Ithobaal II of Tyre The fourth king of Satan is the King of Tyre, the powerful Phoenician city-state that dominated trade in the Mediterranean. This king, who was most likely Ithobaal II, was accused of pride and blasphemy by the prophet Ezekiel: "The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, This is what the Sovereign LORD says: 'In the pride of your heart you say, "I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas." But you are a man and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god...
Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: 'Because you think you are wise, as wise as a god, I am going to bring foreigners against you, the most ruthless of nations; they will draw their swords against your beauty and wisdom and pierce your shining splendor...
Will you then say, "I am a god," in the presence of those who kill you? You will be but a man, not a god, in the hands of those who slay you. You will die the death of the uncircumcised at the hands of foreigners. I have spoken, declares the Sovereign LORD.'
'...This is what the Sovereign LORD says: You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God... You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.
By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries. So I made a fire come out from you, and it consumed you, and I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching. All the nations who knew you are appalled at you; you have come to a horrible end and will be no more.'" (Ezekiel 28:1-19) This passage is very similar to Isaiah's description of Sennacherib in that it also contains a description of a human king that transitions into a description of Satan, who was the perfectly-created guardian angel of the Garden of Eden, who fell from his exalted position because of his pride. Like the case of Sennacherib, these references imply that Ithobaal II, the King of Tyre, was possessed and controlled by Satan.
Tyre's relationship with Israel was friendly under King Hiram during the reign of Solomon, but after that it degenerated quickly. The prophet Amos accused Tyre of taking Israelites as slaves and selling them to neighboring kingdoms, and of breaking their "covenant of brotherhood" (Amos 1:9-10). The relationship finally reached its lowest point during the time of Ezekiel who predicted God's judgment upon Tyre (Ezekiel 26-28), which was fulfilled by the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great. Ithobaal II was eventually executed by Nebuchadnezzar after being captured and brought to Babylon.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes The fifth of Satan's seven kings can only be King Antiochus IV Epiphanes. His career was predicted in Daniel 11:21-35, where he is described as a contemptible and vile person, scheming and deceitful, psychotic and possibly insane, who would focus his rage against the Jews, against God, and against Jerusalem and the holy temple.
Antiochus obtained his throne in Syria by conspiring against the rightful heir and by flattering powerful allies. After he took power he waged war against Ptolemy VI of Egypt, and after striking a treaty with Ptolemy he brought his army into Palestine. He received word that the Jews were rejoicing because of false reports of his death, so he attacked Jerusalem, killing 40,000 and capturing another 40,000 as slaves. He reinstalled his puppet Menelaus as the Jewish high priest who continued Antiochus' plan to Hellenize the Jews. After another unsuccessful campaign into Egypt Antiochus sent 22,000 troops into Jerusalem to aid Menelaus and to eradicate traditional Jewish worship. His forces attacked Jerusalem on the Sabbath and massacred many worshipers. Antiochus then entered the Temple and consecrated it to Jupiter (Zeus), setting up an idol and sacrificing a pig on the altar. He passed a law that outlawed the Jewish religion, and he killed and tortured the violators that were caught.
The career of Antiochus is typical of Satan's kings. He was one of the greatest blasphemers against the God of Israel, and he minted coins that pictured himself with the inscription "Antiochus the Great, God Manifest." He committed the greatest outrage possible against the Lord when he violated His sanctuary and erected a pagan idol within, followed by the sacrifice of an unclean beast on the altar. These acts were an "abomination" against the Lord that will be matched by the Antichrist when he sets up the "abomination of desolation" predicted by Jesus (Matthew 24:15), Paul (2 Thessalonians 2), and Revelation 13. Daniel's description of Antiochus is similar to those given by Isaiah and Ezekiel for Sennacherib and Ithobaal II, because once again we find a passage that transitions from descriptions of the king into descriptions of another figure. In the case of Daniel, the descriptions of Antiochus lead directly into prophecies of the end-times Antichrist, beginning with Daniel 11:36.
The end came for Antiochus after his retinue was ambushed while plundering the temple of a goddess in Persia. Some accounts say that he was violently slain, while others say he died of a stomach ailment while in retreat. Given the trend followed by these kings it seems more likely that he died violently. In any case Antiochus must certainly be counted as one of Satan's seven kings, and he completes our list of the first five that were predicted in Revelation 17:10 to "have fallen" at the time that the vision of Revelation was received.
Nero Caesar The sixth was a king that ruled at the very same time that John's vision was received. To identify this king we must enter the scholarly debate on when exactly the book of Revelation was written. The modern consensus is that it was written near the end of the first century around 95 AD, but an older tradition holds that it was written around 64-68 AD during the Roman reign of the infamous Nero Caesar. The reasons for accepting such an early date for the writing of Revelation are numerous: - The Church Father Clement of Alexandria asserted that all revelation ceased under Nero's reign.
- The Muratorian canon (c. 170 AD) has John completing Revelation before Paul had written to seven different churches (Paul finished these writings in 67-68 AD).
- The Church Father Tertullian placed John's banishment to Patmos at the same time as Peter and Paul's martyrdom (67-68 AD).
- The Church Father Epiphanius (315-403 AD) twice stated that Revelation was written under Nero.
- The Syriac version of Revelation (6th century AD) begins with the heading, "written in Patmos, whither John was sent by Nero Caesar."
- The Byzantine scholar Arethas, from the 9th century wrote, "When the Evangelist received these oracles, the destruction in which the Jews were involved was not yet inflicted by the Romans [70 AD]." [2]
The early date for the writing of Revelation is used by some scholars to support the absurd Preterist interpretation of Bible prophecy. An early date for the book of Revelation may support Preterist arguments, but it hardly proves them, and it can work just as well with literal and futurist interpretations of Revelation.
When we examine the life of Nero we find all of the elements necessary to include him on the list of Satan's seven kings, and we uncover a tale of sex, violence, scandal and murder, that far exceeds anything an HBO script-writer could imagine.
