Turn of Events and Spiritual Causality Part 7

Turn of events and Spiritual causality according to Daheshist concepts.
Christianity: From the initial period of living by Christ’s example to the era of deviation.
Excerpts taken from an article published in Dahesh Voice magazine, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2006-2007.

By: Dr. Ghazi Brax

I have showed previously that human beings of descent from Adam and Eve had their Sayyals extended to them through procreation—Sayyals that carry within them consequences of the Divine disobedience that they had committed. Despite this, they had immersed themselves in vile acts until God, in his infinite Mercy, pitied them and sent His Prophet Noah to guide and warn them. However, they resisted Noah and ridiculed him, thus meriting death through the Flood that spared only those that merited to be saved.

After the Flood, the survivors multiplied and so did their sins, so God sent them His Mercy personified in a series of great Prophets to guide them. So there was Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph—who was thrown into a well by his brothers and caused the enslavement of their descendants in Egypt for 400 years. Then God’s Mercy appeared again through the Prophet Moses who liberated the Israelites from bondage and paved the way for the establishment of a golden era during the reign of the Prophet-kings David and Solomon. However, the return of the Israelites to disobey God beginning in the 7th century before Christ led to their Diaspora, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the downfall of their civilization.

Divine Guidance did not disappear from Earth, rather its Sayyals transferred in parallel paths during the same century to India, China, and Greece. It appeared in India first through the wise men that modernized the “Veda,” introduced the more spiritual “Upanishad,” and then the “Bhagavadgita.” Then it appeared again in the teachings of Mahavira and Buddha, however, the Brahmans fought against the teachings of Buddha because it calls for the abolishment of the Caste System and restricted its followers to certain regions within India, while its circle of influence spread in the Far East. The teachings of Buddha produced great righteous rulers where Asoka the great, was the most prominent.

In China, Lao-tzu and Confucius, two great Spiritual Guides appeared. Lao-tzu called for the simple and pure life and to derive spiritual inspiration and order from nature itself. Confucius called for the building of a righteous society through the installation of righteous rulers. Their teachings were immortalized despite fierce resistance and attracted millions of followers. Likewise, in Greece many wise men and guides appeared, where Pythagoras and Socrates were the most prominent. Pythagoras was persecuted and Socrates was sentenced to death and since then the golden era of Greece was lost. However, the teachings of Socrates were immortalized through the writings of Plato, his disciple, and their influence is felt even to this day. Four hundred years later, Lord Christ appeared in Palestine fulfilling the prophecies that specified his birthplace and the circumstances surrounding his birth and was persecuted by the Jewish clergy and people. The consequences were the Diaspora of the Jews, the destruction of their country, and the initial spread of Christianity and its Spiritual values in the Roman world.

The ideal Christian life

Living by the example that the Great Master had set with his demeanor and stance on issues guided early Christians whether in their daily life, when being subjected to the various acts of torture, or in becoming martyrs exhibiting solid faith and bravery. In general, living by the example set forth by Lord Christ formed their basic character and knowledge during the initial period of Christianity that lasted for three centuries. Early Christians had two pillars of support: Life and death.

Life

The basis of the first pillar was the ideal life of Lord Christ of lofty dispositions and noble inclinations with extreme adherence to truth, righteousness, love, and peace and consequently the Spiritual values derived from them. Christians, in general, continued for three centuries to be inspired by the conduct of Christ and established in many cities of the world righteous societies that acted as happy islands in turbulent seas with tumultuous waves of evil, greed, oppression, and wickedness. They cared for living a modest and simple life and seeking perfection of conduct as an end goal set for them by the Lord of Glory. To a large extent, they were successful in achieving their goal, while most philosophies, especially Stoicism, failed in improving the behavior of people—except in few limited circles.

They had preserved their good reputation among the pagans and the Jews by abstaining from permissive entertainment and not frequenting barbaric and bloody sports. Many of them lived religiously and by the examples set for them by their Great Master first and then by the Apostle Paul. They were known for rendering assistance and compassion towards the wretched, deprived, and hopeless. When the pagans used to discard their children—sometimes by burying them alive, the Christians would take it on their shoulders to care for the abandoned children and be kind to them. The Christians had a just and decent social and economic system of their own. The Christian families were tightly knit and their relationship with respect to each other was governed by loyalty, faithfulness, trust, and peace. The preservation of their lofty conduct was maintained by avoiding intermarriage with non-Christians. Likewise, they would resolve their own issues, respect each other, their leaders, and those who lived righteously and became their role models. Each group would create a common treasury to draw from it during times of need for any of their members and to help the wretched and devastated—even from the pagans. Despite all this, they would avoid the political and military conflicts taking place in their countries.

