Crete

• Philistines were political refugees from

74:8.9The He­brews had no writ­ten lan­guage in gen­eral us­age for a long time af­ter they reached Pales­tine. They learned the use of an al­pha­bet from the neigh­bor­ing Phil­is­tines, who were po­lit­i­cal refugees from the higher civ­i­liza­tion of Crete. The He­brews did lit­tle writ­ing un­til about 900 B.C., and hav­ing no writ­ten lan­guage un­til such a late date, they had sev­eral dif­fer­ent sto­ries of cre­ation in cir­cu­la­tion, but af­ter the Baby­lo­nian cap­tiv­ity they in­clined more to­ward ac­cept­ing a mod­i­fied Mes­o­po­ta­mian ver­sion.

• brilliant Andites migrated to C. in 12,000 B.C.

80:7.2About 12,000 B.C. a bril­liant tribe of And­ites mi­grated to Crete. This was the only is­land set­tled so early by such a su­pe­rior group, and it was al­most two thou­sand years be­fore the de­scen­dants of these mariners spread to the neigh­bor­ing isles. This group were the nar­row-headed, smaller-statured And­ites who had in­ter­mar­ried with the Van­ite di­vi­sion of the north­ern Nod­ites. They were all un­der six feet in height and had been lit­er­ally driven off the main­land by their larger and in­fe­rior fel­lows. These em­i­grants to Crete were highly skilled in tex­tiles, met­als, pot­tery, plumb­ing, and the use of stone for build­ing ma­te­rial. They en­gaged in writ­ing and car­ried on as herders and agri­cul­tur­ists.

• brilliant Andites migrated to C. in 12,000 B.C.
• vogue of mother cult in

80:7.7It was dur­ing this age in Crete that the mother cult of the de­scen­dants of Cain at­tained its great­est vogue. This cult glo­ri­fied Eve in the wor­ship of the “great mother.” Im­ages of Eve were ev­ery­where. Thou­sands of pub­lic shrines were erected through­out Crete and Asia Mi­nor. And this mother cult per­sisted on down to the times of Christ, be­com­ing later in­cor­po­rated in the early Chris­tian re­li­gion un­der the guise of the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion and wor­ship of Mary the earth mother of Je­sus.

• brilliant Andites migrated to C. in 12,000 B.C.

80:7.12When Egypt fol­lowed Mes­o­po­ta­mia in cul­tural de­cline, many of the more able and ad­vanced fam­i­lies fled to Crete, thus greatly aug­ment­ing this al­ready ad­vanced civ­i­liza­tion. And when the ar­rival of in­fe­rior groups from Egypt later threat­ened the civ­i­liza­tion of Crete, the more cul­tured fam­i­lies moved on west to Greece.

• vogue of mother cult in

80:8.5The Danu­bians be­came mother wor­shipers as the re­sult of the work of the mis­sion­ar­ies from Crete. These tribes later amal­ga­mated with groups of An­don­ite sailors who came by boats from the coast of Asia Mi­nor, and who were also mother wor­shipers. Much of cen­tral Eu­rope was thus early set­tled by these mixed types of the broad-headed white races which prac­ticed mother wor­ship and the re­li­gious rite of cre­mat­ing the dead, for it was the cus­tom of the mother cultists to burn their dead in stone huts.

• Crete

130:0.2From Je­ru­sa­lem they went to Cae­sarea by way of Joppa. At Cae­sarea they took a boat for Alexan­dria. From Alexan­dria they sailed for Lasea in Crete. From Crete they sailed for Carthage, touch­ing at Cyrene. At Carthage they took a boat for Naples, stop­ping at Malta, Syra­cuse, and Messina. From Naples they went to Ca­pua, whence they trav­eled by the Ap­pian Way to Rome.