Nero was born in 37 AD. His father was a wealthy Roman citizen and his mother, Agrippina, was the sister of the Emperor Caligula. Nero's father died when he was three and at this time, out of a very reasonable fear of his sister, Caligula confiscated their wealth and banished Nero and Agrippina to a tiny island. After Caligula died and Claudius became Emperor of Rome Nero and his mother were freed and Agrippina quickly married another wealthy Roman, who died shortly thereafter, leaving another fortune to Agrippina. After Emperor Claudius executed his wife for scolding him in public he fell under the spell of Agrippina, whom he married and made Empress of Rome in 48 AD, which he lived (or rather died) to regret.
After becoming Empress, Agrippina manipulated Claudius into making Nero his legal heir, against the claims of his own son Britannicus. Nero's position as heir to the throne was solidified when he married Octavia, the Emperor's daughter (Nero's legal sister). From this point the days of Claudius were numbered, and he died by assassination in 54 AD, from poisoning, which made Nero the Emperor of Rome.
As a young man Nero was tutored by the homosexual philosopher Seneca, who was actually one of the more rational Roman thinkers of his day. In the first few years of Nero's reign it was Seneca who actually controlled the affairs of the Empire and he did an adequate job, despite the fact that he became a hated enemy of Agrippina. This time, however, the game was up for Agrippina, and Nero had his own mother executed in 59 AD. However, the stress in dealing with Nero became too much for Seneca, who retired as Nero's advisor in 62 AD. From that point on the affairs of the Empire steadily degenerated. Nero went through a string of male and female lovers and focused on pursuing his entertainment career, imagining himself to be a great singer, poet and actor.
In 64 AD Nero moved forward on a plan to rebuild a section of the old city of Rome, and to rename it Neronia in honor of himself. A fire was set to aid in the demolition and to remove the unwanted occupants, but this fire soon raged out of control, destroying three and damaging seven of Rome's fourteen districts. The fire was then blamed on the community of Christians that lived in Rome, and Nero found it convenient to vent his rage on the young sect that he passionately hated. The Roman historian Tacitus was a young eyewitness and he later recorded what happened in Book XV of his Annals, "Therefore, to stop the rumor [that he had set Rome on fire], he [Emperor Nero] falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most fearful tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were [generally] hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius, but the pernicious superstition - repressed for a time, broke out yet again, not only through Judea, - where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are encouraged. Accordingly first those were arrested who confessed they were Christians; next on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of "hating the human race."
In their very deaths they were made the subjects of sport: for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights. Nero offered his own garden players for the spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the dress of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot. For this cause a feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers, though guilty and deserving of exemplary capital punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but were victims of the ferocity of one man."
Nero's reign was unique simply for the extent of his persecution of Christians. In 67 AD he executed Peter, and he even went so far as to execute Paul, a Roman citizen. Politically, Nero's prestige was quickly expended. In 65 AD he faced down a political conspiracy that included his former mentor Seneca, and by 68 AD Nero faced a revolt that came from his generals in the provinces and from the Roman Senate. On June 9, after being abandoned by his guards and his palace attendants, Nero retreated from the soldiers that had been sent to arrest him and he fled to his room where he committed suicide.
Nero exhibited all of the traits and characteristics of a Satanically-possessed individual. He was arrogant and prideful, as well as paranoid and psychotic, and his rage, frustration, and cruelty was directed at God and the people of God. His actions focused on short-term goals and were ultimately destructive, both for himself and for Rome. Nero's suicidal fate was basically the same as that suffered by Pharaoh of Egypt, who brought himself into the parted Red Sea, and the same as the final king on our list who we turn to next.
Adolf Hitler After the persecution under Emperor Nero Christianity steadily gained power in Rome, despite scattered persecution and antagonism from various Emperors. Eventually Christianity became the official religion of Rome under Constantine in the fourth century, and the faith spread from its home in the Near East to become the dominant religion in Europe, Africa, and eventually throughout the world. Since that time Christianity has been the most powerful spiritual force on the planet, and during that time, up until the twentieth century, a significant threat to that power was never manifested in the life of a single man.
The seventh and final king is explained in Revelation as the king who "has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while." He was a king that would appear sometime in the future, and then his authority would last for only a short time. He would be the precursor of the Antichrist himself, and he would exhibit the very same traits as previous Satanic kings, such as pride, rage, paranoia, cruelty, and a passionate hatred of God and the people of God.
This predicted figure came to power in Germany in the 1930s and he ruled over a short-lived Empire the like of which had not been seen in Europe for almost two thousand years. Here is how one biographer introduces Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich: "Why did a civilised nation of the twentieth century abruptly revert to barbarism? How could a shabby ex-dropout, so manifestly third-rate in all matters of the intellect, have achieved such unparalleled power? Why did the Germans come to venerate Hitler as a god? Why do he and his associates, Himmler, Goering, and Goebbels, still exert a mystique that is so conspicuously absent when we study Mussolini, Ciano and Starace, or Stalin, Molotov and Beria? Why does one feel that the Third Reich stood for a radically different kind of civilisation? Most fascinating of all, what drove Hitler, what motivated him, what went on in his mind that resulted in consequences of such magnitude?" [3]
According to this biographer, the answer to what drove Hitler can be found by examining Hitler's relationship with the occult and his involvement in the dark arts of sorcery and spirit-possession. The author is qualified to explore this relationship because he is the late Gerald Suster, a former disciple of Golden Dawn adept Israel Regardie, who was himself the personal disciple and secretary of Aleister Crowley.
