obstacle to the survival of our race is Christianity. Even with all their malice and cunning, the Jews would pose no real threat to the race were it not for their Christian collaborators.”
—William Pierce
Categories
Tag: Christian question (CQ)
Categories
Ben Klassen
had strong opposing views on Christianity. Here’s what he had to say:
We believe that Jew-spawned Christianity is the deadly mind poison which destroyed the glorious White Roman Civilization and is currently destroying all of the White Race; therefore Christianity must be exposed, defeated and eliminated in order to save the White Race.
Chapter 1: Little White Book, “What We Believe in”, page 1.
Christianity is a Jewish mind scrambler that has confused the hell out of the White Race for over 1800 years. Join the White Man’s Religion. Become a Creator.
Chapter 14: Little White Book,
“Lessons from the Winning of the West”, page 15.
In order that we can organize ourselves and muster the power to smash the Jewish stranglehold, we must first destroy and replace Jewish Christianity, their most powerful and insidious weapon, with a healthy racial religion of our own.
Chapter 18: Little White Book,
“Priorities of the White Race”, page 18.
Christianity was invented by the Jews as a tool with which to destroy the White Race. Christianity rapes the minds of otherwise intelligent men. To succumb to Christianity is to indulge in a cowardly flight from reality. Christianity is against Nature and against Nature’s Finest. After the advent of Christianity the White Race wallowed in the Dark Ages for 1000 years. Christianity has enslaved, subjugated and enchained the intellect of its victims.
Chapter 21: Little White Book, “Sound Bites, Brain Bombs & Word Grenades”, page 24.
In the comments section, Thomas commented on Friday on a 2015 quote from a commenter on the webzine The Occidental Observer:
It is disappointing how few people come to this site and want to at least discuss important issues we face and the solutions which are offered up here and can be shared with all who seek it.
I have tried for years to convert family and friends to this cause. I first started to understand the Jewish problem around 2018 in my late 20’s. Then a few years later in 2022 I realized we had a Christian problem.
I discovered this site a couple years ago through a friend I met. Since then for the past 4 years I have tried getting more people to read and understand. I got the sense in a lot of cases they thought I was pretentious. I had one friend tell me “it’s not possible for all these people to be wrong about Christianity for 2,000 years.”
I agree with Frost too that American whites simply won’t come to terms with being honest that all this blood spilled in the Civil War, WW I, WW 2, etc was wasted. In fact it’s worse in that it made the country and the world a worse place as a result.
I was watching an Adam Green interview recently where the interviewer asks him how he would handle Christianity and he jokingly replies to burn all the Bibles. He immediately follows up with the idea of just showing people the evidence that Christianity is actually harmful and that’s how we overcome this poison.
As someone who has tried that for 4 years I have to disagree with him. You simply won’t persuade people with facts in my opinion, not enough of them anyway. The motto “facts don’t care about feelings” should be re-arranged as “feelings don’t care about facts here in America”. You do have people that are honest and have the integrity to do see through the Christian indoctrination.
But we are in the .00001 percent. I have come to realize that we need a Genghis Khan in everything we do in the future. I see a future where if there’s any hint of Christianity it has to be immediately destroyed. There is no room for it at all. Wipe it from this earth completely. Spiritually destroying an enemy is just as important as physically destroying them. If you destroy a village and leave the bibles the job isn’t done.
Someone may come across that filth and we’ve got another problem in the future. I actually think we need forced education and awareness when it comes to our own. Similar to an SS training booklet from the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Most will not come to our view on their own because it is simply too much for them to accept. They need to be forced to accept it. The truth is most men, even Nordic, are incredibly weak right now. Relying on them to do what’s needed by simple persuasion is folly. Power is what is respected, only then can you really get this programming started and clear the poison out of Nordic and pro-white brains. Those that can’t handle the cleansing are liquidated.
Another commenter on this site, who originally posted two or three comments under the name “Thomas” until I asked him to change his pen name to “Thomas 2” so as not to confuse him with the one quoted above (Thomas 1 apparently lives in the US; Thomas 2 in Europe), sent me this recent email:
Dear César,
I just wanted to further highlight a UK example of what David Lane’s words suggested yesterday with regard to relinquishing territory to subhuman scum.
