The United States is just as pagan in principle as the pagan nations in ancient history. This is neither traducement nor libel towards American political culture, because it openly has exemplified innumerable characteristics of those ancient civilizations. What we call “Capitol Hill,” the Romans called “Capitoline Hill.” What we call “commander in chief,” the Romans called “Emperator.” What we call “president,” the Romans called “Principas Civitas.” What we call “appointer of supreme court justices,” the Romans called “ApoTheos,” or “Originator of Gods.” The political world of the United States is so much identical to the political world of the Pax Romana (which oversaw and decreed the persecution of Christians for endeavoring to be sanctified of that world) that our entire legal system is modeled after theirs.

“‘Civil Law,’ ‘Roman Law’ and ‘Roman Civil Law’ are convertible phrases, meaning the same system of jurisprudence. That rule of action which every particular nation, commonwealth, or city has established peculiarly for itself; more properly called “municipal” law, to distinguish it from the “law of nature,” and from international law.” (See Bowyer, Mod. Civil Law, 19; Sevier v. Riley, 189. Cal. 170, 244 P. 323, 325)

It is therefore no surprise that, after witnessing how the office of President is identical to the offices of ancient rulers on all of the practical levels that so many of the superstitious characteristics will also bleed over.

Horatio Greenough. George Washington (1840)
Horatio Greenough. George Washington (1840)

Greenough patterned the image after a classical statue of the Greek god Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Washington sits on a throne, its panels containing the image of Helios, one of Zeus’ innumerable sons, carrying the sun across the sky on a horse-drawn chariot. It harkens back to Ben Franklin’s remarks concerning the heroic figure of Washington as he sat in a chair during the Continental Congress. The image of the sun was carved on the back of the general’s chair.

Greenough Helios
Horatio Greenough. Helios.
Greenough Hercules
Horatio Greenough. Hercules.

The other side of the throne shows the image of another son of Zeus. The baby Hercules and his twin brother Iphicles are shown in their crib. Their mother, Hera, became so enraged when she discovered Zeus had fathered Hercules by a mortal woman that she threw a snake into their crib. The infant Hercules is shown killing the snake with his bare hands. A five-pointed star is shown over the head of Hercules – an upside down pentagram.

Washington Monument original
Robert Mills. Washington Monument.

The original design of the Washington Monument by Robert Mills was supposed to have been a Greek-style temple, topped by a sculpture of Washington in a chariot, and pulled by six horses. Greenough’s statue looks strikingly similar to the posture of Washington in Mills’ conceptual drawing. The outstretched hand that holds a sword would have actually been holding the reins of the chariot. It is probable that Greenough likely designed the statue as a demo to get the entire commission of Washington, chariot and four horses for the monument.

These depictions are strikingly similar to the artistic expressions of ancient civilizations, reminiscent of pagan temples and the hubris of constructing pyramids. Human rulers compel idolatry. While this fact is much more readily perceived in older cultures, American civil society seems to be tight-lipped about the mass adoration owed to mere men or, at the very least, endeavors to sanitize it through secularized, rose-colored glasses. The mythos surrounding Washington surely calls that whitewashing into question. But, if history is going to continue to repeat itself then, as is mentioned in Part II, the mythos surrounding Abraham Lincoln is going to attempt to upstage George Washington (and the Pharaohs too).

Daniel Chester Finch. Abraham Lincoln (1920)
Daniel Chester Finch. Abraham Lincoln (1920)

The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln. Below Lincoln’s hands are representations of the fasces, or a bundle of rods bound by a leather thong. Fasces were a Roman symbol of power and authority, a bundle of wooden rods and an axe bound together by leather thongs. Fasces represented that a man held imperium, or executive authority. Exercising imperium, a Roman leader could expect his orders to be obeyed, could dole out punishment, and could even execute those who disobeyed. The fasces he carried symbolized this power in two ways: the rods suggest punishment by beating, the axe suggests beheading. On its surface, the fasces imply power, strength, authority, and justice. Depicted throughout the Lincoln Memorial, are the fasces, and even above one of them is the American motto “E Pluribus Unum,” or “Out of Many, One”, the crux of collectivism. “Fasces” is the root word for “fascism,” a political ideology marked by nationalism, totalitarianism, and imperialism that exerted a dramatic force over global politics particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, most infamously in Germany’s Nazi Party, which was modeled on the Italian fascist movement.

Temple: edifice or sometimes merely an enclosed area dedicated to the worship of a deity and the enshrinement of holy objects connected with such worship. The temple has been employed in most of the world’s religions. Although remains of Egyptian temples of c. 2000 B.C. show well-defined architectural forms, it seems likely that temples were hewed in living rock at a still earlier age: the cave temples of Egypt, India, China, and the Mediterranean basin may be viewed as later developments of such primitive shrines.

Doric: The Dorian immigration (before 1000 B.C.) was a prelude to the building of Greek temples, at first made of timber and sun-dried brick. The superb stone and marble buildings on a defined floor plan were achieved in the middle of the 6th cent. B.C., although the most perfect examples, like the Parthenon (5th cent. B.C.), came later. The Greek temple customarily stood in a temenos, or sacred enclosure, along with accessory shrines, colonnades, and buildings housing the temple treasures. It was built not as a place for assembled worship but as the dwelling for the deity, whose colossal sculptured representation was placed in the naos, and illuminated by the daylight entering through the tall entrance portal. In larger temples, to support the roof lintels, two interior rows of columns divided the naos into nave and side aisles.

Here is an original design of the Lincoln Memorial. Here are some more projected designs.

Lincoln Memorial original. Henry Bacon
Henry Bacon. Lincoln Memorial

“Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” (1 Corinthians 8:4-6)

There were many gods and many lords for the people to choose from in first century Rome. They each desired to rule over the people, provide benefits for them through the providence of taxation, and receive their homage and worship through civil slavery and the unity of their elective voice, just as in the days of Nimrod. That one voice is what established the Tower of Babel where, if men could collectively come together by the civil yoke of the fasces, and create an idolatrous institution of human civil government, then they can become the masters of their own destiny and usurp God’s rule and, through rebellion, solidify the rule of a “so-called god” – a man – who endeavors to play Benefactor while exercising authority.

This attempt to escape the rule of God only ever brings one under the rule of Satan, primarily by believing the same lies he invented in the garden of Eden: you will know good and evil and legislate your own morality, and you will be like God and have democratically-endorsed sovereignty over mankind. Satan’s yoke is heavy. It is a bondage in which the Israelites found themselves under Pharaoh (and many other magistrates) despite calling themselves God’s people. It is the same bondage experienced by those who claim to be living in “the land of the free.” While some of America’s slogans (like that one) are complete fabrications, some others do not actually refer to the God of the Bible (even though most think they do), but the top-down polity of Gentile tradition.

This blog post is the last part of a three part series. You can read the first part here and the second part here.

OneNationUnderGod

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