Alpha Omega

The first twenty-seven verses of Genesis chapter one covers the physical creation from the primordial star to man. After Homo sapiens sapiens evolved and began conquering his unknown world, our Lord blessed man and gave this world to him to use as he will. The Spirit of God then rained down upon all men and women and, over the years, they gradually gained an awareness of the exalted position in which our Lord has placed all mankind.

Of course, the implication is that man cannot misuse his superiority over the other life forms of this world. This is clearly discernible in verses twenty-eight through thirty as explained earlier in this treatise. Therefore, one need not elaborate upon it any further.

Verse thirty-one manifests the childlike simplicity of the ancient prophet and his visions of the night. This was his sixth night of dreams.

Verses one, two and three of chapter two begin with God resting after giving mankind a world in which to play. This was the ancient servant’s seventh night of dreams. Then chapters two and three of Genesis go on to explain what happened to all mankind on the “day” that our Lord blessed man.

There are some who profess that the second and third chapters of Genesis were inspired by God at a far earlier date than the first chapter and that they were originally begun by a different person than the originator of the first chapter. This is probably true. However, whether it is true or not, it makes no difference in the interpretation presented in this book. This is because God is the ultimate Author of the Holy Scriptures.

The Yahwist, the author who originally put these chapters in their written form, proclaimed what God wanted him to proclaim. To believe otherwise is to believe that our Lord has no control over this world, His children or the propagation of His word. Just as a master chess player makes no move independent of other moves and can “see” the consequences of illogical play, so too, our Lord makes no gesture without first considering other actions and the consequences of an unjust and untruthful inspiration. God would not, could not, allow His Holy Bible to be filled with half truths and myths.

Therefore, one need not worry about the validity of the Holy Scriptures. The scriptures are God’s Holy Word and they teach His truth. It does not matter who did the actual writing or which book or chapter was inspired first or second or even last. The entire bible is His word and it proclaims what He wants it to proclaim. If it does not conform to someone’s understanding, then it is that person who is at fault, not God.

The “day” mentioned in verse four is the day that our Lord blessed all mankind. Again, chapters two and three of Genesis are not describing the evolution of man’s physical body. They are describing the creation of man’s soul by God in one act of divine mercy and the origin of sin through man’s disobedience.

One may liken this to the growing of a fetus in the womb. No one knows the actual day that it is conceived. But it is the precise day that the baby is first born that is remembered as its “first day.” So also is it with the “day” that God made man. It is the day that our Lord blessed him that is the most important.

It took a long time for man’s physical body to evolve and no one knows precisely when man actually ceased being an ape and became “man.” But at some point after man spread his culture to every inhabitable part of the world, our Lord blessed him. That blessing was the day that God made man to His image and likeness. What actual day this was is now probably lost. It is doubtful that anyone will ever know what day the world began, that is, what day our Lord blessed man.

However, just as no one will ever know when the world should be consummated, the Holy Scriptures do give one signs to look for so that the children of God will know that the consummation is approaching. So too, verse five is a reference for the beginning. It does not give the actual date that God blessed mankind but it does give one a sign to look for so that one will know approximately when our Lord blessed mankind.

Before the blessing, man was primarily a hunter-gatherer. He either hunted wild game or gathered wild berries, fruits, nuts and other such edibles for his food. Foods, such as wheat, corn, rice, oats and potatoes all just grew natural (or wild).

One can clearly imagine an all loving God looking at the helplessness of man. So, He blessed His creation and His Holy Spirit rained down upon mankind; just as it is described in verse five.

One therefore has the interpretation of the fourth and fifth verses. Before the day our Lord blessed mankind, he was a hunter-gatherer, wandering aimlessly for religious truth. Without a soul and without God guiding and directing him, he could not find truth. Thus, there was no one to cultivate and spread the word of God. But after the blessing and obtaining of a soul, man began to grow spiritually and the word of God began to take root in the religious beliefs and ceremonies of ancient man. One may say that after the blessing by God, the spirit of man was born.

According to verse five, this event took place before the development of farming, because “there was not a man to till the earth.” Thus, it had to be before the Neolithic Age of incipient agriculture (about 4800 - 7500 B.C.). This would have put God’s blessing sometime during the Mesolithic Age of intensive foraging (about 7500 - 15,000 B.C.). Although it could have been during a latter part of the Upper Paleolithic Age (15,000 - 22,000 B.C.). However, it is doubtful that our Lord blessed mankind earlier than about 20,000 years ago. One assumes this is because earlier men did not have enough cultural and technological development.