Suster's biography is entitled Hitler: Black Magician and it documents Hitler's involvement with groups and individuals who used pagan rituals to contact the spirit world. One of Hitler's closest friends was a man by the name of Dietrich Eckart and he is a primary figure (according to Suster, Peter Levenda and Trevor Ravenscroft) involved in grooming Hitler for his Satanic role. Eckart's influence over Hitler is proven by Hitler's dedication that appears at the very end of Mein Kampf: "And I want also to reckon among [Nazi heroes] that man, who, as one of the best, by words and by thoughts and finally by deeds, dedicated his life to the awakening of his, of our nation: Dietrich Eckart."
Dietrich Eckart was a popular German author, poet, and editor of an influential newspaper. He was well connected with the financial world and he was a high-level initiate in the occult world. One of the greatest influences upon his life was the Gnostic mystic Helena Blavatsky, whose anti-Christian and anti-Semitic teachings came to permeate the Third Reich, as Levenda explains: "It should be remembered that Blavatsky's works-notably Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine-appear to be the result of prodigious scholarship and were extremely convincing in their day. The rationale behind many later Nazi projects can be traced back...to ideas first popularized by Blavatsky. A caste system of races, the importance of ancient alphabets (notably the runes), the superiority of the Aryans (a white race with its origins in the Himalayas), an "initiated" version of of astrology and astronomy, the cosmic truths coded within pagan myths ... all of these and more can be found both in Blavatsky and in the Nazi Party itself, specifically in the ideology of its Dark Creature, the SS. It was, after all, Blavatsky who pointed out the supreme occult significance of the swastika." [4]
Eckart died in 1923, but for the three years previous to his death he was "Hitler's constant companion and the man who helped propel him into the public spotlight."[5] On his death bed Eckart penned the following words to a friend, which go far to explain the spiritual source of Hitler's brief success: "Follow Hitler! He will dance, but it is I who have called the tune. I have initiated him into the 'Secret Doctrine,' opened his centers in vision and given him the means to communicate with the Powers. Do not mourn for me: I shall have influenced history more than any other German." [6]
Identifying Adolf Hitler as the seventh manifestation of the seven-headed dragon of the Apocalypse should not be viewed as questionable or controversial whatsoever. Hitler certainly exhibited the personal characteristics of a Satanically driven and possessed individual, and his passionate hatred of the Jews is very well documented. Unfortunately, the Christian Church in Germany was too timid and too deceived to challenge Hitler directly, but there were many individual Christians who did, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who paid for his dedication to Christ with his life. Despite the fact that the organized Church in Germany worked with the Nazi Party, Hitler's ultimate goal was to destroy Christianity. Suster offers the following quotes from Hitler to that effect: "The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future - certainly none for the Germans... Whether it is the Old Testament or the New it's all the same old Jewish swindle... One is either a German or a Christian. You cannot be both... We need free men who feel and know that God is in themselves... The Ten Commandments have lost their validity... Our peasants have not forgotten their true religion. It still lives... The peasant will be told what the Church has destroyed for him: the whole secret knowledge of nature, of the divine, the shapeless, the daemonic... We shall wash off the Christian veneer and bring out a religion peculiar to our race...through the peasantry we shall really be able to destroy Christianity because there is in them a true religion rooted in nature and blood." [7]
The First Seal of the Apocalypse In the book of Revelation the breaking of the first Seal of the seven-sealed Scroll brings forth a figure that many Bible scholars have identified as the Antichrist. However, in the book Red Moon Rising - the Rapture and the Timeline of the Apocalypse the conclusion is reached that this figure is better understood as symbolizing the brief career of Satan's seventh king-Adolf Hitler, rather than the eighth king who will "come up out of the Abyss": "I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, 'Come!' I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest." (Revelation 6:1-2) This figure wears a crown, as do the seven kings of Satan in Revelation 12:3, he holds a weapon, and his primary purpose is that of conquest. The possibility that this figure represents Hitler is reinforced by what comes with the opening of the second Seal, which can easily be viewed as referring to World War II: "When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, 'Come!' Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword." (Revelation 6:3-4) A reasonable conjecture is that perhaps the "large sword" may represent the emergence of atomic weaponry, which was first used in World War II. Jesus Christ refers to such an unprecedented global conflict between kingdoms and nations (Matthew 24:7) as the first "birth-pang" that would precede the Apocalypse. The return of Israel to their land prior to the apocalyptic Day of the Lord was also predicted by Old Testament prophets (for instance Ezekiel 38). Examined from this perspective Hitler and World War II were both eschatologically important because Hitler attempted to exterminate the Jews but the end result was the re-establishment of the Nation of Israel in their own land in 1948.
Seven Kings Summary This completes our list and our initial analysis of the seven kings of Satan: "Five have fallen"
1. Nimrod 2. Pharaoh of Egypt 3. Sennacherib of Assyria 4. Ithobaal II of Tyre 5. Antiochus IV Epiphanes "One is"
6. Nero Caesar "The other has not yet come"
7. Adolf Hitler
The Antichrist "once was, now is not, and yet will come"
8. Nimrod
The appearance of the eighth king will be the re-appearance of the first king: "The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven..."
"He will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction"
The Biblical Nimrod was known to the ancient Egyptians as Osiris, the Lord of the Abyss: Pyramid Texts, Utterance 577, Osiris and the king become one in the Netherworld [8]
"Osiris appears, the Sceptre is pure, the Lord of Right is exalted at the First of the Year, even he the Lord of the Year... 'Here comes the Dweller in the Abyss,' says Atum. 'We have come,' say they, say the gods to you, O Osiris... The sky has conceived him, the dawn has borne him... You bear up the sky with your right side, possessing life; you live because the gods have ordered that you shall live... You support the earth with your left side, possessing dominion; you live, you live, because the gods have ordered that you shall live."
Pyramid Texts, Utterance 512, The king's son to his dead father identified as Osiris "Raise yourself, my father... Traverse the sky, make your abode in the Field of Offerings among the gods... Sit upon your iron throne, take your mace and your sceptre, that you may lead those who are in the Abyss, give orders to the gods, and set a spirit in its spirit-state... O my father, raise yourself, go in your spirit-state."
