In Hoc Signo Vinces fame, converted to Christianity, while commanding the largest Roman army.  He hired as tutor to his son a philosopher named Lucius Caecilius Lactantius, who taught that the goals of any political power were always, “to extend the boundaries which are violently taken from others, to increase the power of the state, to improve the revenues,” by latrocinium, which in Latin means “violence and robbery.”  

The Nazarene, avatar of consciousness, Abraham’s grandson – the 54th as counted by Luke or the 43rd as per Matthew – Jesus taught, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”  The Holy Roman Emperor was a Caesar, and the teachings of latrocinium were passed down.  The Empire would rule for more than 1,000 years, until the 1800s.  

Pope Urban called for the First Crusade, in 1096, to slay the infidels in the Holy Land.  With alacrity his orders were carried out, thirty thousand people killed in three days.  Raymond of Aguilers described it, “Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen.  Men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.  Indeed it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.”  

Robert the Monk, an abbot in France, argued the Muslims were a “vile and abominable race,” “despicable, degenerate and enslaved by demons,” “absolutely alien to God,” and “fit only for extermination.”

Many of the Knights stayed closer to home, in Europe, as Abba Eban writes, “ ‘Kill a Jew and save your soul’ became the shortcut taken by many a zealous Crusader.  A small number of Jews accepted baptism to remain alive; the majority refused, and died.” 

To the slaying, the Muslims responded in kind, an eye-for-an-eye, and Holy Jihad began.  Between 1096 and 1272 there were a total of nine Crusades, until 1291 when the Egyptian Mamelukes drove the Crusaders out of the Holy City.  

The story of Abraham has played out over more than 120 generations, and one is tempted to wonder for how many more generations will the Righteous continue their brutally horrid and inhumane fight?  We would do well to contemplate Abraham’s cardinal virtues: “goodness and warmth in human relations and utter resignation, beyond mere humility, to the divine will.”

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