I notice the civil service boss whom Rupert Lowe is grilling in this video is wearing a very prominent crucifix – suggesting to me that she is an open devout Christian.
She is unable to provide crime statistics on migrant criminals, passing the buck, with endless excuses and political weasel words, backed up by the slimy police college CEO next to her.
I wondered as I listened if this is because her background ideological tenets lead her to support non-white immigration to the UK (and non-white protection/pandering), no matter the cost. She was certainly very unhelpful in answering his direct line of inquiry. I wondered also how many of the civil service (Home Office) staff members were Christian Aryan women (surely the worst possibility), and how many in parliament also – from photos of debates it seems there are a horrendous number of women present.
She should never be there. Why is she even allowed to be a traitor? In a healthy society she would never have been given that damning opportunity (and would have been shielded in childhood from the foreign aberration that is Christianity). But that is not to be realistic.
That’s what I feel in general about our desire to crucify Christians, to make a grand example of them – I would be prepared to, but it wouldn’t be a happy act, and I would gain no real pleasure from it. It’s just this feeling of regret, by proxy almost, knowing what they could have been otherwise, though a traitor remains a traitor.
Best regards,
Thomas 2
Categories
David
Lane (1938-2007) was one of the main pro-white activists in the movement. He rejected Christianity and instead embraced pagan beliefs such as Odinism/Wotanism. Here’s what he said about Christianity and white Christians:
“If the White Aryan race is to survive much longer, then a momentous decision must be made now. If we continue to compromise with the religious and secular institutions which deny Nature’s laws, and which have led us to the brink of extinction, then we are doomed.”
“Under Christian influence the White race now faces imminent extinction, having given our food, medicine, technology and wealth to alien races in a competitive world. And now surrendering our territory and women.”
“The Identity Christian leaders should have restricted their title to just one word, i.e. Identity. And admit to the absolute and undeniable fact that in both its creation and effect, the New Testament religion is suicidal racial poison [emphasis by Ed.].”
“Christians deny Nature’s laws and suppress their natural instincts for racial survival because an anti-nature religion has driven them literally insane [ibid.].”
“So to all you Christians and Americans with White skin I say, abandon the anti-nature deceptions of the Universalist materialists and pleasure seekers, or face the consequences of the passing of Western Civilization’s creators. Naturally, there are those who will attack my words in this treatise for various reasons. Some because they are committed univerisalist racial enemies. Some because as Christians or Jews they are indoctrinated to literally believe the myths of their religion. Some because they benefit from the current political or religious systems in financial or material ways. Some because they are cowards who are afraid to face unpleasant truths. Some because their minds are poisoned with geographical nationalistic propaganda which is a perversion of the territorial instinct. This perversion of the territorial instinct is why White men will spend money supporting an athletic team composed of non-white players, each with a harem of the last pretty white young women [ibid.]. This too is conditioned insanity leading to racial suicide.”
—The Collection of the Works of David Lane, “Open Letter to All Christians”, pages 326-332.
Categories
Commentary
by Joseph Goebbels on Adolf Hitler
and the Christian Question
[Conversation] with the Führer
He also admires the courage of the Greeks in particular. Perhaps there is still a touch of the old Hellenic strain in them. The Serbs are fighting desperately. But once the first resistance has been broken, then the great retreat will begin. More detailed information on the progress of the operations is not yet available. Things must be given time to develop. Piraeus has been mined. The Führer forbids the bombing of Athens. This is right and noble of him. Rome and Athens are his Meccas [emphasis by Ed.]. He greatly regrets having to fight the Greeks. If the English had not established themselves there, he never would have gone to the Italians’ aid. It was their affair, and they should have been able to settle it alone.
The Führer is man totally attuned to antiquity. He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity. According to Schopenhauer, Christianity and syphilis have made humanity unhappy and unfree. What a difference between the benevolent, smiling Zeus and the pain-wracked, crucified Christ. The ancient peoples’ view of God was also more noble and more humane than the Christians’. What a difference between a gloomy cathedral and a light, airy ancient temple. He describes life in ancient Rome: clarity, greatness, monumentality. The most wonderful republic in history. We would feel no disappointment, he believes, if we were now suddenly to be transported to this old, eternal city.
