Men of Range (Part 1 of 2)

On the Pagan Question, and how it was resolved long ago.

Why do I have pagan friends?

My best bet would probably be to shun them. I’m no preacherman, after all. Proselytization ain’t in my wheelhouse. I describe myself as a student of Christ struggling to catch up on my late homework. I also call myself an accomplished sinner, who was hellbound before the Holy Ghost saw fit to jump in the game.

Given these and other handicaps, why would I risk befriending heathens of any stripe? What good purpose could that possibly serve?

The short answer: I might learn something from them.

By that, I don’t just mean the materialist’s version of knowledge. Even an atheist might be able to teach me algebra (and I’m pretty sure one did). But the heathens I befriend may be able to impart spiritual lessons, from which I can gain great insight into God’s plan for me on Earth.

After all, if learning from a heathen was good enough for Lord Jesus Christ, then it’s surely good enough for me.

---

The Hidden Apostle

Here’s a claim that will sound like heresy to many Christians:

A pagan warrior taught Jesus an essential lesson about the nature of his powers and mission.

This one man — reared in the foothills of Olympus, trained and tested in the deadly Martian arts — serves as our primary model for Christian faith in every age.

If you’re the kind of rebel upstart who actually reads scripture, you probably can guess who I mean. But depending on your sect and other priors, you might still detect multiple heresies in the claim above. For instance: How could The Christos learn something from any mere mortal, regardless of his religious upbringing or station? And how could it be that Jesus didn’t know everything there was to know about his powers and purpose from the outset?

Questions like these run straight to the heart of Christ’s mysterious dual-willed nature; a being who is both fully human and fully Divine. This is a different condition of being than Heracles, Perseus, and other demigods, who were as often treated as the playthings and whipping boys of their Olympian parents as they were their champions or avatars.

That metaphysical perspective didn’t end with Christianity’s first-millennium superspreader event; even Alaric the Visigoth, the Christian “barbarian” who conquered Rome, could not conceive of Jesus beyond the Arian version of this old demigod model, wherein the Son can only be subordinate to the Father instead of the dual-willed instantiation of Him. Alaric’s confusion is understandable; the mystery of Christ’s dual nature is not solvable in a rational tongue. We apply words the way a builder uses whichever tools and materials are available, no matter how shabby or ill-suited. There won’t be a straight angle in the finished house of words, and the roof will leak when it rains. But we live in it anyway, because we've gotta live somewhere.

Our verbal explanations for Christ’s two wills tend to be similarly lopsided, whenever we try to inhabit his story. For instance, we can say that the biological son of Mary lived as a man, and experienced the world as men do. Jesus the Nazarene got thirsty and hungry, grew tired, needed to sleep, eat, drink, and defecate. As a child, he also had to learn as we do: how to walk, how to talk, how to listen and remember. He gradually learned how to recognize and name the people, animals, tools, and other shapes around him. Unless you believe he sprang from the womb fully formed, like Athena from the skull of Zeus, you’d need to accept that his earthly education was incremental and gradient. No child is born a master carpenter. These things take time.

And so, he learned. He learned on beaches and boats, in deserts and forests, on hillsides and mountains. He also learned in the streets of towns and cities, including from people foreign in custom and blood. But the pagan warrior eclipsed all of these other human teachers, to the extent that he rivals the importance of any apostle. In fact, we might go so far as to call him Christ’s Hidden Apostle, to whom we all owe a debt for his contribution to our understanding of faith and authority. The fact that his name has been hidden from us likely served a strategic purpose at the time, but it was also an act of reciprocal love.

I can and will defend this claim scripturally, historically, and by the artist’s way of knowing. In the latter case, I’ll use the former evidence to retell the story of their momentous encounter, and the lessons both parties took away from it. The setup for this tale will take some time; as my friend

L.P. Koch

has advised on many occasions, we need to try to approach the stories of historical people in their particular context, so we can better model their minds.

I will also defend my claim a fourth way, which I believe any faithful Catholic or Orthodox Christian will find indisputable. In light of this defense, we might begin to see many of the neopagans of today’s West as they are: fellow seekers of God’s Truth and Light, whose main obstacle is a limited or hindered range of vision. But if the current crop of retro-heathens are nearsighted, then so are we all. Not one of us can see the whole way to Heaven. If you think you’re the exception, look in the mirror and check for telephone poles in the sclera.

Otherwise, I invite you to hop aboard Bisone’s Heresy Express, and buckle in tight. This invitation includes my pagan friends as well. I don’t expect you to ride it all the way to Salvation Station, but you may be surprised by what I think about your current condition, and what I've come to see as your important role in the greater Spiritual War.

---

The Force Multiplier

Jesus, son of Mary and God Almighty, was born in a barn, under a strange star. He was also born on the run, so to speak, with his family dodging laws designed to kill him. For at least thirty years, he lived as a man among men. Not much is known about this period of his life, but we can guess that he racked up experiences in much the same way the rest of us do.