130:5.1The trav­el­ers had but one pur­pose in go­ing to Crete, and that was to play, to walk about over the is­land, and to climb the moun­tains. The Cre­tans of that time did not en­joy an en­vi­able rep­u­ta­tion among the sur­round­ing peo­ples. Nev­er­the­less, Je­sus and Ga­nid won many souls to higher lev­els of think­ing and liv­ing and thus laid the foun­da­tion for the quick re­cep­tion of the later gospel teach­ings when the first preach­ers from Je­ru­sa­lem ar­rived. Je­sus loved these Cre­tans, not­with­stand­ing the harsh words which Paul later spoke con­cern­ing them when he sub­se­quently sent Ti­tus to the is­land to re­or­ga­nize their churches.

130:5.2On the moun­tain­side in Crete Je­sus had his first long talk with Gonod re­gard­ing re­li­gion. And the fa­ther was much im­pressed, say­ing: “No won­der the boy be­lieves ev­ery­thing you tell him, but I never knew they had such a re­li­gion even in Je­ru­sa­lem, much less in Da­mas­cus.” It was dur­ing the is­land so­journ that Gonod first pro­posed to Je­sus that he go back to In­dia with them, and Ga­nid was de­lighted with the thought that Je­sus might con­sent to such an ar­range­ment.

130:5.3One day when Ga­nid asked Je­sus why he had not de­voted him­self to the work of a pub­lic teacher, he said: “My son, ev­ery­thing must await the com­ing of its time. You are born into the world, but no amount of anx­i­ety and no man­i­fes­ta­tion of im­pa­tience will help you to grow up. You must, in all such mat­ters, wait upon time. Time alone will ripen the green fruit upon the tree. Sea­son fol­lows sea­son and sun­down fol­lows sun­rise only with the pass­ing of time. I am now on the way to Rome with you and your fa­ther, and that is suf­fi­cient for to­day. My to­mor­row is wholly in the hands of my Fa­ther in heaven.” And then he told Ga­nid the story of Moses and the forty years of watch­ful wait­ing and con­tin­ued prepa­ra­tion.

130:5.4One thing hap­pened on a visit to Fair Havens which Ga­nid never for­got; the mem­ory of this episode al­ways caused him to wish he might do some­thing to change the caste sys­tem of his na­tive In­dia. A drunken de­gen­er­ate was at­tack­ing a slave girl on the pub­lic high­way. When Je­sus saw the plight of the girl, he rushed for­ward and drew the maiden away from the as­sault of the mad­man. While the fright­ened child clung to him, he held the in­fu­ri­ated man at a safe dis­tance by his pow­er­ful ex­tended right arm un­til the poor fel­low had ex­hausted him­self beat­ing the air with his an­gry blows. Ga­nid felt a strong im­pulse to help Je­sus han­dle the af­fair, but his fa­ther for­bade him. Though they could not speak the girl’s lan­guage, she could un­der­stand their act of mercy and gave to­ken of her heart­felt ap­pre­ci­a­tion as they all three es­corted her home. This was prob­a­bly as near a per­sonal en­counter with his fel­lows as Je­sus ever had through­out his en­tire life in the flesh. But he had a dif­fi­cult task that evening try­ing to ex­plain to Ga­nid why he did not smite the drunken man. Ga­nid thought this man should have been struck at least as many times as he had struck the girl.

130:6.1While they were up in the moun­tains, Je­sus had a long talk with a young man who was fear­ful and down­cast. Fail­ing to de­rive com­fort and cour­age from as­so­ci­a­tion with his fel­lows, this youth had sought the soli­tude of the hills; he had grown up with a feel­ing of help­less­ness and in­fe­ri­or­ity. These nat­u­ral ten­den­cies had been aug­mented by nu­mer­ous dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances which the lad had en­coun­tered as he grew up, no­tably, the loss of his fa­ther when he was twelve years of age. As they met, Je­sus said: “Greet­ings, my friend! why so down­cast on such a beau­ti­ful day? If some­thing has hap­pened to dis­tress you, per­haps I can in some man­ner as­sist you. At any rate it af­fords me real plea­sure to prof­fer my ser­vices.”