The Führer cannot relate to the Gothic mind. He hates gloom and brooding mysticism. He wants clarity, light, beauty. And these are the ideals of life in our time. In this respect, the Führer is a totally modern man.
To him, the Augustinian period [Augustan Age of ancient Rome (27 b.c.e. to 14 c.e.) —Ed.] is the high point of history.[1]
Thank you, Martin Kerr, for bringing the above quote to my attention. I would like to add this one I saw yesterday on Twitter:
Hitler expressed agreement with Nietzsche’s rejection of Christianity. In January 1941, Goebbels recorded in his diary that Hitler was riled up against scholars, including philosophers, but he made an exception for Nietzsche, who, he asserted: “Only Nietzsche is an exception here. He proved in detail the absurdity of Christianity. In two hundred years it will only remain a grotesque memory. We must gradually undermine it in all areas. Above all, among the younger generation.”
Thus, Hitler approved of Nietzsche’s anti-Christian stance and predicted the ultimate demise of Christianity.[2]
___________
[1] Source: The Goebbels Diaires: 1939-1941. Translated and edited by Fred Taylor, Penguin Books, NY, 1982. Entry for April 8, 1941, pp. 304-305.
[2] Barch N 1118/13 Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Eintrag vom 30. Januar 1941, p.64.
Categories
Simpson
“And if in the end Aryan man, the supremely gifted and most masterful race known to history, should disappear from the Earth, the primary reason for it will be his having succumbed to the virus of Christianity.”
—William Gayley Simpson, Which Way Western Man?, page 89.
Categories
Mexico
refutes the WN and NS paradigm
Following up on what I said last Saturday, I would like to show how we differ not only from American white nationalism but also from German National Socialism.
We believe that Christianity is the primary cause of the Aryan decline, not a secondary cause as seems to emerge from Hitler’s conversations with close friends, or from Himmler’s lectures to the SS. Both knew that Christianity was quite a problem, but not the problem to be solved (that’s why they focused on Jewry).
There are no longer any German National Socialists who can speak publicly, due to the draconian laws of Germany and Austria. But in previous years, I posed a question to American white nationalists, who have their First Amendment rights, which they never answered: If Jewry is the primary cause of white decline, why did the Spanish ruin their DNA by marrying Amerind women when the anti-Semitic Inquisition reigned in New Spain (what we now call Mexico)?
I think they didn’t respond because they don’t have a coherent answer to my argument: that New Spain’s Catholicism—not the Jews who had no real power in New Spain—was the obvious cause of mestizaje (racial mixing).
Juan Miguel Zunzunegui, who was born in the same city as me, is a Mexican writer and lecturer known for his Hispanist approach to Mexican history. Throughout his career, he has published several literary works and historical essays in which he attempts to debunk the Black Legend that has been used against Spain.
Zunzunegui recently published a book about Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of the Aztec Empire, whom he admires. I would like to use this short video in Spanish from YouTube to illustrate my point. The translation and transcription of the audio to text are mine. Zunzunegui said:
It’s quite nice when Cortés advances and signs pacts—for example, in the area that is now the state of Tabasco, where he meets the woman we now call Malinche, “Doña Marina”—Cortés is given twenty women, and they are not spoils of war.
That’s very important to clarify. From then on, it’s always the same: “We give you these women so that you may have children with them and we may be brothers” [i.e., Amerinds and Spaniards—Ed.]. What does Cortés do? He baptises them, gives them Spanish names, and marries them off to his men! And they have children with them. Where is the conquest there? Or at least it’s a different kind of conquest, right?
And when he allies himself with the Tlaxcallans—Spain’s great alliance in America—it’s the same thing, right?: “Take the daughters of the nobles so that you may have children with them and we may be brothers.” And that goes hand in hand with one of the last wishes expressed by Queen Isabella I of Castile shortly before her death in 1503: “Let Spaniards marry Indian women! Let Spanish women marry Indian men, and let us be one people!”