When called by his Divine lineage as an adult, he brought all of these human experiences into that calling and quest. But his education did not end at his moment of baptism, when the heavens opened and he became fully aware of his other Will and Father. Christ-Man Jesus would continue to learn and grow throughout his adventures in the young empire.

Some of his teachers there were openly hostile, offering accidental lessons that could only be learned by applying his perfect discernment to the problem. One of them was Satan himself, who famously taught Jesus via the monster’s method during his forty-day fast in the wilderness. But there were others who were even more important to his education.

For example, at the outset of his ministry, the people of Christ’s own backyard of Nazareth also served as unintentional tutors:

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

— Mark 6:1-6 (NIV)

To be “amazed” signifies a broken expectation, with new growth flowing in to fill the gap. A psychic cursed with perfect foreknowledge could never be amazed, and therefore could never learn or grow. It would take a series of encounters for Jesus to attain the degree of foresight that would convince him to mount the cross, defeat the Devil, and complete his Father's mission.

In the Nazareth episode, Jesus learned that the people closest to him in custom, tribe, and blood would reject him. There are multiple rejections embedded in this account, some of which pertain to his position within the established hierarchy. “Just who do you think you are?” is the root of the controversy. Here is this carpenter-turned-magician who now fancies himself a rabbi, and talks like he’s channeling both Plato and Isaiah. By whose authority? Where are your stinking badges?

In addition to their vocal outrage, Luke adds the detail of a murderous mob, who unsuccessfully tried to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:29-30). Through this ordeal, Jesus discovers that he is from Nazareth, but not of it. He also learns half of another critical lesson: his powers were limited by the faith of those around him, which is why they were stunted on his home turf.

This partial lesson about power was eventually completed by a professional killer, who was as distant in blood and tradition as two men could possibly be at the time.

Or were they?

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.

"Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly."

Jesus said to him, "Shall I come and heal him?"

The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, "Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour.

— Matthew 8:5–13 (NIV)

“Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

These are Christ’s own words, spoken in amazement. As with the faithless scene in Nazareth, Jesus has an experience that he did not predict in advance. He knows he can see certain parts of the past which are hidden to other minds, as he demonstrated to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-42). But this encounter shocks him, perhaps even more so than getting kicked out of his hometown by fellow Jews. That it comes at the hands of a pagan soldier is most shocking of all; aren’t these people the enemies of Israel, and of Israel’s God?

Thanks to his Divine ability to judge, Jesus connects the two events in this moment, and the range of his powers and mission instantly and dramatically expand. His amazement translates to immediate action, as he heals someone who he can neither see nor touch.

For those of weaker faith, the modus operandi required his physical presence. His powers would activate in close proximity, typically when putting his hands on his patients or speaking directly to their demonic captors. But they sometimes also worked for those who touched him without his knowledge or consent, if their faith was strong enough.

There was a woman who had suffered terribly from severe bleeding for twelve years, even though she had been treated by many doctors. She had spent all her money, but instead of getting better she got worse all the time. She had heard about Jesus, so she came in the crowd behind him, saying to herself, “If I just touch his clothes, I will get well.”

She touched his cloak, and her bleeding stopped at once; and she had the feeling inside herself that she was healed of her trouble. At once Jesus knew that power had gone out of him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

His disciples answered, “You see how the people are crowding you; why do you ask who touched you?”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. The woman realized what had happened to her, so she came, trembling with fear, knelt at his feet, and told him the whole truth. Jesus said to her, “My daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your trouble.”

— Mark 5:25-34 (NIV)

As often was the case, the power was triggered by physical contact, and Jesus felt himself sapped of it during the transaction. At the time, he might have assumed the locus was exclusively his body, which was biologically different from other bodies owing to his patrilineage. He knew that faith was the differential, which is why others in that crowd flailed at him without result. It’s also why Jesus went looking for her; he wanted to see who had enough faith-juice to get the job done, even without his direct attention.

This transaction is repeated in many other stories, with a variety of ranges and effects. Demoniacs approach him, and he exorcises them with words alone (e.g. Mark 5:1-20, Luke 4:31-37). He does the same in Capernaum before his encounter with the centurion, likely planting seeds in the soldier’s mind (Mark 1:21-28). Christ’s presence is still required then, in that he must see and speak to his patient directly. Yet the centurion’s own patient can be healed at a distance, sight unseen.

Bear this last part in mind going forward. I believe it’s the key to understanding our position as Christ's disciples today.

---

The JQ (Original Flavor)

In the wake of the centurion’s revelation, Jesus grows in wisdom, too. He now understands that God’s plan is not meant for Israel alone, but for the world. Meanwhile the “subjects of the kingdom” he mentions, who will weep and gnash in eternal darkness, are all those unbelieving Jews who reject his authority and mercy.

How many Jews would that be, exactly?

It’s impossible to know for sure, but modern estimates suggest it was nearly all of them.