As to the Christian women, they would preserve their chastity, modesty, and obedience to their fathers and husbands, as well as preserve their natural beauty by abstaining from cosmetics—unlike pagan women. Groups of single women were formed with the aim of providing acts of care, charity, and mercy. There is no doubt that such a lofty life could not have existed for them had it not been for: the strong faith they had in their Heavenly religion; the miracles performed by Lord Christ with a Spiritual Power that he was endowed with to enforce their faith; and for their unshaken belief in God’s monitoring of their conduct and thoughts and in exacting their just reward and retribution.

Death

The basis of the second pillar derived its power and meaning from the death of Christ and his resurrection and according to what the early Christians had known and believed in. In order to reinforce their belief in resurrection, Divine Wisdom did not wish for the early Christians to know about the “Personalities” of Lord Christ that can descend to Earth from its Worlds of Paradise and take his form (see the emergence of Christianity in the previous segment), rather they needed to believe that Jesus himself was the one that died on the cross to redeem them. In order for them to reciprocate, they should die for him, if forced to by their oppressors, or if they were given the choice between death and renouncing their faith. Their martyrdom was associated with celebration, because they believed that it led to their resurrection and the opening of the gates of eternal bliss.

Despite the intermittent and continuous persecutions that the Christians had faced from the reign of Niro (AD 64) until the rise of Constantine the Great as sole emperor of the Roman Empire (AD 324), they managed to place in a world burdened by brute force, oppression, greed, and immorality the fundamentals of a new culture based on a lofty and moral life whose sap is love and virtue. One aspect of life that views the world as a place of misery, mortality, and a gate to the second life and a second aspect of life that views death as an awakening into a world of eternal bliss. One aspect of this culture was a Christian religious body of literature that revolved around the glorification of faith and God, lofty values, and clarification of the fundamentals of the new faith and its principles.

In the first century, the Apostle Paul placed the fundamentals of Christian thought in his epistles to all established churches showing that Christianity is a continuation and an elaboration on the meaning of Plato’s justice and virtue—without providing references to its source, according to what most theologians believe—that used to be popular in the educated Roman world. In the second century, many theologians appeared, with Justin Martyr being the most prominent one (around AD 100-165). He attempted to harmonize the Christian thought—especially what the Apostle Paul had provided—and that of Plato. He even considered Plato, just like Abraham and Socrates, to be “a Christian before Christ.” In the third century, a new breed of Christian thinkers appeared and showed an amazing bravery in defending the religion of love, justice, and spirituality against thinkers and philosophers who used to attack and mock its founder, teachings, and followers. The Christian thinkers attempted to show superiority of Christian thought over the materialistic Greek philosophical thinking by clarifying that Christianity contain the best of Platonic philosophy from the aspects of righteousness, truth, and justice, in addition to its being alive in the minds of Christians and acting on their lives.

The most prominent thinker of that period was Origen (about AD 185-254), who is the greatest father of the Christian church after the Apostle Paul and the first teacher of Christianity of his time. He was very ascetic, celibate, fasted frequently, and required very little sleep. He made the Christian philosophy a complement to the Platonic philosophy and surpassed it. He viewed God as the true Spiritual essence for all creatures and that Christ is the cosmic power that God created in order to administer and organize the world. He also believed in the existence of the Souls prior to birth, reincarnation, and multiple worlds of varying levels that the Souls pass through prior to attaining eternal bliss. As we approach the end of the third century, we find that the Christian civilization possessed and bequeathed to future generations the best of what the Greek and Roman civilizations were able to produce in terms of values and ideals, thus turning darkness into light. Those who struggled for the sake of their Christian faith by being vocal in its defense during the most difficult period of the persecution deserve the credit.