However, as stated above, the actual date that God blessed man is probably now lost. It is far better to allow those anthropologists and theologians who are more familiar with this type of information to figure out at what age God blessed all mankind. This trilogy is concerned only with the fact that our Lord blessed all mankind and gave him a soul thousands of years ago and that is what this book hopes to manifest.

One should note that many bibles incorrectly translate the fifth verse. These bibles claim that there were no plants on the earth because God had not caused it to rain. But this is not true, nor is this what St. Jerome translated into Latin. He wrote: et omne virgultum agri antequam oriretur in terra . . . non enim plurat Dominus Deus super terram. Which when translated means: “and every plant of the field before it sprung up in (or on) the earth . . . for the Lord God had not rained above (or upon) the earth.”

The passage clearly says that “God had not rained upon the earth.” It should not be too hard to perceive that our Lord wanted to convey the idea that His Spirit had not rained down upon mankind at this point in the history of the world. God did not want to convey the idea that it had not rained water, H₂O, upon the earth at this point in the earth’s history. It is not true, nor scientific to believe that it had not rained water before this time or that there were no plants on the earth at this time, as some bibles incorrectly translate from the Latin.

In the next two verses the ancient servant of God, or whoever was the originator of chapters two and three, reveals what happened after the Spirit of God descended upon mankind.

The spring of verse six (also translated fountain or fresh water from the Latin fons) represents God’s Holy Spirit bathing the earth, preparing it for the creation of man’s soul. Then in verse seven our Lord creates man’s soul. The reason the ancient prophet proclaimed that mankind was made of the slime of the earth is to manifest to man the great superiority of God over him and that he is equal to a worm (Ps. 21:7). This is also why the Psalms say that man was made less than the angels (Ps.8:5-9). As noted earlier, this blessing from our Lord came while man was still primarily a gatherer of small food and a hunter of wild game.

After the blessing and obtainment of a soul, man gradually began to have a discontent or sense of lacking in his life and he began to seek fulfillment for his yearning. However, one should not believe that God blessed mankind and gave him a soul on one day and then a few hours later or after the next sunrise all men and women the world over were seeking God, for such a belief is not true.

A belief in a High God did not come overnight. It was an ever gradual revelation by our Lord and only gradually did it enter into the religious beliefs and customs of ancient man.

Should one observe a baby attempting to make his first steps — first he crawls on hands and knees, then he walks but holds onto something and only later does he walk freely — such is a good analogy of man’s first attempts to find the High God. Thus, ancient religious beliefs of man were far from Truth.

But as mankind grew spiritually our Lord, ever so slowly, began to reveal Himself. Even with such revelations our Lord did not reveal Himself to anyone who did not have enough spiritual strength to accept Him as Truth. Would one expect a new born baby to be able to read, write and do arithmetic calculations? Of course not, one would be happy just to see the child play with its toys. Neither did God expect ancient man to have religious beliefs that were anything near to what one today believes. Rather, God delighted in seeing His creation seek refreshment for the longing in his soul.

Today, many anthropologists are studying the fossil remains of early man and trying to hypothesize a theory for the origin the High God concept or the belief in a Supreme Being. However, this is just not possible, for the origin of the belief in a Supreme Being is a religious subject not an anthropological one. Studying the fossil remains, artifacts and cave drawings of ancient man can only reveal that he had beliefs. These artifacts cannot reveal what these beliefs were.

Should one seek to know the origin of any religious truth, he must turn to the only source of all religious truth. Which is God, not excavated gravesites, campsites and cave drawings. Such remains reveal that ancient Cro-Magnon Man had beliefs. They may even have had beliefs in spirit beings some have theorized. But this does not signify that these men were capable of conceiving of a High God or a Supreme Being. Such knowledge must come from our Lord.

It is a teaching of the Mother Church that one cannot know of a supernatural mystery of God unless our Lord first reveals it. Thus, unaided by divine revelation one cannot even know of the existence of God; His very existence is a supernatural mystery and it transcends all human understanding.

Although to someone living today the existence of God may not seem like a supernatural mystery but to someone living ten, twelve or fifteen thousand years ago or earlier such a comprehension was a great mystery. Therefore, it is doubtful that Homo sapiens sapiens even knew of God’s existence and his cave drawings and artifacts will not, cannot, reveal that he did.

It is also a teaching of the Mother Church that the souls of men worship or seek to worship God. Animals do not have souls and do not worship our Lord. Nor must one forget that no one can go to God unless our Lord first draws him. One learns this from the gospel of St. John.