“[D]espite the evidence of Acts to the contrary, the Christian movement made very little impression upon the Jewish people. Its Jewish membership probably never exceeded 1000 at any point in the first century, and by the 50s the Jewish members were quite likely exceeded in number by their Gentile counterparts…

In calculating the numbers I accept at the outset that the earliest Christians made some converts and that it expanded from its initial base of 120 members. Luke refers to Joseph Barnabas (4:36), John Mark and his mother (12:12), and the unfortunate Ananias and Sapphira (5:1-11). He also relates that some priests and Pharisees joined the young Christian movement (Ac 6:7; 15:5), and this is feasible given that this church continued to observe the Torah and to participate in the Temple cult. Perhaps the largest single group of converts were the Hellenists. Luke does not supply a number, but there are good historical reasons for believing that the Hellenists were a substantial group. First, there is evidence that the Greek-speaking Hellenists, led by the seven named in Acts 6:5, soon broke away from the Aramaic-speaking wing of the Jerusalem church (the Hebrews) and formed their own distinctive Christian community (Sim 1998:66-67). This action suggests that the Hellenists were numerically strong. Secondly and more importantly, we have the evidence of the later missionary activity of the Hellenists following their persecution in Jerusalem. When they fled from Jerusalem, the Hellenists established Christian communities in many locations in the Roman Empire.¹

There were certainly non-Hellenized Hebrews in that early flock, who nevertheless heard the call. But even if we accept that fully one thousand 1st century Jews of any tradition joined the Gentiles as his disciples, they would only represent around 0.013% of the roughly 7.5 million Jews estimated to have lived in the empire at the time. When you factor in all the Jews who have lived since then, and all the people calling themselves Jews alive today, that’s a whole lot of howling and tooth-gnashing in the Void.

A Sadducee of the time might tell you not to worry your pretty head about it, just as the Woody Allen faction of atheistic urban Jews would tell you today. There's no such thing as Hell, man. When we speak of comforting delusions, there has never existed a religion on Earth that matches the modern atheist’s epic cope.

The Crucifixion; The Last Judgment (detail) by Jan van Eyck (c.1390–1441)

Christ’s rejection by the Jews is the obvious rejoinder to those who slander Christianity as a “Jewish psyop” or alien Levantine cult. They’d probably be more accurate describing it as a Hellenistic cult, composed mainly of Greeks with eyes to see.² Or, to put it another way: the cult of a conquered people, whose traditions and gods had been co-opted and syncretized by their conquerors. These men and women still clung to the old ways and wisdoms as best they could, until they saw amazing feats that seemed to embody the Good, Beautiful and True as their most far seeing sages and poets had defined them. In Christ’s powers, they also bore witness to the union of mythos and logos, the finite and infinite, compressed into a human shape.

What was most amazing to them about his powers was likely the frankness of their expression. The “spells” of Christ required no razzle dazzle, no complex incantations or magic staffs or scrying stones. They didn’t need to cook overnight in shrines to Aphrodite or Zeus, to be retroactively judged by measuring subtle changes in the material. Their effects were observed extemporaneously, the apparent product of his hands and words alone. The sight of these miracles did not convert the Hellenes into “Christians” per se, not least because there existed no such word or concept. They knew they were seeing something new and amazing take place, with the bending and breaking of ho-hum natural laws on a whim. But what was the origin of this man’s strange abilities?

I expect the average religious pagan would mistake Christ for a sorcerer, either of the Persian/Anatolian or Egyptian flavor. That stands to reason; magic was viewed with great suspicion at the time, but not as some impossible feat or fiction. Even the period Jesus’ family spent on the run in Egypt would likely place him in this category, as that land was seen as a training ground and pipeline for all manner of witchcraft and sorcery. This could easily mark the indiscreet magic-user as a subject of local government interest (and probably not the good kind of interest).

It is evident that even if “magic” had no objective meaning for the ancients, nevertheless, for the class of authors this study is mostly concerned with, i.e. the senatorial elite, it constituted a group of associated ideas and practices which either as stand-alones or in combination could be employed to designate one as a magician in the Roman world; rituals performed in secrecy, the employment of means such as deuotiones and defixiones, the invocation of unknown, alien deities, impiety towards the established Roman pantheon, the coercion of in contrast to supplication to the gods as a means of achieving results, certain miraculous feats disrupting the natural order such as drawing the moon down to earth, certain techniques of divination such as necromancy, and human sacrifice all seem to have been accusations leveled against persons designated as sorcerers. It is particularly important to note the attitude of the senatorial class towards the practice of human sacrifice during the imperial period, as exemplified by the views expressed by Pliny.