Osiris will rise again, which is a fact that explains why the corpse of Osiris was mummified in the first place and why it became secured in a complex as magnificent and long-lasting as the Necropolis of Giza. It also explains why Osiris and other manifestations of the Dying God myth took central positions in Pagan religion in all of its different cultural expressions.
The Division of the Nations One of the most important foundations of this study is the "division of the nations" that occurred as a result of the Tower of Babel event described in the book of Genesis. This event was discussed briefly in Part Six, but it deserves a much closer look. The division of the nations involved a spiritual division as well as a linguistic division, with the nations being handed over by God to the authority of a renegade faction of His angelic host.
The decisions that were made by God as a result of the Tower of Babel event need to be understood in a "Divine Council" context [9]. The Divine Council is simply the meeting place where God sits in council among the "sons of God," who are the angelic host. The "sons of God" are created beings who have been given the freedom and responsibility of Free Will, and the majority of them use their free will to love God and to serve Him faithfully. However, there is a minority faction of the "sons of God" whose members have used their free will to disobey God, who can be viewed as having defected from the family of God. The leader of this rebellious faction is known as Lucifer or Satan in the Bible, and as Enki to the Sumerians. The events that led to his defection, and his subsequent rise to his current temporary position as the "Lord of the Earth," are intimately connected with the history of mankind and with humanity's fall from grace. Satan's actions in fact helped to create the historical basis for the Christian doctrine of Original Sin.
The "Divine Council" is the meeting place where God discusses various aspects of governing, ordering and maintaining Creation with the angelic host. He listens to his family and receives suggestions and then He makes decisions and gives orders. This is the context from which to understand the several cases of divine "plurals" found in the book of Genesis. For instance: The Creation of Man: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Genesis 1:26-27 The Tower of Babel: "But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.' " Genesis 11:5-7 God was faced with certain decisions and He resolved them while in the presence of His "sons" (which are absolutely not references to the Trinity [10]). A proper understanding of the Divine Council is absolutely essential for understanding the spiritual battle taking place right now that ultimately involves possession of the earth. After the division of the nations God stepped to the side, so to speak, and allowed Satan and the fallen angels to rule over their nations as they wished, yet he also called them into His council periodically to review how they were exercising their authority. This understanding is supported by several passages in the Old Testament: Satan Tests Job: "One day the angels [literal Hebrew - b'nai Elohim or "sons of God"] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, 'Where have you come from?' Satan answered the LORD, 'From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.' " Job 1:6-7 God Judges the "Gods": "God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the gods: 'How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? ... Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, 'You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.' But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler.' Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance." Psalm 82 After the division of the nations God allowed the fallen angels to rule as they wished over all of the pagan nations of the world, but it was a different story as far as Israel was concerned. God ruled over Israel directly. He chose Abraham, He brought Israel out of Egypt, and He made sure that His nation was victorious in its struggle to live in the Promised Land that was given to them. Sometimes He even used pagan nations and the fallen angels to carry out His will regarding Israel. The former case is true regarding the Babylonian captivity, in which God used Babylon to punish Israel for their sins, and in the case of Persia where God used Cyrus to defeat Babylon, allowing the Jews to return back to their Land. Cyrus is even called a "Messiah" (anointed one) by God, which is a title of honor given to Cyrus even though God says of Cyrus that "you do not acknowledge me" (Isaiah 45). The latter case, of God allowing fallen angels to carry out His will, is described in a story of God's dealings with the wicked Israelite King Ahab: Deceiving King Ahab: "Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing on his right and on his left. And the LORD said, 'Who will entice Ahab king of Israel into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?' One suggested this, and another that. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, 'I will entice him.' 'By what means?' the LORD asked. 'I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,' he said. 'You will succeed in enticing him,' said the LORD. 'Go and do it.' " 2 Chronicles 18:18-21 God's judgment was that King Ahab would be killed, and then He allowed a "lying spirit" to make it come to pass. The concept of the Divine Council also helps to explain the blasphemous pretensions of Lucifer himself, which are given in Isaiah 14:12-14: "How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star (Lucifer), son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' "
Lucifer wanted to usurp God's position as the Most High and be recognized and worshiped as the leader of the Divine Council. To secure this position, at least as far as human perceptions were concerned, after the division of the nations Satan worked to eliminate any memory of the Creator while at the same time he used the memory of Nimrod to shake up the perceived hierarchy of the pantheon and gain leadership by another name. Before we examine how this happened we must first take a hypothetical look at how the "division of the nations" might have appeared from a "Divine Council" perspective.
According to the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were originally created to rule over the entire earth (Genesis 1:28) in a state of conditional immortality. They lost their immortality because of the successful deception perpetrated by Satan who was apparently jealous of Adam and Eve's position. Adam and Eve may have lost their authority over the earth at this time as well, but the texts are not clear. What we do know is that after the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden a number of the fallen angels descended to the earth (Genesis 6) and interacted with the descendents of Cain, sexually, technologically and spiritually. The pre-Flood world may have been an era of a sort of co-rulership over the earth, with God working through the line of Seth on one side and Satan and the fallen angels working through the line of Cain on the other. Eventually, because of mankind's wickedness that originated with the fallen angels, humanity and the earth degraded to a point that God decided to destroy almost all of humanity through the Flood of Noah.
After the Flood humanity and the fallen angels both faced a fresh start and God announced a covenant and a blessing upon the family of Noah. They were told to "be fruitful and multiply" and to "spread out and fill the earth." They were also warned not to commit the crime of murder, with God saying, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man" (Genesis 9:6). Three generations later Nimrod created a vast empire that was to a large extent built on bloodshed. And then, after establishing himself in Mesopotamia in Eridu, the pre-flood capital of Enki, Nimrod began to build a Tower for the expressed purpose to avoid being "scattered abroad over the face of the earth" (Genesis 11:4). Biblical accounts do not mention fallen angelic interaction with humanity at this time, but we can assume that such interaction was probably focused upon the line of Noah's son Ham, who sinned and then suffered a rebuke and a curse upon his son Canaan.