When you marry someone from another people and have a mestizo child, there are no longer two peoples. When Cortés and Doña Marina had their first mestizo child—note: Martín Cortés Malintzin had a Nahuatl surname—like Pedro de Alvarado, who married María Luisa Xicoténcatl, their children would bear the name Xicoténcatl. So, of course, Pedro de Alvarado’s son, one of the most savage men who came with Cortés, was married to the woman who would be called María Luisa Xicoténcatl, the daughter of the Tlaxcallan lord.
Look, the Tlaxcallans weren’t just conquered, they were also conquerors: they also took Tenochtitlan, and together they had a son. What was that son? Was he conquered or a conqueror? That’s irrelevant now. Those concepts dissolved as soon as we had children. Well, Hernán Cortés had a daughter with Moctezuma’s daughter, that is, Leonor Cortés y Moctezuma: Cortés’ daughter, granddaughter of Moctezuma. Was she conquered or a conqueror, considering that her descendants are grandees of Spain and live in Spain today?
What we have here is a migratory process, because, mind you: in three hundred years of Spanish rule in America, throughout all of America—well, all of Iberian America, from California to Patagonia; that is, from California to Argentina—, in three hundred years only 150,000 Spaniards arrived.
Unlike Jared Taylor, Zunzunegui knows nothing about the difference in IQ between the various races. But that’s not the point. What I want to get at is obvious: the cause of miscegenation throughout the part of the American continent conquered by Spaniards and Portuguese—the latter also had an Inquisition—wasn’t due to Jewish subversion but to Christian universalism.
Categories
Adam, 4
Below, selected quotes from Adam Green’s 2026 book The Jesus Deception: A Mystical Midrashic Myth:
______ 卐 ______
Judaism for Gentiles
There was a dilemma inherent in Jewish prophetic expectation: all nations were to worship the God of Israel, but they were not expected to become Jews or follow the full set of commandments given to Israel alone. God had established a covenant with His people, commanding them to keep a distinct law. Yet the scriptures also envisioned a future where Gentiles would turn to the God of Israel and be gathered into His dominion. The resolution to this theological problem ultimately manifested as Christianity, a new religious path that allowed Gentiles to honor the God of Israel without becoming Jews. This new faith evangelized to the Gentile world, but without requiring circumcision, a kosher diet, or Sabbath observance.
A pivotal turning point in legitimizing Gentile inclusion can be found in Acts 15, where James publicly approved Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. James declared that Gentile converts did not need to fully adopt Jewish law, but should instead follow a simplified set of commands: abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. This decision allowed Christianity to spread beyond ethnic Judaism while maintaining a theological link to Jewish tradition.
It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols. from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. —Acts 15:19-21
Scholars and theologians have often noted that these requirements closely mirror the Noahide laws found in rabbinic literature. By establishing a shared moral baseline, the early church fashioned a form of Gentile adherence that echoed Jewish ethics without requiring full Torah observance.
Paul reminded the Jerusalem Council that Gentiles were turning to the God of Israel, and this had been God’s plan from the beginning:
Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. —Acts 15: 7
The apostles themselves testified that God confirmed this mission by signs and wonders among the nations:
The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. —Acts 15:12
The Gospels, too, record Gentiles praising the God of Israel directly:
The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. —Matthew 15:31
The earliest New Testament author, Paul, made his entire identity about being the apostle to the Gentiles. He repeatedly claimed this special mission had been entrusted to him by God: “I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry” (Romans 11:13). He insists, “God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:15-16), and again, When they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised… they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me” (Galatians 2:7, 9). Paul’s focus on the gentiles continued in the Gospels with the Great Commission: “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). The Gospels even symbolized this worldwide mission by sending out seventy disciples (Luke 10:1), echoing the traditional Jewish reckoning of seventy nations of the world (Genesis 10). In every strand of early Christian thought, the endgame was the same: to bring the Gentiles into acknowledgment of the God of Israel and his Messiah.
