Some Observations Upon the Civilization of the Western Barbarians, Particularly of the English / made during the residence of some years in those parts.

by John B. Swazey

This event took place in our dynasty, Shang; and our annals, referring to the Western Barbarians of the ancient times, make mention of some things—obscure movements of tribes, and of the great works performed by the Egyptians; and of a servile race, condemned to toil on these structures: and, possibly, this revolt of the Jews may have been contained in these references. However, the whole matter would have been lost ages ago, nor have left a trace, but for the singular circumstance that the ancient records of these Jews have in a good measure escaped destruction. This happened not by any chance; but from the fact that the High Priest, pretending to be the very mouth of Jah, made all his utterances Sacred; and the Priesthood, inscribing and preserving the Jewish "Rites," worship and institutes of all kinds, guarded these writings with extreme care; which the reverence of the Superstitious people enhanced. Thus these Institutes of the Jews, declared to be by the Priests the very will of Jah, came to be "Holy" [Kan-ti]—inviolable! Now, the Barbarians regard this preservation of the Jewish Records as an evidence of their divinity, and a clear warning to man not to disregard them; and when they assert (as, by the High Priest, they constantly do), "Thus saith the Lord-God-Jah," they accept the declaration, and bow before it, as the very word of Jehovah! But we know that similar "Sacred Writings" are common in the East, and that these pretensions of the Priests are as universal as Superstition itself; in fact, form the chief features in it.

The new Christ-God was a Jew; and, though, singularly enough, in the words ascribed to him, in those parts of the Sacred Writings assigned to him and his immediate followers, there are bitter denunciations of the spirit and of the letter of much in the old, Priest-made part; and he distinctly says that his office is to give new and reformed rules; none the less, his immediate followers, being Jews, naturally looked upon him as Great High-Priest, speaking as did their ancient High-Priest (High-Priest and Christ-God)—the very "mouth-piece" [Mu-te-pi] of Jehovah! Adding to the High-Priest a Messiahship; for they believed him to be the mysterious Messiah of their Sacred Writings, foretold by their wise Seers long ages before! The great High-Priest who should deliver them from all their enemies, and lead them to a universal dominion! Very few of the Jews themselves, however, adhered to this opinion: in fact, Christ was put to a shameful death by them as an Imposter [Kon-ti-fe]. And by the Jews, in general, he was and is still considered to be a misguided fanatic. The Romans at this time held the Jewish province, and continued to do so. Meantime, the followers of the Christ-God, as I have said, spread by degrees, after his death, into other Roman provinces. New Superstitions were often greedily received; the Western Barbarians had always readily adopted new gods, and new Superstitions. This idolatry was, however, held in contempt by the learned; but it slowly spread among the lower orders, and penetrated to Rome itself.

The Roman soldiery, in some instances, made it conspicuous; and, after some generations, a Roman Emperor, thinking he saw some miraculous evidence of its divine force (in the workings of his own dark imagination), forced this new Superstition upon his Empire. That Empire embraced the Western world. The Barbarians who succeeded to them adopted, largely, their laws; their worship, and their religious rites. Thus, these Western Barbarians are Christians; and, though they detest the Jews none the less, hold to their "Sacred Writings" as the very words of Jah—whom they also worship! This they do because they follow the few Jews who accepted Christ as Jehovah, rather than the whole people who rejected him!—follow the few who accepted Christ as the Messiah-God promised in the "Sacred Writings;" and hold with them that these are the only Revelation of the will of Jehovah to man! By Jehovah meaning the only Supreme Lord of Heaven!

The remarkable thing is that this enormous pretension is not ascribed to Christ, but is obscurely announced in certain writings of the early Christian Jews. Thus these Western Barbarians, scoffing the name of Jew, accept of his ancient and ferocious god, and adopt the barbarous rites of a blood-thirsty and obscure tribe of the desert, make the records kept by the Priests of the tribe Sacred, and curse to Hell the whole Jewish race for not accepting the interpretation of a few of their number—the few, and only a few, worshipping Christ as the true Christ-God. That is, these Barbarians better understand the subject than the people into whose hands the matter was entrusted by Divine wisdom.

When one considers, then, the foundation of the great worship of the West, one wonders not at the Sects and strife. Founded in dark and cruel institutes of ignorant antiquity, the attempt to engraft a better system failed, because in this attempt the Priests were still Jews, who, adoring Christ, adored him as Jehovah and a Jewish High-Priest. What follows becomes more intelligible, but not less astonishing. The new worship has its divine Revelation from Jah, interpreted by its Priests, who introduce Christ as their great High-Priest, and the Christ-Jehovah of the new worship. All are damned to the everlasting Hell who do not believe these Priests, worship this new god, and accept as the very Divine Word these Jewish writings. This superstition suited the dark imaginations of the Barbarians, and was, in truth, not unlike their own, and may have had a common origin.

The intellectual activity of succeeding ages has been mainly devoted to these Sacred Writings; and the disputes, as to the meaning, never-ending. Every word has been criticised. Sects have been formed upon a syllable—appearing and disappearing. Now one would madly starve, another feast. Some fanatics would live in caves, some on inaccessible mountains; some tortured themselves, and held women to be unclean unless they married Christ. Some would only shout their invocations, others would only commune with the god inside. Some would kneel, others would stand. Sometimes a sect more wild than usual would organise vast bands of warriors, all wearing a symbol to show that they were Christians—usually a cross (because the Jews put Christ to death by hanging him upon a cross); and, placing Priests at the head, would rush to distant parts to root out pagans. These dreadful slaughters of distant tribes were called Crossades (from the symbol referred to). Some Sects destroyed society by another fanaticism; they forced men to live in caves or in dark stone chambers, shut off from all cheerful life, and from all intercourse with women; where they should constantly make invocations, lash themselves with thongs, and half-starve themselves; having skulls to hold before them, and awful paintings of Hell and devils to horrify them,—if perchance they may propitiate the Christ-God, Jah. Women also being driven into similar, horrid imprisonment in stone vaults, where the whole life is spent in invocations and sufferings, without so much as seeing any man.

These and numberless other things grow out of the interpretations, ever-changing, of the Sacred Writings; which, to the dark imaginings of Priests and devotees, seem ever to give such utterances as fit to their feelings. To the Priests they are an unfailing arsenal of power.

For many ages nearly all the Books written—mainly by Priests—were in respect of the Sacred Writings; called commentaries, homilies, disputations, doctrines, invocations, sermons; endless in name, and nameless.

This Literature is less in repute than formerly, and immense collections of huge writings are now rotting away in the dismal alcoves of Libraries [Buk-sti], as great stone buildings for keeping Books are called. This Literature is rarely looked at now, excepting by the Priests and antiquaries [ol-olphoo]; much of it is obsolete in form, or in the Roman—not now so much in vogue as formerly. A large portion of the writings, and a larger portion of the "speeches" [phi-lu-tin], however, are devoted to the same subject; but the style is modern, and less obscure, though not less deformed by a dark and irrational superstition.