Eventually the successes of Nimrod, in his empire building and his monument building, and in his success in gaining supporters from all the different tribes of the earth, forced God to again make a change in the way that humanity and the earth was governed. The earth had essentially reverted to its pre-Flood status, but God had promised that He would never destroy the world in such a manner again, so a different solution had to be arrived at. This decision was made undoubtedly within the Divine Council, with God discussing the issue with the "sons of God" and then coming to a conclusion and stating it in their presence. In Genesis 11:7 when God says "Come let us go down..." the text is implying that the decision to divide the nations was a decision that involved all of the parties concerned: God, Satan, and the fallen angels. The results of this decision can be understood as follows, based on the information that we have uncovered in this study so far.
The most important decision was that God would give the nations of the world over to the authority of the fallen angels. The number seventy is intimately associated with this event because seventy is the traditional number of top-ranking fallen "sons of God" present at this particular Divine Council. Seventy is also the traditional number of languages that were created as a result, and seventy is the number of descendents of Shem, Ham and Japheth listed in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10. Through this genealogical, linguistic and spiritual division, God ensured that mankind would remain divided while He stepped to the side and gave the fallen angels their chance to rule over mankind virtually unhindered.
During the "Age of the Fallen Angels" God would keep His interference in human affairs to a minimum, except that He would be allowed to exercise a right to establish His own nation at a time of His own choosing. This nation was Israel and it was through Israel that God worked to bring salvation and humanity's liberation from the authority of the fallen angels. God took only one nation, while Satan and the fallen "sons of God" were given seventy.
Satan's situation, both before and after the division of the nations, must also be examined. Before the division Satan appears to have been in a very comfortable and secure position. His prodigy was Nimrod, and through him Satan had effectively achieved dominance over virtually the entire world and re-established his pre-flood headquarters of Eridu, the location of the Tower of Babel. Yet Satan must have known that this situation would not be allowed to last for long. Why did Satan agree to the break-up of Nimrod's empire and the sacrifice of Nimrod himself? Well, with God's promise to remove Himself from the scene Satan must have known that he could easily reestablish himself as the dominant figure in a world ruled by a multitude of fallen angels, given the fact that he himself was the most powerful member of the group. Satan must have realized that this was actually the only way for him to realize his dream of becoming "like the Most High" by ruling over his very own counterfeit "Divine Council" made up entirely of fallen angels.
To sweeten the deal even more, so to speak, there was also the clause in the agreement that allowed for Satan to manifest himself upon the earth seven more times, through seven individuals, with the first and the last of the eight manifestations of these seven kings coming through the very figure, Nimrod, that brought Satan a global empire in the first place. Satan accepted the division of the nations because he knew that he would emerge as the "Lord of the Earth" and because he knew that in the end both Nimrod and his global empire would be resurrected. Ultimately, of course, Satan and Nimrod would face judgment and destruction but on this question the Great Deceiver and Father of Lies has been able to deceive even himself.
The ancient religious texts of Egypt provide several tantalizing references to Osiris that may connect him with the agreement reached between God and Satan after the division of the nations regarding the fate of Nimrod: "I am the Radiant One, brother of the Radiant Goddess, Osiris the brother of Isis; my son and his mother Isis have saved me from my enemies who would harm me. Bonds are on their arms, their hands and their feet, because of what they have done evilly against me. I am Osiris, the first-born of the company of the gods, eldest of the gods, heir of my father Geb; I am Osiris, Lord of persons, alive of breast, strong of hinder-parts, stiff of phalus, who is within the boundary of the common folk. I am Orion who treads his land, who precedes the stars of the sky which are on the body of my mother Nut, who conceived me at her desire and bore me at her will. I am Anubis on the Day of the Centipede, I am the Bull who presides over the field. I am Osiris, for whom his father and mother sealed an agreement on that day of carrying out the great slaughter; Geb is my father and Nut is my mother, I am Horus the Elder on the Day of Accession, I am Anubis of Sepa, I am the Lord of All, I am Osiris." (Egyptian Book of the Dead, Theban Recension, chapter 69) [11]
The "great slaughter," if viewed from the context of the division of the nations, could possibly be a reference to the execution of Nimrod and the subsequent dismantling and destruction of his great global empire. The text states that on this day the father and mother of Osiris "sealed an agreement" concerning Osiris, but who they sealed it with, and what the agreement involved, is unfortunately not explained.
The father of Osiris according to all Egyptian sources is the god Geb the "earth god," and the mother of Osiris is Nut the "sky goddess." In quote [1] above the Greek historian Diodorus Siculous equates Geb with the ancient Greek god Kronos, who was the father of Zeus. The Babylonian historian Berossos in turn equates Kronos in his writings with the old Sumerian god Enki, whom we have identified as Satan. As Samuel Noah Kramer shows in his authoritative study Myths of Enki, the Crafty God, Enki was well known for his intelligence, his wisdom, and his clever wit in finding solutions to difficult problems. Enki was also an "earth god" in that his name meant "Lord Earth," or "Lord of the Earth." Consider then this Egyptian description of Geb from the Pyramid Texts (c.2300 BC), while keeping in mind Satan's position of authority over the world after the division of the nations: Utterance 592, Geb is invoked on the king's behalf "O Geb, son of Shu, this is Osiris the king; may your mother's heart quiver over you in your name of Geb, for you are the eldest son of Shu, his first-born.