All the factors mentioned earlier—the unshaken faith of the Christians in their religion that is based on the immortality of the Soul, eternal life, true miracles, high morals, and good reputation amidst circles full of corruption and temptations; Christian unity and the structure of religious organizations of constant power and autonomous while being in the heart of the Roman Empire; and their belief in the return of Christ, end of the world, and the happy living of the believers in the “New Jerusalem”—were all seen by the great English historian Edward Gibbons as powerful reasons for the growth of Christianity in the first three centuries.

However, the positive aspect of growth in Christianity was reinforced by a negative aspect of decline in the Roman government; for according to the great historian Durant: “Christianity grew rapidly because Rome at that time was dying. People did not lose their faith in the government because Christianity alienated their passions, but rather because the government supported the rich over the poor; would wage war to capture slaves; would impose taxes on the hard-working class and redistribute it to the rich; as well as failed to protect the public from famine, diseases, foreign occupation, and extreme poverty. Can the people be blamed for switching from: a Cesar that calls for war to Christ who calls for peace; brutality that cannot be imagined to unprecedented compassion; a life devoid of hope and dignity to a faith that commiserate with them in their poverty and honors their humanity?” The truth is that the positive and negative factors enter into the equation in a Divine plan whose execution began with the birth of Christ and his persecution so that the process of redemption would take place and then continued by killing the people that persecuted him, by the destruction of their homeland, and dispersing them in accordance to a comprehensive Order of Divine Justice and Spiritual Merit that does not malfunction (refer to the previous issue). The Divine plan continued to fulfill itself in the gradual growth of Christianity that extended its power of expansion from internal positive factors and external negative factors.

 

 

Deviation in faith and conduct

In the first century, the seeds of deviation from the righteous path of Christianity, in both, conduct and faith, were planted. The Apostle Paul alluded to the presence of “false brothers” (2 Corinthians 11:26), and towards the first century, John clarified in his first letter that the spirit of the false Christ had infiltrated a group of Christians and that the true believers should avoid this spirit that lives in the souls of false Christians. John says: “My children, the end is near! You were told that the Enemy of Christ would come; and now many enemies of Christ have already appeared, and so we know that the end is near. These people really did not belong to our fellowship, and that is why they left us; if they had belonged to our fellowship, they would have stayed with us. But they left so that it might be clear that none of them really belonged to us.” (1 John 2:18-19) Negative traits such as; untruthfulness, cowardice, lack of motivation, arrogance, cockiness, greed, stinginess, selfishness, power hunger, domination, and sexual desires did not die in the souls of many, rather, they remained dormant for a while, then awakened, reactivated, and grew with the passing of time in proportion to the nurturing they had received from pagan predispositions and lowly mundane thoughts.

Towards the end of the third century, Cyprian (around AD 200-258), a clergy of the African church (Carthage), depicted the state of Christians in his land by saying: “Each one is only concerned in increasing his wealth. The fear of God is nonexistent in the hearts of the clergy; faith had gone bad; deeds are devoid of love; and principles had disappeared in the conduct of people…Women use cosmetics and spoil the beauty of their eyes that God had mastered and die their hair with unnatural dies. Some resort to deceit and trickery in deceiving simple-minded individuals. Christian women marry none-Christian men, and Christian men present Christian women, members of Christ, to the pagans just like prostitutes. It is not sufficient for Christians to take the oath in every occasion, but they also swear falsely. They have nothing but contempt for their leaders; and poison those who are close to them with gossip; and allow hatred to divide them into groups.” Likewise, heresy became rampant. Starting in the second century, certain heresies had surfaced and revolving around the character of Jesus, his nature, and relationship with God. In AD 187, Ireneaus surveyed twenty different sects of Christians and in AD 384, Epiphanius surveyed eighty different sects. Cyprian doesn’t only accuse the Christians of improper conduct, but also attacks the conduct of his fellow clergy who live in luxury and attempt to reconcile God with the world and prayers with desires—in the likes of Paul of Samosata (AD 200-275) who added to his duties as a clergy the duty of tax and fee collections and was one of the proponents of queen Zenobia of Palmyra.