Judaism did not defeat Rome with armies, it subdued Rome with Jesus [emphasis by Ed.]. Jerusalem could not defeat Rome with a political Messiah in this world, but they could falsify a ‘prophecy fulfilling’ myth of a crucified messiah with a spiritual victory over Satan in the celestial world. Christianity was not the miracle of divine revelation, it was the natural product of a people oppressed, divided, and desperate. The scriptures had the ingredients. The times demanded a solution. And theology became the chosen tool.
It took three centuries of incremental theological infiltration and slow growth before the Jesus cult took root, and Constantine adopted Christianity as the religion of Rome, supposedly to unify the empire. At that point, Christians made up only about ten percent of the population, and the shift was an unpopular, top-down decision. Yet within a few decades, paganism was outlawed, Christianity was enshrined as the state religion, and the Jewish Messiah had triumphed over the pagan pantheon of Rome.
What began as a Jewish sect proclaiming a messiah went on to spread Torah based messianic Judaism across the world. Today, nearly half of humanity bows to the God of Israel. Jesus was a Jewish solution to the Pagan problem.
Categories
Contempt
for physical beauty
by Gaedhal
As Richard Carrier now demonstrates, there really was no such thing as “Gnosticism”. All of the early Christian sects were Gnostics to one degree or another. “The Gnostics” were made up, essentially by orthodox apologists/theologians. Thus, the term “musterio”’, is never really translated in our bibles… it is transliterated into “mystery”. However, “musterion”, if translated, means: “secret”. Thus, the New Testament writers believed in secret knowledge, or musteria, and it goes without saying that the belief in secret knowledge is a hallmark of Gnosticisim.
“mustēria”, in Greek—thanks to how the neuter plurals of neuter nouns work, i.e. they sometimes act as a singular mass noun—could then be translated: “a body of secret teachings”. However, “mustēria” is never translated that way, as it would give the game away that early Christianity was a secret society, with a secret body of teaching only for adepts. This is why Jesus taught in parables. To the profane, they only got the surface meaning of the parables, however to the in-group, Jesus’s disciples, the true, often shocking import of what he is saying is only revealed to them. Thus, the non-adepts remain in their sins, for failing to understand the secret meaning of the parable. This is all most clearly spelled out in the gospel of Mark.
The term “gnōsis” appears frequently in the knew testament. Also, the term “pleroma”, which is Greek for “fullness” appears in the New Testament. The Pleroma is a Gnostic belief, as well.
Another hallmark of Gnosticism is the hatred of the physical world. Indeed, the physical world was created by the demiurge, or Satan, in the Christian version of Gnosticism. Thus, Jesus calls Satan “the god of this world” which is perfectly in line with Gnostic belief. Hatred of “the flesh” and “carnal wisdom” is more Gnosticism. “The natural man” is railed against: only the spiritual man can discern spiritual things.
Whereas in Greco-Roman paganism, the flesh profited much, such that the Gymnasia had as much to do with athletics as with the perfection of the mind—which is why secondary schools in Germany are called “Gymnasia” even unto our own day, in Christianity, the Flesh profited little. During the Christian era, the Olympic Games stopped. It was only in the 1800s, when Christianity began to lose ground to secular modernity that the Olympic Games were brought back.
And so, a contempt for physical beauty and physical perfection is the perfect element to spawn such a movement as fat acceptance. Christians are always on the lookout for lower and lower forms of lepers to uplift. Hence, all this talk about “marginalised communities” as if their marginalisation somehow conferred value upon them. Ayn Rand said that need is not a virtue; need is not valuable. In our day, she might have said that marginalisation isn’t valuable. It is only the Christian axiology that makes need or marginalisation valuable. And, of course, I am not a Randian libertarian. Rand, as a stopped clock, is sometimes right. I think that sentient beings should be treated ethically. Indeed, I concur with César that we ought to eliminate, as far as is possible, unnecessary suffering. As someone who has skimmed through Benatar, then if someone is brought to this hell-planet, against his will, then he/she/it ought to be treated ethically, and not tormented with unnecessary horrendous suffering. However, my instinct is towards pagan eudaimonia, or “well mindedness” or, as modern psychologists might put it: “positive mental states”.
