Apolonius of Tyanna is the fourth messiah that is on our list. One of the biggest miracles that he puled off was the bodily ascension into Heaven forty days after his death. This paragraph in the article was labeled ‘Historical facts”. With the exception of the Adana Inscription,[clarification needed] little can be derived from sources other than Philostratus. As James Francis put it, "the most that can be said ... is that Apollonius appears to have been a wandering ascetic / philosopher / wonderworker of a type common to the eastern part of the early empire."[24] What we can safely assume is that he was indeed a Pythagorean and as such, in conformity with the Pythagorean tradition, opposed animal sacrifice, and lived on a frugal, strictly vegetarian diet.[25] A minimalist view is that he spent his entire life in the cities of his native Asia Minor (Turkey) and of northern Syria, in particular his home town of Tyana, Ephesus, Aegae, and Antioch,[26] though the letters suggest wider travels, and there seems no reason to deny that, like many wandering philosophers, he at least visited Rome. As for his philosophical convictions, we have an interesting, probably authentic fragment of one of his writings (On sacrifices) where he expresses his view that God, who is the most beautiful being, cannot be influenced by prayers or sacrifices and has no wish to be worshipped by humans, but can be reached by a spiritual procedure involving nous (intellect), because he himself is pure nous and nous is also the greatest faculty of humankind.[27] Pythagarianism has “returning to the Point” or “The One” as its highest goal, or what Star Trek people might call the great Borg Heracy. A feature of Gnosticism is that reproduction is inherently evil and that God, a perfect being, cannot even reproduce himself because it will inherently dilute his pure goodness. All that stuff I said about all angels being demonic in the last blog still holds. Also still true is that “The World” is ruled by Satan. Man can be saved by a gnosis or “knowing” of this divine quality and once saved, his morality and purity transcends all earthly sense of morality and purity and he is governed by a higher law that no one can take away from him. Indeed he is Born Again. Evil cannot be compromised with. My cosmic sources insist that Apolonius met his end in AD 110 and not AD 100 or AD 97. He apparently lived into nid nineties, which is almost a miracle in itself in those days. He lived in the geographical area of “The Seven Churches” of Revelation and also the area where the Apostle Paul had his main ministry and write most of his letters from or to. To me this geographical proximity is too coincidental not to be significant, though I haven't put all the pieces together. St Paul spoke of a "Gospel" that was delivered unto him personally, and he danced to his own drumbeat not influenced by his contemporaries. We know he visited the "school of Tyanna". I'm convinced that he and Apolonius must have met and been taught by him. Many say Apolonius traveled to India for five years. It’s said he met his end while visiting Rome and running afoul of the authorities, much as Jesus and Socrates met their ends in a similar way. The fact that he sees God is a being who cannot be petitioned by prayers or sacrifice offerings, makes him strangely similar to my own view. In Philosophy the term "Apolonian" is held as the opposite of Dianician, or cold logic verses hot passion.
I was on computer
looking up Marcion once again. It seems
my portrait of Marcion doesn’t fit with anyone’s facts. They claim Marcion really wasn’t into Gnosticism
at all. However I disagree because this
“demi-urge” thing to create stems straight from Gnosticism. Jehovah is the demiurge. In Pauline theology he labels the “Ruler of
this World” as Satan and the same words are put in Satan’s own mouth by the
Gospels and Jesus doesn’t dispute them.
St Paul also sees angels as demonic and the “Rulers of the Air” as a
demonic realm. Paul doesn’t even trust
angels. Marcion was born into wealth and
they said he was either a ship builder or a shipping magnate. But everything else about Marcion’s life
points to him being a major loser. He
gets picked on by everybody. His own
father who was a bishop –disowns him either because he seduced a young maiden
or else he had bad theology because he couldn’t accept the fact that Jehovah
God had a mean streak. He wanted a god
of pure love. But beyond this- - a lot
of sources have him as not wanting to rock the boat that much. He went to Rome in AD 140 and was there
employed four years and then the bishop of Rome excommuinacated them. I guess he’s lucky not to get the death
penalty or maybe they didn’t have the power to do that yet. He wanted to repent toward the end of his
life but he died unexpectedly before he could be baptized back into the mother
church. It seems all of the people who
describe Marcion or write about him- - describe him in the same way as being
some kind of misfit nobody wanted to hang out with. What I’m puzzled about is how such an
apparent loser and misfit could found a sect that lasted three hundred years. History is being written victors, and in this
case, all the people whose opinions ‘count’ are Catholic.
Rhapsody in black
started with song 67 which was ‘Higher and Higher” by Jackie Wilson popular in
the late summer of 1967. Two other 1967
songs were “I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops and “Cold Sweat” by James
Brown. They had “The Thrill is Gone” by
BB King. There were two songs from 1965
- - “Yes, I’m Ready” by Barbra Mason, and “Shot Gun” by Jr. Walker and the
All-Stars. There was “Don’t Let Go” by
Roy Hamilton and “Maybe” that was out in 1962.
There were three songs from 1961, “Mother In Law”, “Daddy’s Home”, and
“My True Story”. They also played "Stand By Me" by Ben E King. In the fifties there
were only two decent songs “In the Still of the Night” and “Crazy Little Mama
Come a Knock, Knock, Knocking”. Other
also rans in my book were “One Summer Night”, “You Cheated; You Lied”, “The
Treasure of Love”, “Eddie, My Love”, and a bunch of slow songs. Ever present, of course are the incessant
pleas for Money.
Last
night it was Wisconsin and Ohio playing to a 23 to 23 tie and they were in
overtime but I was too dog tired to watch the rest of the game so I turned it
to other sports news and then went to bed.
I didn’t attempt to get coffee from Glen or anyone else this night. I got my medication from Tom at the usual
time. I woke up and then got loose bowels this
morning and so got up a little earlier than I intended to. I got to the medication line with Ida before
six and we had to wait a full fifteen minutes before she served her first
client, which was Joe. Mario offered me
a quarter for one cigarette, and after some pause, I accepted his deal. After Glenda and Bill now fifteen more
minutes had elapsed and it was twenty after six. I had the “Today” show on. I went to the liquor store a few minutes
before seven. Fortunately the wife was
open and the coffee was already brewed and I got a $1.25 cup of coffee. I was in the dining room by five after
seven. They’ve been opening the doors
earlier. For a third day in a row we had
oatmeal. There was a protracted wait to
receive our main plate. They didn’t even
start serving plates on the other side of the room till ten to eight and we
weren’t served till eight or ten after eight.
We had scrambled eggs and dry toast.
I didn’t begin watching “Meet the Press” till past twenty after
eight. Mike Pence was on telling Chuck
Todd there are no differences between his position on foreign policy from Trump,
when we all know Trump is much more willing to “deal” with Putin than is Pence. At nine it was Breakfast with the
Beatles. Today was both commercial free
and all of the songs were re-mastered and sometimes re-mixed. There seemed to be a lot of tracks from the “Number
1” album. I’m assuming that was Cheap
Trick playing the rocky version of “I’m Losing You” since two members of Cheap Trick played on an unreleased version of this Lennon track and the guitar playing is the same style.
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