Initially the Christians used to deal with each other in a brotherly fashion, however, towards the beginning of the second century, the Church of Rome began to impose itself on other churches as their “big brother” and assumed the responsibility of advising or punishing them and to the point that by the beginning of the third century the Bishop of Rome, using his name as authority, began to excommunicate other churches with opposing opinions to his—just like what happened with Victor I (around AD 190-202) who single handedly excommunicated the churches of Asia Minor for disagreeing with him about one of the holidays. He became the first Bishop known for his extreme arrogance and tyrannical opinions and his position caused the church to fracture. His successor was Zephyrinus (around AD 202-217), who was a naïve and uneducated Bishop. He elevated Callistus, a man of ill repute, to the position of head deacon. Callistus began his life as a slave and then became a businessman in the financial markets and stole the funds he was entrusted with. He was sentenced to hard labor then released. He also provoked a riot in one of the synods and was, again, sentenced to hard labor in the mines of Sardinia, however, he managed to escape. When Zephyrinus died, Callistus was selected as the Bishop of Rome, a decision opposed by Hippolitus and other clergy on the basis that Callistus is unfit for this position and in AD 218, they formed an alternate church and papacy. However, Callistus excommunicated Hippolitus and solidified his authority as the Roman Bishop of the entire Christian world. In this manner, the papal name transformed from that reflecting a fatherly meaning and was given to any Christian clergy to a name that reflects the meaning of absolute tyrannical leadership. This condition caused Tertullianus (around AD 155-222), one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers, to give the pope the title of “Pastor Moechorum,” meaning pastor of the sinners.

It is worth mentioning here that before the middle of the third century, the papacy had achieved stature and financial revenue that made the Emperor Decius (AD 249-251) swear that he prefers a second rival emperor in Rome than to have a pope. His envy to this papal fortune and its wide powers led him to issue the first organized persecution of Christians, so he ordered all citizens to make pagan sacrifices in the presence of government officials in order to authenticate their none-adherence to Christianity. This action by Decius led to the death of many bishops, in Rome, Jerusalem, and Antioch and to the arrest of many Christians. A period of Divine mercy followed this period that extended from AD 260-303, where on February 23rd the worse persecution of Christians took place and continued until AD 313 during the reign of the emperors Diocletian and Galerius. The Christians who survived this persecution considered it more severe than all previous persecutions since Nero, where all Christian persecutions were intermittent, unofficial, and tied to circumstances and to the governor of each area.

Anyone who examines Spiritual Causality and the Order of Divine Justice and Spiritual Merit could not help but ask: “I wonder, didn’t the Christians—especially their leaders—punish themselves by deviating from the ideal conduct and Spiritual values that their Divine religion demanded and caused this horrible organized official persecution during the reign of Decius and then by not learning their lesson for 43 years and not benefiting from the Mercy of God during the reign of Diocletian, and Galerius?

The great rift in Christianity

I had mentioned earlier that the violent persecution of Christians lasted until AD 313 and it ended because the Roman co-Emperors Constantine and Licinius (who was married to the half-sister of Constantine, Constantia) formulated a common religious policy and a few months later, Licinius issued the Edict of Milan. We also know through historians that Helena, the mother of Constantine, had converted to Christianity and so did Constantia and it seems that Helena had influenced her son and Constantia influenced her husband, to a certain extent—something that the Christian custodians were hoping for. Despite the Christians being the minority, if compared to the pagans and despite their subdivision into many sects, their unity—especially those who were subjects of the Roman Pope—and sense of duty in obeying political authority that was instilled in them by their custodians had attracted the attention of Constantine, who benefited by using them in forming 12 army divisions in order to defeat Maxentius and Licinius, as well as in supporting a religious order that supports the absolute power of monarchy, so in AD 325, Constantine summoned a Christian ecumenical council in the city of Nicea and attended by all the bishops.