I speak of myself. Whilst a traditionalist Catholic, I let myself go, physically, as my profile picture demonstrates. However, that profile pic is about 2 or 3 years old, if not more so, and I have actually lost a considerable amount of weight since then. I am still overweight, but perhaps not obese, any more. My BMI is now, probably, on the cusp or boundary between my being obese and overweight, however, more than ten years ago, when I was still a traditionalist Catholic, I was well well within the obese threshold. Partly, it didn’t matter. I was soon to enjoy the traditionalist Catholic version of the rapture: the “3 days of darkness” and the “tribulation” predicted by Fatima and La Sallette. When one deconverts, his scale of values shifts dramatically. One removes one’s eye from a mythical post-mortem eternity, and the here and now then becomes all important.
However, what I mean most to talk about in this email is that there are a quarter of a billion Nigerians in this world? Thanks, Christians!
This is what happens when you believe that Africans have infinite dignity. This is what happens when every featherless biped is imago Dei, made in the image and likeness of God. As César points out: were it not for Christianity, blacks would probably be extinct by now, as predicted by Darwin. Instead of this, we have a quarter of a billion of them in a single African country! As I said before: the human virus is now consuming more than what the planet can sustain. Calling humans infinitely valuable, as Frankenpope did, is like saying that locusts or mosquitoes are infinitely valuable. Locusts, like humanity, are a consumptive plague too, aren’t they? And of course the go-to sight for all things overpopulation related—and Christianity’s extreme culpability in this regard—is church and state dot org dot uk.
Imagine James and the Giant Peach (written by the Nordic atheist antisemite, Roald Dahl). For a time, they had to eat parts of the peach to survive. Now, let us suppose that this peach was a magically self-healing peach. And now let us imagine that James and his crew began to eat more of the peach, per day, than what the peach could self-restore unto itself. This is where we are today. Humanity is a consumptive plague that is destroying the planet—and itself, ironically enough, into the bargain—and Christianity blinds us to this reality. It is spiritual toxoplasmosis. It causes us to worship what is destroying us.
And for those who say that “oh well that isn’t real Christianity”. You seem to forget that Archbishop Lefebvre was the papal delegate for all of French-speaking Africa. The overpopulation crisis in Africa is partly the fault of a man largely credited with founding traditionalist Catholicism. Bob Pope and Frankenpope are not saying anything new when they call the human plague “infinitely valuable”, not just as regards the mass of humanity in total, but each specimen is, in particular, “infinitely valuable” according to Dignitas Infinita.
Most of our social problems are caused by the fallout of Christianity. As I said before: “woke” is the residue that remains once the supernaturalism of Christianity evaporates. Revilo P. Oliver called woke “the Marxian Reformation”. (although the term “woke” did not exist in his day, he was describing precisely what the term “woke” encaptures).
Categories
Adam, 3
Editor’s note: Those American racialists who feel uncomfortable tipping their hats to the ideas of an English translation of Eduardo Velasco’s essay on Judea vs. Rome, the “masthead” of The West’s Darkest Hour, because the author is a Spaniard, should at least read a book on the same subject but written by an American of pure Nordid blood.
Below, selected quotes from the third chapter of Adam Green’s 2026 book The Jesus Deception: A Mystical Midrashic Myth (bold type and underlined words in the original Kindle edition):
______ 卐 ______
Christianity arose within a volatile and deeply divided Second Temple Jewish society. Apocalyptic expectations, political oppression, and theological creativity created fertile ground for reinterpretations of prophecy and scripture. What emerged was a new religion, based not on historical events, but on a mythologized spiritual triumph…
…crushed by defeat after defeat and staring down the colossal war machine of Rome, would recognize that the dream of a conquering messiah was no longer a realistic hope but a near impossibility. As Dr. Richard Carrier in The Historicity of Jesus explains,
The traditional messianic hope (of a conclusive military victory over all of Israel’s neighbors) was a doomed hope, and that would have been obvious to at least some Jews.
Out of this despair grew a new vision: a messiah who would be spiritually victorious over Satan and the Gentiles.