Despite the fact that witches and magicians, when depicted as resorting to human sacrifice, usually do so to achieve specific results, such as necromantic divination or the creation of a malevolent spirit bound to the will of the necromancer, Pliny seems to regard the very practice of sacrificing a human being as magical. Indeed, Pliny considers the practice of human sacrifice as a diagnostic of magic to the degree that he remarks that, given how widespread this practice is in his contemporary Britain, one would think that magic originated in the West, whence it spread to Persia, the latter being in his view the actual cradle of magic.³

As every account of his life agrees, Jesus Christ was anything but discreet. He performed his feats in front of witnesses, including large crowds of them. These were often accompanied by declarations and stories, designed to illuminate the true Author by whose authority they were possible. But what most of the onlookers likely saw was the most potent form of magic they had ever seen, powered by a unknown god.

They may or may not have encountered Socrates through Plato, may or may not have been familiar with Cicero or Epicurus, but they all knew of the gods and their majestic powers. So many in those crowds likely followed in an attempt to learn more about this eponymous God and His low-born avatar, who appeared mightier than any in the court of Olympus. You might even say the lion’s share of Christ’s earliest followers were the “neopagans” of their time, thirsting for transcendent truth in the increasingly disenchanted and technocratic reality of empire. That doesn’t mean they understood what they were seeing. As so many episodes illustrate, Jesus was continually misunderstood, even by those closest to him. But they followed regardless, amazed by what they did not understand.

But, if the Hellenes were drawn to the mystery of Christ, what about the tribe of his birth? How did they perceive him at the time?

As both the Nazareth story and modern scholarship remind us, most Jews of the day considered Jesus a heretic, if not a demonic apostate. This alienation from the corrupted state of Judaism is reiterated in other accounts, such as when Jesus attacks the temple full of moneychangers with an improvised whip (and I’d like to see what this so-called peacenik might do inside the Fed’s latest temple of Mammon, frankly). It’s also what both the critics and fans of Christian Zionism are missing, hidden in plain sight.

It is blandly true that Jesus was born of a Jewish mother, into a Judaic region and tradition. It is also true that he was born in a barn under a cosmic anomaly, which summoned Gentile ghostbusters from the East to investigate.⁴ It is also true that his mother’s own people would largely revile him, and deliver him into the hands of a pagan government for death. They hoped to escape accountability for this crime via the circuitry of rabbinical loopholes and legerdemain. Christ’s execution was one in which every conspirator tried to rinse blood from their hands. In the end, only Judas understood the magnitude, and in a final act of hubris fell on his sword.

It’s worth noting that most descendants of those Jewish betrayers try to pull off the same tricks to this day. While they may cloak their honest beliefs and intentions in “interfaith” niceties, and use new doctrines like the Nostra Aetate as their camouflage, the devout Jew knows that the Son of Man is currently boiling in excrement down in Hell’s darkest pit. And so, in their war against Christianity, many people in this latest crop of self-described “neopagans” are essentially useful idiots, attacking the primary target of Talmudic wrath and envy for the past two thousand years. Talk about Zionist “pawns” and “co-conspirators”. Look in the mirror, folks.

Finally: it is true that it was largely not Christ’s Jewish followers who eventually converted the empire and formed the body of the early Church, but mostly Greeks and Romans.

I have a theory as to why this was the necessary flow of events, which much has to do with God’s status as Alpha and Omega: the highest and lowest, the nearest and furthest, the whole and parts, the least and most.

---

The Other Chosen Peoples

When the God of Heaven and Earth came to visit his ignorant, wayward kids, He taught us about Himself using the materials and artistic methods we’d be most capable of understanding. That’s not to say we fully understood it, then or now. Even Christ’s closest disciples found it hard to get Alpha and Omega through their thick skulls.

And so, comedy ensued:

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

— John 13:2-9 (NIV)

It’s stated plainly, but with the artist’s touch. Christ is both King of kings and Servant of servants, encapsulating all of Reality. Even Peter doesn’t get it. On the other hand, he often doesn’t, which is why we get his slapstick fall through the waves, and the tragedy of the third cock-a-doodle-doo. But his misunderstandings served a useful purpose, illustrating our lowly condition as well as our hope to rise above it. Christ shows us the way, and we come stumbling after it as best we can. We continue to stumble through every age, across every continent and tribe. As Jesus foresaw after his encounter with the centurion, God’s message wasn’t merely intended for the Jews, who sang His name in vain. All men and women of faith were called to the feast.

That said, Christ’s enemies were not all Jewish, and those Jews who saw the light came to be among his closest hearth companions. But what kind of Jews were these who followed him, not because of their religious upbringing but despite it? Simon the Zealot was likely a “terrorist” of his time, who sought to overthrow both Rome and wealthy Jews by force of arms. Meanwhile, Matthew was Simon’s polar opposite, an imperial agent and anathemized traitor to kith and kin. As

Jon Cutchins

put it in his recent essay, The Tax Collector’s Gospel:

Any Messiah who was interested in leading the Jewish people wouldn’t have touched Matthew with a 39 1/2 ft pole, much like his ancestors wouldn’t have touched these widows if they had had any self-respect or a moral bone in their bodies, but they didn’t. In the eyes of the Pharisees and Zealots who led Israel, Matthew was dead to the covenant. Even in 21st century America speaking or thinking against the State of Israel can get you in trouble fast, not just with the government either but, we are told, with God. Levi the tax collector was a Jewish anti-semite in first century Palestine. In the mind of many jews, Jesus’ little tea party with the tax collectors might as well have had a swastika hanging from the ceiling. After that, He was dead to them.