130:6.2The young man was dis­in­clined to talk, and so Je­sus made a sec­ond ap­proach to his soul, say­ing: “I un­der­stand you come up in these hills to get away from folks; so, of course, you do not want to talk with me, but I would like to know whether you are fa­mil­iar with these hills; do you know the di­rec­tion of the trails? and, per­chance, could you in­form me as to the best route to Phenix?” Now this youth was very fa­mil­iar with these moun­tains, and he re­ally be­came much in­ter­ested in telling Je­sus the way to Phenix, so much so that he marked out all the trails on the ground and fully ex­plained ev­ery de­tail. But he was star­tled and made cu­ri­ous when Je­sus, af­ter say­ing good-bye and mak­ing as if he were tak­ing leave, sud­denly turned to him, say­ing: “I well know you wish to be left alone with your dis­con­so­la­tion; but it would be nei­ther kind nor fair for me to re­ceive such gen­er­ous help from you as to how best to find my way to Phenix and then un­think­ingly to go away from you with­out mak­ing the least ef­fort to an­swer your ap­peal­ing re­quest for help and guid­ance re­gard­ing the best route to the goal of des­tiny which you seek in your heart while you tarry here on the moun­tain­side. As you so well know the trails to Phenix, hav­ing tra­versed them many times, so do I well know the way to the city of your dis­ap­pointed hopes and thwarted am­bi­tions. And since you have asked me for help, I will not dis­ap­point you.” The youth was al­most over­come, but he man­aged to stam­mer out, “But—I did not ask you for any­thing—” And Je­sus, lay­ing a gen­tle hand on his shoul­der, said: “No, son, not with words but with long­ing looks did you ap­peal to my heart. My boy, to one who loves his fel­lows there is an elo­quent ap­peal for help in your coun­te­nance of dis­cour­age­ment and de­spair. Sit down with me while I tell you of the ser­vice trails and hap­pi­ness high­ways which lead from the sor­rows of self to the joys of lov­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in the broth­er­hood of men and in the ser­vice of the God of heaven.”

130:6.3By this time the young man very much de­sired to talk with Je­sus, and he knelt at his feet im­plor­ing Je­sus to help him, to show him the way of es­cape from his world of per­sonal sor­row and de­feat. Said Je­sus: “My friend, arise! Stand up like a man! You may be sur­rounded with small en­e­mies and be re­tarded by many ob­sta­cles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the uni­verse are on your side. The sun rises ev­ery morn­ing to salute you just as it does the most pow­er­ful and pros­per­ous man on earth. Look—you have a strong body and pow­er­ful mus­cles—your phys­i­cal equip­ment is bet­ter than the av­er­age. Of course, it is just about use­less while you sit out here on the moun­tain­side and grieve over your mis­for­tunes, real and fan­cied. But you could do great things with your body if you would has­ten off to where great things are wait­ing to be done. You are try­ing to run away from your un­happy self, but it can­not be done. You and your prob­lems of liv­ing are real; you can­not es­cape them as long as you live. But look again, your mind is clear and ca­pa­ble. Your strong body has an in­tel­li­gent mind to di­rect it. Set your mind at work to solve its prob­lems; teach your in­tel­lect to work for you; refuse longer to be dom­i­nated by fear like an un­think­ing an­i­mal. Your mind should be your coura­geous ally in the so­lu­tion of your life prob­lems rather than your be­ing, as you have been, its ab­ject fear-slave and the bond ser­vant of de­pres­sion and de­feat. But most valu­able of all, your po­ten­tial of real achieve­ment is the spirit which lives within you, and which will stim­u­late and in­spire your mind to con­trol it­self and ac­ti­vate the body if you will re­lease it from the fet­ters of fear and thus en­able your spir­i­tual na­ture to be­gin your de­liv­er­ance from the evils of in­ac­tion by the power-pres­ence of liv­ing faith. And then, forth­with, will this faith van­quish fear of men by the com­pelling pres­ence of that new and all-dom­i­nat­ing love of your fel­lows which will so soon fill your soul to over­flow­ing be­cause of the con­scious­ness which has been born in your heart that you are a child of God.