O Geb, this is Osiris the King; care for him, make complete [what appertains to him], for you are the sole great god. Atum has given you his heritage, he has given you the assembled Ennead, and Atum himself is with them, whom his eldest twin children joined to you; he sees you powerful, with your heart proud and yourself able in your name of 'Clever Mouth', chiefest of the gods, you standing on the earth that you may govern at the head of the Ennead. Your fathers and your mothers are pre-eminent among them, for you are mightier than any god. You shall come to Osiris the King that you may protect him from his foe.
O Geb, clever mouth, chiefest of the gods, Osiris the King is your son; may you nourish your son with it, may your son be made hale by means of it, for you are lord of the entire land.
May you have power over the Ennead and all the gods, may you have power and drive away all ill from this Osiris the King; may you not allow it to come again against him in your name of Horus who does not repeat his work, for you are the essence of all the gods. Fetch them to yourself, take them, nourish them, nourish [Osiris] the King, for you are a god having power over all the gods. The eye has issued from your head as the Upper Egyptian crown Great-of-magic; the eye has issued from your head as the Lower Egyptian crown Great-of-magic; Horus has served you and has loved you, you having appeared as King of Upper and Lower Egypt and having power over all the gods and spirits." [12]
In the text above Shu is identified as Geb's father, while Atum is the god who gives Geb his authority. The Heliopolitan cosmogeny identifies Atum as the father of Shu and thus the great-grandfather of Osiris. The Memphite cosmogeny also identifies Atum as the father or creator of the gods. The important point to note is that in the Egyptian story the divine line of succession is peaceful and harmonious.
On the other hand, in the earliest mythical literature of Sumer the situation is very different. The Sumerians, despite their obvious influence from the spirit world, were not able to forget the true Creator, YHWH, but they were led to apparently split his personality up and lose touch with Him after the division of the nations. The 'Creator' aspect of YHWH, with His residence in heaven, became personified as the primordial god Anu, a far-removed and heavenly figure who fathered the first generation of gods. The more personal aspect of YHWH, the one that the Sumerians probably remembered through an oral tradition, became known as Enlil who was worshiped at his cult center of Nippur. Anu was the father of the two brothers Enlil and Enki, and within this second generation the disputes were never-ending. What we can see is that by being represented as the brother of Enlil, Satan (Enki) was able to secure a position equal with YHWH (Enlil). As we have shown, the Sumerian accounts of these divine disputes obviously favored Enki, while the later Hebrew accounts favor the god YHWH who equates well with Enlil in many ways, as covered in Part Six.
In Egyptian mythology the pantheon of the gods is presented as a unified happy family for a number of generations. From Atum, to Shu, to Geb, there is harmony in the universe. The first divine dispute does not erupt until the generation after Geb, and it involves two of his sons, Osiris and Set. According to the story, after Osiris had civilized Egypt he journeyed throughout the world with his army and succeeded in conquering and/or civilizing wherever he went. After he came back to Egypt his brother Set invited him to a banquet or feast, and by deception, with the participation of seventy-two fellow conspirators, Set succeeded in murdering Osiris.
In Part Six we saw how the number seventy was intimately related to the early Osiris cult, and we also explained how the number came to be changed, probably for astrological reasons, to seventy-two. With this in mind, and with our understanding of the division of the nations into the hands of the seventy fallen angels, the presence of Osiris at a "banquet" in the company of seventy-two other attendees, which resulted in his death, can be seen as a veiled representation of the seventy "sons of God" meeting with God to come to a decision regarding Nimrod's empire. As we have shown, the final decision was that Nimrod would be executed, that God would step back from the scene, and that the seventy fallen angels, as well as Satan, would be given power to rule over the earth. Therefore the "banquet" that Osiris attended was none other than the Divine Council, and the seventy-two conspirators who agreed to the death of Nimrod is an esoteric reference to the seventy "sons of God" who agreed to the execution of Nimrod.
Set, the brother of Osiris, who created the plan to kill Osiris in the first place, may in fact be a very narrow representation of YHWH, at least as far as His role in this single event of mandating and/or carrying out the death of Nimrod/Osiris is concerned. Recall again that in Sumerian myth Enlil was portrayed as the brother of Enki, who were the first protagonists in the Sumerian divine disputes, so the first Egyptian divine dispute between the brothers Osiris and Set may be viewed as another manifestation of the ongoing dispute between God and Satan. However, this correlation cannot be taken too far because Set developed traits and characteristics in Egyptian religion that had absolutely nothing to do with YHWH, and the cult of Set was most certainly managed by a fallen malevolent spirit. The correlation between YHWH and Set is applicable only as far as this one single event at the division of the nations is concerned, but it should be kept in mind as we examine the dispute between Osiris and Set as described in a Pyramid Text: Utterance 477, Osiris is raised from the dead "The sky reels, the earth quakes, Horus comes, Thoth appears, they raise Osiris from upon his side and make him stand up in front of the Two Enneads. Remember, Seth, and put in your heart this word which Geb spoke, this threat which the gods made against you in the Mansion of the Prince in On because you threw Osiris to the earth, when you said, O Seth: 'I have never done this to him', so that you might have power thereby, having been saved, and that you might prevail over Horus; when you said, O Seth: 'It was he who attacked me', when there came into being this his name of 'Earth-attacker': when you said, O Seth: 'It was he who kicked me', when there came into being his name of Orion, long of leg and lengthy of stride, who presides over Upper Egypt.
Raise yourself, O Osiris, for Seth has raised himself, he has heard the threat of the gods who spoke about the god's father [Geb?]. Isis has your arm, O Osiris; Nephthys has your hand, so go between them. The sky is given to you, the earth is given to you, and the Field of Rushes, the Mounds of Horus, and the Mounds of Seth; the towns are given to you and the nomes assembled for you by Atum, and he who speaks about it is Geb." [13]
In this passage we find that Set is being threatened by Geb and by the other gods. Set is accused of having thrown Osiris down, and of having attacked him, but Set responds by saying "It was he who attacked me!" Then we are told that one of the names of Osiris, in addition to "Orion," is "Earth-attacker," and Set repeats his defense that he acted against Osiris in self-defense saying, "It was he who kicked me!"