The conceptual framework of a “Jewish anti-semite” is difficult for moderns to grasp outside the (often comedic) archetype of self-loathing. It might be more accurate to call the local Jewish populace “anti-Matthewish” due to his collaborator status, or to say the feeling was mutual. Either way, as the author notes, he was a dead man walking among them. But they were also likely to keep a lid on their anti-Matthewism, given the kind of men he collaborated with.

This confusion about “Jewish roots” includes modern Christians, who’ve been hoodwinked by dispensationalism and other anti-Christian projects. For instance, in the same essay Mr. Cutchins notes that Jesus’ matrilineage was not entirely Jewish, and that the story of the Canaanite woman who gave birth to the twins Perez and Zerah is rife with the sins of Jewish men. Those Israelites who followed him therefore “sinned” against tribal bloodlines as well as creed.⁵

At best we could say the twelve apostles were all born as Jews, with the caveat that, given their heretical beliefs and Hellenic influence, we’d be referring to their blood lineage alone. If Jesus kept them closer at hand than his other disciples, there’s a logic to this concentric order of sentiments that the Right should find familiar; we naturally warm to what is closer in family and custom before that which is distant and foreign.

The reasons behind this natural inclination include pragmatic ones, pertaining to communication and trust. Remember: Jesus was both man and God, and all men have practical considerations to contend with. In his case, he was a fugitive from many laws, roaming from place to place to stay one step ahead of all the cops and lawyers. To the extent there were religious reasons, those were later upended by one Gentile cop in particular, who showed greater faith than any Israelite.

That their meeting would take place in Galilee is unsurprising. While Jews were the dominant demographic in the region, its strategically important cities were still typically multiethnic (and even “cosmopolitan” to some extent, with regards to religious tolerance). This stands to reason: Rome’s provincial control schema required tribal dilution at key nodes, to tamp down the threat of organized tax revolts and other rebellions. By 30 AD, divide-and-conquer had graduated to amalgamate-and-rule. This strategy should also be familiar to those on the dissident Right, who will hear echoes of both the Soviet empire’s population transfers and the West’s current mass immigration schemes.⁶

But the end result was that the Good News wound up leaking into many different kinds of ears, perhaps delivered in Greek Koine as much as Aramaic. In fact, it might well be that Hebrew wasn’t spoken at all during the course of his mission, as it wasn’t the lingua franca of public life. And so while we can’t know for certain that Gentiles outnumbered Jews among Christ’s contemporaneous followers, we do know that the oldest surviving fragment of any Gospel, St. John’s Papyrus P52, was written in Koine, as was the Septuagint. At the very least, we could say most Jewish disciples were likely of that Hellenized variety loathed by the pharisees, and who had been integrating Greek language and culture since the heyday of Alexander the Great.

Christ’s large Hellenistic following also begs another question: What does it mean to be God’s “chosen” people? Chosen for what, exactly? We can only say that God makes many choices beyond the Veil, for mysterious reasons known only to Him. We know He chose men among the ancient tribes of Israel to test (and, as often as not, found them sorely wanting). Did He also, in his infinite, Alpha Omega wisdom, choose other tribes, for other tasks and tests?

For instance, might God have chosen the Hellenes for the depth of their supernatural vision, which they used to see and transact with discarnate intellects (e.g. “angels”, “demons”, and “ghosts”)? Or was it their ability to question the nature of these powerful, transactional beings, and wonder from whom or what they descended?

'What then is Love?' I asked; 'Is he mortal?' 'No.' 'What then?' 'As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two.' 'What is he, Diotima?' 'He is a great daimon, and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal.' 'And what,' I said, 'is his power?' 'He interprets,' she replied, 'between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love all the intercourse and converse of God with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love.' 'And who,' I said, 'was his father, and who his mother?'

— Plato, Symposium, c.375 BC

This ability to see and transact wasn’t just the case in Greece, but in Egypt as well, and across millennia throughout West Asia and the Crescent. It was not the product of any one religion or pantheon, but rather the default assumption of any people with a modicum of civil development and orderly knowledge transfer.

The petitioners called the transaction agents by different names, summoned them by different methods. But many of them knew, as we all know today, that Hermes is Thoth, that Isis is Athena, that Eshmun is Asclepius, that Cybele is Demeter, that Ishtar is Aphrodite is Inanna is Astarte. But the ancient Greeks appear to be unique in their questioning, and in their subsequent marriage of reason to spiritual faith. That’s why Plato seems to be describing the Holy Spirit, here, more ancient and powerful than all the rebel gods combined, and hints at the court of the Agnostos Theos in which they all might ultimately serve. You could call Plato a 6th-generation warrior on a 1st-generation battlefield. He endures because he caught more than a few glimpses of the Ultimate Reality of God. He was also a famous wrestler, who could bend your body into a pretzel if provoked. That’s the 6G way.