However, historical critique of Constantine and his conduct leads to the conclusion that he used Christianity as a mean and not an end. In doing so, he pushed Christianity to become an ally of the Roman Empire—despite its corruption and his own misconduct—and in introducing “mysteries” and rituals that historically did not exist before and not mentioned in the New Testament, such as the dogma of Trinity (union of three equal persons, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost as God). After a ceasefire period between the two Emperors had ended, they returned to fighting in AD 324 and in the following year when the Council of Nicea was held, Constantine strangled his brother-in-law with his own hands after he had exiled him. Durant says: “Constantine was forced to calculate every step he takes because paganism was still the dominant religion of the world he lived in. For this reason, he continued to use words of unity in order to please through them every pagan. In the first few years of his sole reign of the empire (AD 324), he would patiently and carefully collect the fees that his position as Pontifex Maximus requires him to do as well as a requirement by traditional rituals. He rebuilt pagan temples and ordered the practice of fortunetelling and he used in the christening of Constantinople Christian and pagan icons and he employed pagan magical spells in protecting the crops and the healing of diseases.”

As to the vision of the cross that Constantine claimed to have seen drawn in the sky, the day of his victory over Maxentius, on October 27, 312, he claimed to have seen another vision three years prior of the god Apollo. In addition, his knowledge of the Christian faith remained superficial and full of doubts, for he did not accept baptism until shortly before his death and may have accepted it either due to pressure from his mother Helena and his sister Constantia and other close clergy, or just to appease them. Most great historians doubt the occurrence of his baptism, the same way they doubt his vision of the cross, because the stories pertaining to them are limited to Eusebius, a clergy and chronologist of Catholicism. He was contemporaneous to Constantine and showered the emperor with flattery. According to many analysts, his historical writings reflected contradictory opinions.

In addition, the conduct of Constantine was unbefitting of a Christian believer, rather it was a shameful conduct even if compared to that of pagan emperors-philosophers in the likes of Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, and others. After his claimed Christian conversion, he killed the son of Maxentius and several of his friends and assistants. He then fought Licinius, his brother-in-law and ended up strangling him. A year after the Council of Nicea (AD 326), he killed Crispus, the son of Licinius and then ordered the killing of his second wife Fausta, Maximian’s daughter.

Throughout his reign, Constantine followed a policy of reconciliation between Christianity and paganism. He encouraged the building of churches as well as the building of pagan temples; he inscribed the two Greek characters (XP)—referring to the first two characters of Christ’s name in Greek (Christus)—on coins and he also inscribed the forms of Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, and Hercules on medals. He would enter churches and at the same time would allow a pagan temple be dedicated in his name and the erection of a golden statue representing him. In summary, the Constantine that the Catholic Church wanted to make him the greatest Christian ruler and the Orthodox Church to make him a saint was not a Christian, neither in his conduct nor in his faith. His reign that ended the persecution of Christians in the west was also the beginning of the great rift in Christianity in faith, as well as, in conduct and the beginning of the decline of the Christian Church as an organized power that should have remained pure in faith and righteous in belief and conduct. His reign was also an omen to the approaching disintegration of the Roman Empire. In short, according to what Durant had said: “That the Christian monasteries came into existence as a rebellion against the reconciliation of Christians between body and Spirit, because few were the Christians that wanted to avoid falling for any human desire and seeking to continue in the path of the traditional Christian conduct and hoping for an eternal life.”

The movement of individual asceticism emerged first and the reclusive meditative life became so pervasive on the Eastern bank of the Nile and provided an opportunity for Pachomius, who had administrative skills, to unite them in AD 325, under a group priesthood situated in a monastery at Tabenne in Egypt. However, the Church authority initially opposed the priesthood movement and then approved of it so that it can use it as leverage in political affairs. By the time Pachomius died, he had established 11 monasteries that housed more than 7,000 monks and nuns. This was the first real group action that validates the diversion of Christianity from the true Spiritual values and the role the clergy played in it. The rift in Christianity did not stop at the general morality and conduct, rather it went beyond that to classify certain martyrs and other individuals as saints and made them mediators between believers and God. Instead of being content with honoring these martyrs and individuals as Christians have done for 3 centuries, they began to preserve their remains and created paintings and amulets so that they can be used in worshiping. Also, many fictitious dates were introduced for several religious holidays and celebrations, where the most important one is on December 25th, a day to celebrate the birth of Lord Jesus knowing that this day was a day of winter solstice celebration for the Romans, and in Persia, this day is a celebration of the god Mitra, the sun of righteousness. In reality, the historical birthday of Lord Jesus is unknown, however, the Gospels in the New Testament state that on the day of his birth, the shepherds were sleeping in the open and take turn in watching their herd. (Luke 2:8)—a clear indication that it was the middle or late spring.

