If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Resist

No statement more fully captures the anti-scriptural sadism of colonial solipsism than the American expression, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Unless, of course, the “em” is a shepherd standing at the midbar, reciting the written command of the Scriptural, inexistent, invisible, unseen, indomitable God who has no egregious, obscene, man-made statue or temple. By all means, join him, if you can. In 1932, according to the Yale Book of Quotations (yes, the same Yale that arrested Jewish kids this week for following the Shepherd), the Atlantic (yes, the famous liberal magazine that once, long ago, fought to protect Jewish kids) cited that ungodly saying (which is a much older saying) as uttered by a U.S. Senator. Once the Atlantic and then Yale published it, it became a colonial reference—just before many terrible things took place under its spell. That senator would have loved Philo or Josephus Flavius. The latter lived in Palestine and fought against the Romans but later decided, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” “There was a tension,” Fr. Paul thunders,  “Between the originators of scripture and some of their followers.”“There was an intellectual fight.”Fr. Paul continues, “This took place in Alexandria. Remember, Philo was in Alexandria.  And that’s the head of the Asp, as we say in Arabic.  It’s Alexandria, which was the intellectual capital of the Roman Empire.”Against Alexandria, the Shepherd cries: If you can’t beat ‘em, submit to God! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest! Bring more evils upon them, O Lord. Bring more evils upon those who are glorious upon the earth.Arise, O God, judge the earth, for to thee belong all the nations. Blessed Pascha to all peoples. Peace in the Middle East. (Episode 322)

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