The Hellenes endure more generally for the same reason. But to see more of the truth than others necessarily means you will see more of the Devil, the shadow disguised as light that we must see past before apprehending God. That’s a taller order than we’ve been trained to think; the impetus behind Lucifer’s rebellion was that his beauty, wisdom, and power approached that of his Creator. In the Greek cosmology, the coup of Cronus the Titan actually succeeds, which is then followed by another coup by his children under Zeus, and then another by the Giants (and hinting at a fourth to come via the gift of stolen flame).

Tilt your head and you might see this cycle as the spiritual version of Lenin’s permanent revolution, with Zeus merely the latest usurper to defend the summit's throne of blood. In this model of supernature, outposts such as Olympus could be seen as consolation prizes; ersatz heavens from which the rebels could exert their limited power in exchange for sycophantic adoration, blood sacrifice, and other forms of garmonbozia. The ultimate Kingdom from which these lesser beings were exiled, and the reason for their exile, remained largely out of view for the average pagan. “Better to rule in Hell,” as the saying goes.

The Mutilation of Uranus by Saturn [Cronus] by Giorgio Vasari (c. 1550). Egged on by his mother, the son castrates the father

But it’s too simplistic to claim the ancient Greeks were all “demon-worshippers”, despite the fact that the etymology of “demon” is rooted in their religious philosophies and metaphysics. And yet, there is some degree of truth in this way of looking at it when we understand the Devil as an angel who imparts earthly wisdom for a price, and who prefers ambiguity as regards his true identity and motives. You might even say the Greeks came closest to perfecting a fully Luciferian religion at their civilizational peak, whose leaders used their enhanced vision to gain great material knowledge and strength.⁷

It seems like a contradiction that such people would flock to the Devil’s opposite when the Truth walked among them in the flesh. But as a conquered tribe of erstwhile world conquerors, maybe they were primed to grasp the inevitable cost of such transactions in the long run of Infinity. To read the fine print on those contracts, so to speak.

And so, the 1st century Greeks were chosen to peer further into the Mystery than ever before, beyond the heights of Olympus and the depths of Hades. But what of the Roman tribe, who conquered Greek and Jew alike, among a host of other far flung aliens and neighbors? What on Earth did God choose them for?

I submit to you that Rome was chosen to test the limits of mankind’s power absent the authority of God.

A map of Roman Empire in 117 AD [link]

In the time of Christ’s arrival, she was a marvel of the world. Her borders reached their greatest territorial extent in 117 AD under Trajan, encompassing vast regions of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. What had begun as just another regional pirate gang had mutated into a sprawling technological and organizational hyperpower, unparalleled in the arts and sciences, philosophy and ethics, statecraft and diplomacy, war and peace.

But none of it would be possible without the grandiose ambition of her sons, and the military might to back it up. For that, they needed hard men who could do hard things. Brilliant strategists and hi-tech wizardry are nothing without a healthy supply of such hard men, who prized honor and glory above material wealth, and who were willing to give their lives for god(s) and country.

If that all sounds familiar, it should. But I don’t think our modern analogs tell the whole story of the old imperial soldier. Our imaginations have been poisoned by sword-and-sandal Hollywood caricatures and other propaganda. We’re shown their strength at times, but not much more than a parody of their virtues, and almost nothing of their religious beliefs.

If we are to understand why the pagan empire was chosen as God’s gateway, and why the Devil covets the seat of Christian Rome to this day, we need to understand all three in much greater depth.

---

Vanguard of Mars, Sheriff of Pax

That brings us back to the centurion of Capernaum: the most mysterious man in the New Testament, if not in all of human history. If Rome was chosen by the Father to test mankind’s hubris, then the centurion offered a solution so surprising that it permanently altered the Son’s perception of kingdom come. After all, if a heathen killer could comprehend his authority so well, then any soul on Earth could potentially do the same.

But what did this mystery man actually believe? Even if we knew his name - and even if he were standing right in front of us - we could only speculate. For instance, we might guess he worshipped a pantheon of supernatural “demons” as a matter of form, but with the caveat that a man’s religion doesn’t always align with his inner thoughts, or even his material actions. If Islam and Judaism are evil religions, someone who is “bad” at being a Muslim or a Jew may therefore be a good man in the eyes of God Almighty. We can see no better evidence of this than in Christ the Sabbath-breaker.

Was our centurion likewise a “bad” pagan, who questioned central tenets of his faith even before his momentous encounter with Jesus?