If Set is indeed a "personification," in this single instance, of the will of YHWH, specifically regarding the execution of Nimrod, then this Pyramid Text can be viewed as evidence to that effect. Nimrod was indeed an "Earth-attacker," and he broke God's covenant with humanity as he expanded his empire by bloodshed. From this perspective Nimrod was the offender, and God's decision to kill Nimrod and divide his empire was necessary to save humanity and allow time for the redemption process for humanity to be fulfilled. However, it must be kept in mind that the decision to kill Nimrod and to divide his empire was also agreed upon by the seventy fallen angels, because they were the benefactors of Nimrod's death in that they were able to gain authority over the nations of the earth as a result.
The Myth of Dionysus The link between the death of Nimrod, the division of the nations, and the Osiris myth can be confirmed by turning to Greek mythology associated with the god Dionysus. According to nearly all of the ancient Greek historians, including Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch, Dionysus and Osiris were simply two names for the same original god. [14]
The Greeks became familiar with Dionysus at a late date, after their pantheon of Olympian gods headed by Zeus had already been established, and Dionysus was first inherited from contact with the Phoenicians as well as the Phrygians, who knew him by many names, including strange names such as Zagreos, Sabazios, Epaphus and Euboleos. In these myths, which became the heart of the Orphic, Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries of Greece and Rome, the death of Dionysus is explained as having come at the hands of the Titans, who were a group of gods eventually defeated by Zeus.[15] The Orphic Hymns explain that Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone: "[Persephone] mother of Eubouleos [Dionysos], sonorous, divine, and many-formed, the parent of the vine." (Orphic Hymn 29 to Persephone) "Eubouleos, whom the leaves of vines adorn, of Zeus and Persephoneia occultly born in beds ineffable." (Orphic Hymn 30 to Dionysos) "[Dionysos-Zagreos] from Zeus' high counsels nursed by Persephoneia, and born the dread of all the powers divine." (Orphic Hymn 46 to Licnitus) Pausanius was a Greek writer who lived in the 2nd century AD, and in his Guide to Greece he refers to the conflict between Dionysus and the Titans: "The stories told of Dionysos by the people of Patrai, that he was reared in Mesatis and incurred there all sorts of perils through the plots of the Titanes." (7.19.4) "From Homer the name of the Titanes was taken by Onomakritos, who in the orgies he composed for Dionysos made the Titanes the authors of the god's sufferings." (8.37.1) The Greek geographer Strabo from the first century BC also mentions the strange cult of Dionysos in his book Geography: "Sabazios also belongs to the Phrygian group and in a way is the child of the Mother [Rhea], since he too transmitted the rites of Dionysos." (10.3.15) "Just as in all other respects the Athenians continued to be hospitable to things foreign, so also in their worship of the gods; for they welcomed so many of the foreign rites ... the Phrygian [rites of Rhea-Khybele] [were mentioned] by Demosthenes, when he casts the reproach upon Aeskhines' mother and Aeskhines himself that he was with her when she conducted initiations, that he joined her in leading the Dionysiac march..." (10.3.18) Diodorus Siculus was another Greek historian who lived in the first century BC, and in his Library of History he mentions the myths of Dionysos numerous times: "...there was born of Zeus and Persephone a Dionysos who is called by some Sabazios and whose birth and sacrifices and honours are celebrated at night and in secret, because of the disgraceful conduct which is the consequence of the gatherings. They state also that he excelled in sagacity and was the first to attempt the yoking of oxen and by their aid the sowing of the seed, this being the reason why they also represent him as wearing a horn." (4.4.1) "This god [Dionysos-Zagreos] was born in Krete, men say, of Zeus and Persephone, and Orpheus has handed down the tradition in the initiatory rites that he was torn in pieces by the Titanes." (5.75.4) "But the Aigyptians in their myths about Priapos say that in ancient times the Titanes formed a conspiracy against Osiris and slew him, and then, taking his body and dividing it into equal parts among themselves, slipped them secretly out of the house, but this organ alone they threw into the river, since no one of them was willing to take it with him. But Isis tracked down the murderers of her husband [or son in the Greek version], and after slaying the Titanes and fashioning the several pieces of his body into the shape of a human figure, she gave them to the priests with orders that they pay Osiris the honours of a god..." (4.6.1) References to a lost phallus can be found in a number of pagan Dying God myths. In Part Three we mentioned the myths of the god Eshmun of Sidon, known to the Greeks as the healing god Asclepius, who reputedly cut off his own genitals with an axe before he was captured by the goddess Astronoe. In Anatolia there was a similar story of the god Attis, who was also pursued by a goddess, and who was also driven to castrate himself. The myth of Attis is also very closely related to the myth of Adonis the Phoenician god of Byblos, who was closely connected with both the Sumerian god Tammuz and Osiris. Both Adonis and Attis were described as hunters, and Adonis died after being mortally wounded while hunting a boar. All of these mythical gods thus appear to be closely related, and all of them can be described as "dying and rising" gods because the theme of death and rebirth is at the heart of each of their cults.
The Latin writer Gaius Julius Hyginus (c. 64 BC - 17 AD) offers his own explanation of how the murder of the Dying God was related to an attempt by a faction of the gods to take over the divine pantheon: "After Juno [Hera] saw that Epaphus [Dionysos], born of a concubine, ruled such a great kingdom, she saw to it that he should be killed while hunting, and encouraged the Titanes to drive Jove [Zeus] from the kingdom and restore it to Saturn [Kronos]. When they tried to mount to heaven, Jove with the help of Minerva, Apollo, and Diana, cast them headlong into Tartarus." (Fabulae 150) Plutarch's myth of Osiris has the death of Osiris coming at the hands of Set in collusion with seventy-two other conspirators. From the connections between Osiris and Dionysus we can see that these seventy-two "conspirators" were understood to be gods themselves, specifically the Titans, according to the Greeks. What we can see is that these mythical traditions are simply degenerated recollections of the historical circumstances surrounding the death of Nimrod, the division of the nations to the seventy fallen angels, and the subsequent disappearance of God from the scene as He allowed these malevolent spiritual forces to take over and rule the earth as they wished. The Greeks portrayed the killers of Dionysos/Osiris as gods who were then defeated by Zeus and thrown into Tartarus, but we know that these gods were not defeated and that the death of Nimrod allowed for them to establish their position as the Kosmokrators (world powers) referred to by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:12.