130:6.4“This day, my son, you are to be re­born, re-es­tab­lished as a man of faith, cour­age, and de­voted ser­vice to man, for God’s sake. And when you be­come so read­justed to life within your­self, you be­come like­wise read­justed to the uni­verse; you have been born again—born of the spirit—and hence­forth will your whole life be­come one of vic­to­ri­ous ac­com­plish­ment. Trou­ble will in­vig­o­rate you; dis­ap­point­ment will spur you on; dif­fi­cul­ties will chal­lenge you; and ob­sta­cles will stim­u­late you. Arise, young man! Say farewell to the life of cring­ing fear and flee­ing cow­ardice. Has­ten back to duty and live your life in the flesh as a son of God, a mor­tal ded­i­cated to the en­nobling ser­vice of man on earth and des­tined to the su­perb and eter­nal ser­vice of God in eter­nity.”

130:6.5And this youth, For­tune, sub­se­quently be­came the leader of the Chris­tians in Crete and the close as­so­ciate of Ti­tus in his labors for the up­lift of the Cre­tan be­liev­ers.

130:6.6The trav­el­ers were truly rested and re­freshed when they made ready about noon one day to sail for Carthage in north­ern Africa, stop­ping for two days at Cyrene. It was here that Je­sus and Ga­nid gave first aid to a lad named Ru­fus, who had been in­jured by the break­down of a loaded ox­cart. They car­ried him home to his mother, and his fa­ther, Si­mon, lit­tle dreamed that the man whose cross he sub­se­quently bore by or­ders of a Ro­man sol­dier was the stranger who once be­friended his son.

• Thomas preached in

139:8.13Thomas had a try­ing time dur­ing the days of the trial and cru­ci­fix­ion. He was for a sea­son in the depths of de­spair, but he ral­lied his cour­age, stuck to the apos­tles, and was pres­ent with them to wel­come Je­sus on the Sea of Gal­i­lee. For a while he suc­cumbed to his doubt­ing de­pres­sion but even­tu­ally ral­lied his faith and cour­age. He gave wise coun­sel to the apos­tles af­ter Pen­te­cost and, when per­se­cu­tion scat­tered the be­liev­ers, went to Cyprus, Crete, the North African coast, and Sicily, preach­ing the glad tid­ings of the king­dom and bap­tiz­ing be­liev­ers. And Thomas con­tin­ued preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing un­til he was ap­pre­hended by the agents of the Ro­man gov­ern­ment and was put to death in Malta. Just a few weeks be­fore his death he had be­gun the writ­ing of the life and teach­ings of Je­sus.

• home of Jacob, Jewish trader

142:2.1There was in Je­ru­sa­lem in at­ten­dance upon the Pass­over fes­tiv­i­ties one Ja­cob, a wealthy Jew­ish trader from Crete, and he came to An­drew mak­ing re­quest to see Je­sus pri­vately. An­drew ar­ranged this se­cret meet­ing with Je­sus at Flav­ius’s home the evening of the next day. This man could not com­pre­hend the Mas­ter’s teach­ings, and he came be­cause he de­sired to in­quire more fully about the king­dom of God. Said Ja­cob to Je­sus: “But, Rabbi, Moses and the olden proph­ets tell us that Yah­weh is a jeal­ous God, a God of great wrath and fierce anger. The proph­ets say he hates evil­do­ers and takes vengeance on those who obey not his law. You and your dis­ci­ples teach us that God is a kind and com­pas­sion­ate Fa­ther who so loves all men that he would wel­come them into this new king­dom of heaven, which you pro­claim is so near at hand.”