My instincts say no. I assume he was devout in his heathen faith, and in the universal order it implied. In their synergetic fusion, the Roman also added some necessary soma to the pneumatic melodrama of the Greek’s pantheon. He saw not a jailed Atlas holding the heavens above the world, but rather the heavens holding the world together. Threaded across that cosmic mystery was the strength of Jove, shielding us from invasive interstellar trash, the polarity of Mars and Venus, reifying creation via multiplicity of forms as it binds us in the magnetic sweet spot between them.⁸

Even with all of this worldly knowledge and spiritual vision, the pagan of religio Romana knew nothing of God. But to dismiss him as a heathen is to ignore a truth that is fundamental to the Right: Equality is a lie. Quality differs greatly across both individuals and groups, and so some forms of heathenry will be superior to others. In this case, his religion included the Roman virtues, which were not replaced by Christian virtues but rather completed by them. It also included an emphasis on discipline, including discipline of self.

Our centurion was a man of authority, under authority, who recognized true power as its expression up and down the chain of command. This is fertile soil for someone seeking the Truth, which must include hierarchy at its core. Otherwise, the formless chaos cannot be shaped into anything real and distinct, let alone of any value. A Roman soldier would know this as well as the Hebrew rebbe or Zoroastrian Magus.

But what about his specific beliefs? I’ve noticed that even the most vocally religious of men will draw lines between what is possible and impossible, no matter what they say. In approaching Jesus for assistance, the centurion draws the line much further into the supernatural realm than most modern Christian apologists and theologians would ever dare.

In fact, his “amazing” faith is congruent with the understanding that certain results are obtainable by asymmetric methods. It’s possible - even likely - that he’d witnessed such strange methods and results himself, on the battlefield or elswhere. That’s not to say he was necessarily in favor of those; he almost certainly would have viewed them with suspicion, and perhaps be charged with dropping the hammer on whoever was responsible. But he might also tread carefully, fearing supernatural blowback.

In my recent chapter of The Horror and the Glory, I outlined imperial Rome’s view of magic. The conceptual framework of spells (carmina, veneficia) and sorcerers (venefici, magi, sagae, haruspex) was widely accepted as part of objective reality, even among the elites, scholars, and scribes of the time. It was certainly accepted among the military caste; if a soldier did not believe in the gods and their powers, his secret atheism would be locked away in the deepest closet. Or else.

Often the “or else” part might come at the hands of a centurion; a man charged with the training and leadership of 80-100 warriors. Owing to their plebian birth status, centurions were not handed their titles as gifts, or for the purpose of political machinations. It was strictly a meritocratic promotion, earned through displays of courage, loyalty, intelligence, and fighting prowess. Centurions were the brass knuckles of the Roman Fist, the sin non qua of her imperial strength. They were non-com veterans who led their men from the front. This translated to a high casualty rate, but those men who survived many battles were honed into living weapons.⁹ If we time traveled back to the streets of an imperial city, they would probably be the last guys in town you’d ever want to mess with.

But a centurion’s importance to the empire wasn’t only on the battlefield. In a first century, majority-Jewish village like Capernaum, he would straddle the line between ambassador and sheriff: ensuring local security, managing logistics, establishing community relations, and maintaining goodwill with local leaders and merchants. His peacetime duties would include overseeing patrols, insuring tax collection, liaising with the Herodian government, and reestablishing law and order during periods of unrest.

Though a significant regional hub, Capernaum had a relatively small population. And because Galilee wasn’t an official Roman province like neighboring Judea, it lacked a prefect, and so most administrative function fell to the tetrarch in Tiberias. He was therefore likely the sole centurion in permanent placement there, and represented its highest ranking avatar of Roman authority.

Under the new imperial governance strategy of Pax Romana, this required maintaining a delicate balance between religiosity and pragmatism. He would maintain belief in his gods, but would not flaunt his faith with public spectacles, or attempt to impose his religion on the locals. Indeed, he would most likely consider it part of the job to learn about their own beliefs and customs. Such knowledge would help him resolve their internal disputes when necessary, as well as prevent his men from accidentally harming the peace with disrespectful behavior.

While it may seem a contradiction to some that a living battle tank would graduate to peacekeeper, this is in fact the natural progression of empire. Just as former foes become taxpayers, former soldiers become cops. Or, to add a pinch of spice to our marinara sauce, they became the local muscle for the mafia’s protection rackets. Having grown up around such imported Italian industries, I know this game well. “Nice fishing village you got here. Shame if somethin’ happened to it.”

But there’s a flip side to that coin; if you’ve spent a significant amount of time in mob-ruled turf, you know that things are much quieter in those neighborhoods. In the 70’s and 80’s, they often stood out as safe harbors in seas of violent degeneracy. That’s what the threat of hard men and extralegal violence tends to do. The “protection racket” is therefore not entirely a scam, then as now. As long as Rome gets her cut, a legionary presence in town functions as a strong deterrent against bandits and other predatory outsiders. And if the soldiers were led by a battle-tested veteran like our man in Capernaum, so much the better.