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood… but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. – Ephesians 6:12
This messiah did not need to raise an army or rule from Jerusalem. His triumph took place in a heavenly celestial realm that could not be disproven or verified…
The framework for a Messiah who conquers not with armies or weapons, but with words and teachings, was already present in the Jewish scriptures. A likely source of inspiration for the Christian reimagining of the Messiah as one who “rule the nations with word of his mouth” occurs in the pre-Christian Greek Text, Psalms of Solomon:
Behold, O Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David, at the time which you chose, O God, to rule over Israel your servant. And gird him with strength, to shatter unrighteous rulers, and to purge Jerusalem from nations that trample her down to destruction. To drive out sinners from the inheritance in wisdom and righteousness, to rule over the nations with the word of his mouth… He will be pure from sin, in order to rule a great people, to rebuke rulers, and to break sinners by the strength of his word. He will not rely on horse, rider, or bow, and he will not multiply for himself gold and silver for war, nor will he collect hopes for battle in a multitude of people. – Psalms of Solomon 17:23-25, 32-33
Dr. Carrier summarizes,
Though the Psalms describe this messiah in the manner of a military conqueror (e.g. 17.21- 26), it is still somewhat circumspect, saying ‘he shall destroy the godless nations with the word of his mouth’ (17.24, 17.35-36) and that he will use no weapons or armies (17.33)… like all Jews, proto-Christians would have been searching this scripture (and others) for secret messages about the messiah… It’s certainly not improbable to see in the Psalms of Solomon a prediction of a metaphorically victorious messiah, who uses no armies or weapons but conquers solely through the power of his words (in other words, his teachings)…
Text like these provided the perfect template for inventing a messiah who triumphed not by armies and swords, but by words, scripture, and theology. Rome destroyed Jerusalem with earthly weapons, but Jerusalem was victorious with a spiritual weapon [Editor’s Note: This is the essence of Eduardo Velasco’s essay].
Pacifism as Strategy, Survival of Fittest
Christianity’s nonviolence was not merely a moral principle. It was a calculated strategy for survival. Jewish militant groups like the Zealots and Sicarii provoked Roman wrath and were inevitably crushed by its military dominance. A messianic movement that presented a conquering king would have posed an obvious threat and been destroyed without hesitation. But a peaceful, pacifist, hidden messiah who reigned in visions and revelations and triumphed in the heavens rather than on the battlefield would fly under the radar of Roman authorities.
As Richard Carrier observes, this strategic pacifism gave the movement a survival advantage over more militant sects:
By avoiding mass territorial action (and focusing instead on spiritual combat), they avoided armed conflict and thus survived, by gaining more converts over a wider area than were lost to sporadic persecutions. This may have been a lesson learned from observing the fate of other movements. But natural selection alone would determine it: agitative cults would be wiped out, leaving more pacifist cults to dominate the market… A non-existent messiah (whose lordship and victory were known only spiritually and thus never a worldly militaristic threat) would thus have an enormous competitive advantage at these earliest stages.
Messianic movements that provoked Rome were crushed while Christianity adapted and spread. It offered a savior who could not be killed and a kingdom not of this world. Unlike the rebels who took up arms, this movement promoted obedience and submission and appeared harmless. Its scriptures command, “Submit yourselves to the emperor,” “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” and instruct believers to be compliant, obedient “slaves.” Over time, this approach led to a far more enduring conquest transforming the spiritual and ideological foundations of the empire itself. It was not through violence or rebellion, but through a religious warfare strategy, that the Jesus movement sought to overcome Rome. Jesus effectively Judaized the minds of Rome implanting the God of Israel and His messiah within the Empire.
Pagan Rome once conquered Judea, its emperors defiling Jewish temples with their idols. Yet in time the tables turned: the pagan temples were eventually emptied of their gods and rededicated to the messiah of Judah. The empire that had enslaved the Jews became an unwitting vessel propagating Jewish theology, its heart and soul penetrated by the very faith it once sought to suppress.
While some Jews expected the messiah to crush Rome through military force and acts of divine judgment, what ultimately succeeded was something far different, a theological creation that spiritually conquered the empire. Rome eventually bowed in reverence to the God of Israel, accomplishing the prophetic vision. The pen turned out to be mightier than the sword.