The fourth century was also the beginning of religious tribunals, followed by persecution for any group that deviates in its interpretation from any aspect of the religion that the Council at Nicea and other councils had canonized. The Council at Nicea ruled against Arius, the Bishop of Alexandria, and his Arianism followers who called for the oneness of the eternal God of non-changing nature and that Lord Christ does not equate to God. The Council ruled that it is heresy and the believers in this viewpoint were banished and persecuted—knowing that the Gospels are devoid of any proof indicating that Jesus Christ is of the same level as God, glory to his name. When Jesus was praying prior to his arrest at the Mount of Olives, he addressed God saying: “Father,” he said, “if you will, take this cup of suffering away from me. Not my will, however, but your will be done.” (Luke 22:42) Also, just before he took his last breath on the cross he said: “Eli, Eli lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” (Matthew 27:46) From the preceding two verses we can clearly conclude that the will of God is separate from the will of Jesus and that God is his God. Lord Christ said: “Do you not believe, Philip, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? (John 14:10) While being in the same location he said: “When I go, you will not be left all alone; I will come back to you. In a little while the world will see me no more, but you will see me; and because I live, you also will live. When that day comes, you will know that I am in my Father and that you are in me. My Father will love whoever loves me; I too will love him and reveal myself to him.” (John, 14:18-20) It is belonging through Spiritual wholeness and essence that Lord Christ was talking about. He also said: “You heard me say to you, ‘I am leaving, but I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for he is greater than I.” (John 14:28) This is an irrefutable evidence of the inequality between Lord Christ and God, glory to his name. After the resurrection of Lord Christ he appeared to Mary Magdalene and said to her: “Do not hold on to me,” Jesus told her, “because I have not yet gone back up to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am returning to him who is my Father and their Father, my God and their God.” (John 20:17) By saying this he equated himself to them in submission to his Father. As to the saying of John in the beginning of his Gospel: “Before the world was created, the Word already existed; he was with God, and he was the same as God.” This is a reference pertaining to eternity and prior to the creation of the physical universe, where all Spirits were previously contained within God. In this fashion, we see that Arianism was correct in its belief and that the Church of Rome, later known as the Catholic Church, is the one that deviated from the teachings of Christianity and was abandoned by the Spiritual Truth, after it had deviated in conduct and values and reduced to the same level as those of the mundane rulers.

Likewise, Nestorius, the Bishop of Constantinople and founder of Nestorianism (AD 386–451) was persecuted because he realized that the Catholic faith had deviated from the true Christian belief by calling “the Virgin Mary the mother of God” and as a result, he was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431 and then exiled. In addition to the persecution of the many religious groups that disagreed with Catholicism in the interpretation of certain aspects of Christianity, the books of the great theologian Origen were outlawed and destroyed. In AD 391, the clergy in Alexandria, Egypt burnt the Alexandria library that contained the greatest treasure of human civilization at the time—especially Greek—under the claim that it teaches paganism. In AD 415, Hypatia, the administrator of the library and the principle of its famous school frequented by the rich and prominent Alexandrians was killed. Philosophers from all parts of the Roman Empire used to listen to her give speeches on Neoplatonism and Plato. She was known to believe in the coexistence of religions, defend her Christian students, and she was perfectly reserved and celibate until the end of her life. These qualities along with her eloquence, stunning beauty, and combining astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy made historians say about her: “She is the Spirit of Plato reincarnate in the body of Aphrodite.” Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria was not satisfied in just killing her out of jealousy and envy, rather he went to the extreme act of cutting up her body, dragging her in the streets, and then burning her. With the burning of the Alexandria library and the killing of Hypatia, the civilized world had lost a priceless cultural treasure and the dark ages began in Europe.

The historical reality proves that Christian life began to change gradually as Churches became more powerful by subjecting their will on the members. With the alliance of Church and political authorities, signs of Spiritual degradation became stronger, for the amassing of fortunes, oppression, wealth; the alliance of the rich and influential without caring for the poor and weak; as well as the violent oppression for every movement that opposes the doctrine of the pope—all of these were evident more and more within the influential church. The bad seeds that Christians planted in the third and fourth centuries would reap their fruits for centuries.