One can hardly expect our Lord to attract soulless animals to Himself. Since those men living before the blessing had no souls but were merely animals, they did not worship a High God. Thus, the passages from St. John’s gospel and the teachings of the Holy Church confirm the fact that Cro-Magnon Man did not have knowledge of God’s existence and did not, could not, worship Him. However, with the blessing by our Lord and the reception of a soul, man gradually gained from our Lord the knowledge of the existence of one High or Supreme God.

Thus, before the Spirit of God blessed man and “rained” down upon the earth man had no soul. He was just another animal, although a highly intelligent animal. But after the blessing man gained an intellect and a wisdom; man became a living soul.

Since man is no longer just an animal but something more, he therefore needs a new, distinctive classification. With the blessing by the Holy Spirit and the obtainment of a soul, man leaves his Homo sapiens sapiens status and becomes Homo animus, which is Latin for soul man. One should note that animus is the masculine noun but the feminine anima, which is also Latin for soul, can also be used. There is more on this later in this trilogy.

One should also note that it is here that St. Jerome used the words factus est homo in animam viventem, which means: “He made man a living soul (or living being).” This is in contrast to the creation of mankind in the first chapter. There he wrote: Facimus hominem . . . et creavit Deus hominem, . . . masculum et feminam creavit eos. This translates to: “Let us make man . . . and God created man, . . . male and female He created them.”

It should be clear that two different creations are indicated. In the first chapter, the Priestly version, man is created a helpless animal and then in the second chapter, the Yahwist version, man is given a new life. Man evolved; his physical body is made of the elements of this world. Then after man was subjected to the test of a cruel ice age, our Lord poured into him the sweet wine of His Holy Spirit and man was “born” a new being.

Within this passage from the gospel of St. Mark our Lord reveals His method of conquering all the evil of this world. Our Lord starts from one seed of faith and then by feeding it, protecting it and encouraging it He brings forth a great belief in His truths. This belief is so strong that other children of God can follow it and dwell under its refreshment.

The same is true with the High God concept or the belief in a Supreme Being. After the Holy Spirit implanted Himself with all mankind, Homo animus tried to find the High God and tried to understand Him and express Him in terms that he could understand. What he did was attempt to satisfy the longing in the heart of his own soul. For this is the soul’s mission — to find God, to find God within itself and to find itself within God its Lord and Creator. (The soul that does not accomplish this exists in torment.)

Homo animus also tried to explain such things as dreams, death and other unexplainable events with his beliefs in magic, superstition and possibly even spirits. But like a small child trying to understand the mystery of life, Homo animus seldom discovered or touched upon theological truth. He would have continued doing this had not our Lord intervened to guide him and draw him to Himself.

Just as a loving father does not count the many falls his child makes in attempting to take his first step but records the date that first step was made, so neither did God our Father ponder the many mistakes man made in his early attempts to find God and religious truth but rather marked man’s first step toward the one High God. This was when one man finally came to understand that there was a High God. The first man to do this was Adam of Genesis. Adam was the first man to believe in God.

Adam was the first man to worship the God of the Christians, of the Jews, of Islam, of Zoroastrianism and the God of many other monotheistic faiths throughout the world. Adam is God’s seed of faith in mankind, the seed from which all theological truth has grown and that is why he is called the first man. Referring back to the chess game analogy, one may say that Adam was God’s first pawn movement in His war against all evil.

Many theologians believe that there is a play on words between Adam’s name and the Hebrew word adamah, which means ground or earth. One does not know the source of Adam’s name. Maybe our Lord changed it when this child of God made his profession of faith. Maybe his name was changed by his descendants. Maybe his name was just a coincidence.

One would be wise to leave information of this type to those theologians with this kind of knowledge to figure out. All one is concerned with here is that there was a first person to believe in the High God. That person has gone down in history by the name of Adam. Adam was this first person to believe in the High God. What Adam’s actual name was is of secondary importance to the interpretation presented here.

Not only is the actual date that God blessed all mankind lost to the annals of the past, so too is the actual date Adam lived and made his profession of faith. However, there is a hint in chapter three so that one will know approximately when Adam lived and made his search for the High God.

In the twenty-first verse it says that God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife. Apparently Adam made his profession of faith before the development of weaving. For our Lord did not make garments of cloth or wool for them. Thus, Adam lived before the Neolithic Age when weaving was first invented.