The death of Nimrod and the spiritual division of humanity led to the quick establishment of Paganism worldwide as a religion in which human beings existed in bondage and servitude to the gods. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ liberated humanity from this spiritual system, but today there is a worldwide movement to turn back to it, to welcome the return of the "gods", and to willingly submit ourselves and our sons and daughters to the authority of the deceiving spirits that stand behind it. It is up to us to resist this movement, to turn to the true Messiah, and to preach His saving Gospel against this "gospel of destruction" that is steadily gaining momentum.
Messiahs of Life or Death The strange relationship that exists between the dying and rising god found in different forms throughout the pagan world, and the dying and rising God who brought forth Christianity, is best explained as a relationship of mirror opposites. Up until now this relationship has only been addressed by researchers who believed they had found in it evidence that Jesus did not exist, or evidence that the 'historical Jesus' was far different than the miracle-working Messiah portrayed in the Gospels. They have argued that the "Jesus Myth" is simply a clever repackaging of the pagan myth in which figures such as Osiris, Adonis, Dionysus, Mithras, or Krishna, played the central role. What we have shown so far in this series is that these pagan saviors can all be traced back to the historical Nimrod, whereas the historical Jesus stands alone, with a separate identity and a separate and unique message of salvation for all humanity.
When an image is held up to a mirror there are, of course, many similarities that can be identified. Often if the two images are glanced at quickly and superficially the viewer may immediately conclude that the images are the same. However, this conclusion is false, because what is seen in a mirror is actually the exact opposite of the original. Such is the case with the myths that developed in connection with Nimrod and their relationship with the story of Jesus of Nazareth as found in the Gospels. Similarities between the two figures definitely do exist, but these similarities should only serve to highlight the differences between the messages that are associated with the two Messiahs. One of these Messiahs offers a message of hope and redemption based on hard truth that is not geared to appeal to our selfish pride, while the other offers a similar promise, but with a different appeal and a different method to gain that promise. In the letters of the Apostle John we find that this second figure is referred to as the "Antichrist" : "Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared." (1 John 2:18) In his letter John explains that an "antichrist" is one who denies either God the Father or Jesus Christ the Son, yet John also points to a singular figure who "is coming." This future Antichrist is identified in the book of Revelation as the Beast who comes out of the Abyss.
The definition of the word "Antichrist" is given in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. It is composed of two words: the prefix "anti" which means "opposite," "instead of," or "in place of," and is "often used in composition to denote substitution;" and the word "Christos" which means "anointed, i.e. the Messiah, an epithet of Jesus." From this definition we can see that the Antichrist will not be a figure who openly attacks Jesus, or who espouses hatred of Jesus, or who identifies himself openly as an enemy of Jesus. The Antichrist will instead claim to be the true "Christ," and will make many of the same claims and promises, especially when it comes to the question of eternal life, that Jesus made for those who have accepted Him as their gateway to immortality.
The Antichrist will be a deceiver and an imposter and his message will appeal to humanity's self-centered aspirations, to our pride, and to our intellect and emotions. Just as Jesus offers us eternal life, so will the Antichrist, but the Antichrist's message will be based on the three-fold Luciferian lie that brought about humanity's fall from grace in the very beginning. Author Alan Morrison gives a very good analysis of this lie in his excellent book The Serpent and the Cross: "This 'lie' is at the very heart of all that is awry in the cosmos... It is the root of falsehood in every form and was brought into being by Satan, as is evidenced by the fact that Jesus told the Pharisees that the devil was the 'father of the lie' (Jon 8:44). This original 'lie' has three essential components which have great significance for our study into religious corruption. ...
The first part of Satan's threefold lie involved the promise that our first parents would 'be like God [or gods]' if they partook in the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:5). This could be referred to as the cardinal sin in the cosmos. It was the beginning of an endemic sinful process in which human beings 'strive against their Maker', imagining themselves to be unbegotten (cf. Isa. 45:9-10), in the belief that there is no Transcendent Creator God and that it is human beings alone who determine their own destiny.
The significance of this aspect of the Satanic Lie for the subsequent religious development of the world is cataclysmic; for it has led to the idea that Man can become God. This has been manifested, firstly, in the practice of spiritual techniques and systems which will lead to a personal experience of the divine and even to actual 'deification' -which, as we shall discover, is an integral component in the world's religions. Secondly, it has materialised in the substitution of the creature for the Creator as the object of worship and the focus of religious power (cf. Rom. 1:25), so that people worship anything but the true God, whether it is an image of an animal or a human being, or even themselves. ...
A primary object of Satan's enduring question ["has God indeed said...?"] was to persuade our first parents that in following him they would 'certainly not die' (Gen. 3:4), as the Lord had originally said they would if they disobeyed Him (Gen. 2:16-17). In effect, Satan was promising them unconditional eternal life. This forms the second component in his threefold lie. However, the complete reverse of what he promised actually came to pass. Because our first parents were beguiled by Satan's questioning of God's statement that they would die if they disobeyed His commandment, death then came into the world, just as the Lord has spoken (Rom. 5:12). This is why Jesus said that Satan 'was a murderer from the beginning' as well as the father of the lie (Jn 8:44). Satan promised life and instead brought death to humanity. ...