A centurion of that era would be a master of effective range, both of his weapons and his commands. Akin to the captains or majors of modern military forces, they occupied the middle rungs of the hierarchy, both following and issuing orders with a latitude contingent upon their locale. A centurion who was stationed in a large city like Caesarea Maritima or Jerusalem would probably be extremely limited in his agency, as commands from above would be more quickly transmitted and more directly overseen. In Capernaum, and in an age before telecommunication and micromanagement, the same soldier would have a much freer hand in exercising his authority.

Our centurion also believed in the supernatural, because everyone did, and this belief system naturally included various forms of magic and divine favor. This meant maintaining a shrine called a lararium in his home, where he would make daily offerings of wine, grain, incense, and other sacrifices to his personal gods and ancestors. He would pray to his Lares for home defense, his Penates for provisions, and his Genius for guidance in all important decisions. The latter was often personified in the figure of the paterfamilias, advising his descendants from the grave. And because he was a man of discipline, he probably didn’t skip church on Sundays, so to speak.

If consulting a Genius for advice sounds a bit like praying to a saint or guardian angel, that’s a reasonable parallel to draw. There were other similarities, mostly owing to the Roman’s personal devotion and individual connection to the Divine. While showing humility before men wasn’t considered a virtue (quite the opposite, in fact), he well understood concepts of allegiance and power. He would know the former was owed upward, and that the latter wasn’t wholly self-derived. It was this blend of ritual devotion and respect for authority that would mark Rome as the perfect landing strip for the Unknown God to make Himself known, and a battle-hardened soldier as the perfect man to teach Jesus about his mission’s true scope.

---

I originally wanted to compress these thoughts into a single article, but the time constraints of my editor (me) just wouldn’t allow for it. I try my best to give readers something free of errors and redundancies. I also try to break up some of my longer pieces, since the algorithm obviously prefers volcanic hot takes delivered at full volume.

Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the recent “Notes” napalm war between rightwing Christians and neopagans. I’m not writing this to add fuel to those flames, which seems to me a ridiculous waste of time for all parties. Nor is it intended as an olive branch. The centurion’s tale has been on my mind for quite some time.

In the concluding Part 2 of this article, I’ll attempt to retell his story in a way you’ve probably never heard it told before. My version will be speculative fiction, of course, leaky roof and all. It’s not intended to revise or replace anything in scripture, but rather as food for thought. I didn’t need to consult any apocryphal sources to write it. The full story appears to be present in the three Gospel accounts (Matthew, Luke, and John), with all supposed contradictions resolved by placing their details in the proper order and context.

In investigating these accounts and applying the tools of reason, I’ve drawn some startling conclusions about the event itself, and what happened in its wake. There seems to be a connecting thread that runs through all the tales of Christ’s presence in Capernaum, barely visible in the twin fogs of ancient history and modern biblical discourse.

I will also return to this article’s original question: Why do I have pagan friends? What could I potentially learn from these people, in the strange days ahead?

My answer lies in what they can see with clarity, as much as what they can’t or won’t.

---

I’ll make this short and sweet.

If you enjoy my writing, or find anything of value in it, please like, share, subscribe, and all that jazz. A paid subscription means I can write more articles, and faster. It also means my gratitude, for whatever that’s worth. The going rate is $7/month or 60$/year.

If you don’t want to commit to anything, or just want to slide something extra in the tip jar, you can donate to me here. It will give you access to some select content on the donation site.

At the very least, click the little “heart” button below. This also requires no commitment, and won’t be misconstrued for anything but Platonic love.

1. Sim, David C. (2009), How many Jews became Christians in the first century? The failure of the Christian mission to the Jews, DOI:10.4102/hts.v61i1/2.430, [link]

2. And if they’d done their homework about the ancient Greeks (or read anything of substance whatsoever, frankly) this demographic composition would be as obvious as it was logical.

3. Andrikopoulos, Georgios (2009). Magic and the Roman Emperors, [Doctor of Philosophy dissertation, University of Exeter] [link].

4. For an interesting account, see

Librarian of Celaeno

, “The Pilgrimage of the Maji” (2024)

5. This amazing story is the main focus of Mr. Cutchin’s work, which I highly recommend to all my readers.

6. Many of which were backed and authored by powerful Jewish Zionists, obviously.

7. That’s not to say the Olympic faithful didn’t catch glimpses of the true hierarchy; as Paul noted in the company of Athenian Stoics, they didn’t rule out the possibility that there existed an authority they couldn’t see, positioned somewhere out of their limited range (Acts 17:22-31). The “unknown god” was the allowance they made for their own ignorance, an Epicurean God-of-the-gaps for heathens with spiritual vision, who lived before the disenchantment of the world. As per usual, the Roman adapted the Greek for organizational purpose; there could be gods they did not know of, capable of feats they did not understand.

8. For a detailed analysis of this belief structure’s logic and spiritual implications, see

Andrew Henry

’s article “The Seven Gods of the Cross” at his Substack The Saxon Cross.

9. Knighton, Andrew, Roman Centurions: Commanders of Men – A High Chance of Death, Military History Online (Dec 22, 2017) [link]