He probably lived during the Mesolithic Age of intensive foraging, during the Magdalenian culture or even during the earlier Solutrean culture. He probably did not live further back than about 15 to 18 thousand years ago, although this is only speculation.

But this book is not primarily concerned with when Adam lived. It is concentrated on the fact that he did live and that he was born sometime after the Spirit of God rained down upon man. This treatise must leave the question of when Adam actually lived to those theologians, archaeologists and anthropologists with whom this is concerned to figure out.

One does not know what other religious beliefs Adam had or even how he worshiped the High God. From anthropological and archaeological sciences one is able to learn that man had religious rites, beliefs and customs many years before Adam existed. Surely, these religious observances were handed down from generation to generation and thus maintained. Some of these beliefs may even have been maintained by Adam himself.

One can only offer a hypotheses about how Adam came to the knowledge of the High God. He probably began by searching for the most powerful god among the many deities of his ancestors. After deciding upon a particular deity, he then compared the power of this god with that of other gods. Upon discovering a weakness, he rejected the weaker god in favor of the more powerful deity.

After many choices and just as many rejections, Adam probably found himself on a fruitless journey, a never ending meandering. This is because in a polytheistic religion there is always a deity that has a “power” that the other deities lack; there is no almighty god in polytheism.

Becoming frustrated and not knowing who the most powerful god is, Adam probably then offered up some kind of prayer or sacrifice to “the God of gods whoever you are.” At that point the I am who am (Ex.3:14) manifested Himself to Adam. Our Lord then obviously made some form of a covenant with Adam and promised him eternal life. Thus, the High God concept or belief in a Supreme Being has its one seed of faith in Adam of Genesis.

This did not mean that no one else could make a similar search for the God of gods. It would be an injustice if our Lord prevented someone from seeking truth. Therefore, anyone else who would have made a search for the High God after Adam made his search would also have been rewarded by our Lord.

However, just as there can only be one first place winner in a race, so too was it with Adam. He won first place by being the first one to recognize a High God. Thus, his reward was greater and longer lasting than all others who made a similar search.

Just as in a race the one who comes in second may win a prize but his name is usually lost to history; the same is true here. Who the second person or even the third person to believe in a High God or when they lived is not known. Although such information may be important, it is not important to this book and will not be discussed further. One must leave information of this sort to those theologians, archaeologists and those who have more knowledge in this field of study to figure out.

All this is good, very good. However, when one returns to verse twenty-two of chapter one he sees that God also blessed all the animals and gave them instructions to fill the earth.

This does not mean to imply that our Lord gave the animals a soul or that He communicates with them, for He did not breathe the breath of life into them as He did for mankind. What God did with this blessing was to give the animals protection from malicious treatment. It gave mankind a duty and an obligation to protect and to preserve both the animals and the environment in which they live. After all, in a very real sense these helpless creatures are depending upon man for their very existence. Man must protect the fauna, the flora and the environment in which these organisms live.

However, this is not to give credence to all the claims of animal rights activists. Their call for the humane treatment of animals and other life forms and for the conservation of the natural resources is a worthy cause. A cause that everyone ought to embrace. But many of them are extremists with extreme beliefs. Some of them demand that animals and other life forms be given preferential treatment over humans. This latter is not a logical course of action.

One would be wise not to listen to or to follow all of their beliefs. This is especially true in their demands for everyone to become vegetarians. Verse thirty of chapter one clearly says that man can eat meat. Therefore, one is not being cruel to the animals by eating meat.

But there is a flip side to this coin. This does not give man the right to pen animals up in unhealthy cages or to force the animals to live in filthy environments. Although it is not a sin to be cruel toward the animals of this world, it does manifest a lack of respect for God’s creations and it does displease our Lord very much. It also manifests a lack of caring for the needs of one’s neighbor.

For the earth is like a giant, fragile spaceship with only a limited amount of resources. If these resources are uselessly squandered without recourse to some type of recycling program or if animals and other life forms are negligently pushed into extinction, then man will soon find that he is the endangered species.

If man cannot live in harmony with his environment, then man will die; he will become extinct.

Thus, man has an obligation toward self survival, if nothing else, to protect and preserve the fauna, the flora and the natural resources of the earth through proper, intelligent scientific research. For it is only through scientific research that man can learn the answers to his problems. Although this may mean that some animals and other life forms may have to be used for experimentation, such testing should not go to the extreme. Which is to say that one may use the things of this world to increase his knowledge but it is an act of unkindness to misuse them.

Alpha Omega

A Living Soul